Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:00:27: The 2024 Squiggly Career Skills Sprint
00:02:00: The why behind the questions
00:03:14: Some move watchouts
00:08:05: The questions to ask, part 1…
00:08:27: … 1: move-makers vs move-breakers
00:13:35: … 2: experiences and expertise
00:18:53: … 3: what your move might look like
00:22:13: The questions to ask, part 2…
00:22:29: … 1: the Squiggly Stress Test
00:26:35: … 2: the impact of change
00:29:22: … 3: options if it doesn't work out
00:34:24: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah. 

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen. 

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Every week, we talk about a different topic to do with work and share some ideas, tools and actions that we hope will help all of us to navigate this Squiggly Career that we're all experiencing with that bit more confidence, clarity and control. 

Helen Tupper: And in this episode, we're going to be talking about six questions to ask before making a job move.  But before we get into it, we wanted to let you know about something we're both really excited about, which is the Squiggly Career Skills Sprint is coming back. 

Sarah Ellis: Woohoo!

Helen Tupper: We've already started talking about this -- I know, woohoo!  We've already started talking about it on social, and it's so nice to see how many people are sprinting again, because we started this for the first time last year, how many people are excited.  Last year, we had over 5,000 people join us on the Squiggly Career Skills Sprint and this year we're hoping to double it.  So, really quick, what is the Skills Sprint?  It is 20 days of learning, starting on August 5th.  We have a seven-minute, so super-short, episode every day.  Each day is on a different skill and you can either listen to it, which is what you're doing now, or for the Sprint this year, we've also created it on video so you can watch it on YouTube, whatever works for you.  But the idea is that you sign up to the sprint and we'll give you all the details to do that.  In a minute I'll tell you how you can do it.  So, you sign up to the sprint, you let people know that you're sprinting to generate and get involved in the community, and then we'll send you an email every day with everything that you need to know to learn.  And then we will celebrate your sprint completion at the end; we've got a celebration date in September. 

So, if you are interested in learning on the sprint, head into the show notes of this.  There'll be a link for you to sign up and then you'll get the Ready, Steady, Sprint Guide.  And then, to be honest, we'll make it really easy from there.  You'll get a daily email throughout the sprint that will tell you everything you need to do and it'll give you all the badges and all the links to listen or watch, and all the skill summaries too.  If you can't find any of that, maybe follow us @amazingif on LinkedIn, because we're posting a lot about it there.  And if you're still stuck, just get in touch with us.  We're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com. 

Sarah Ellis: So, on to today's topic, questions to ask before making a job move, why it's worth asking these questions?  Well, we know that exploring and applying for jobs always takes time and lots of energy, so you definitely want to do it for the right reasons and the right reasons for you, not what you think you should do or what other people think you should do.  And I also feel that if you've asked some of these questions as part of the process, then when you have some of those tougher moments, which I think are quite inevitable, the knotty moments as part of moving jobs, the answers can help keep you motivated.  It can help to remind you why you're doing what you're doing, it can help you to kind of go again if perhaps you do go for an interview and you don't get that role that you'd really like, or if you're perhaps in the early phases of exploring where you might go and you're stalling or just feeling a bit stuck.  So, we hope this will just give you a bit of structure, whether you're at the start of thinking about making a move, so you're kind of going, "Oh, I don't know what I don't know yet, but I think I might want to make a move", or perhaps you're further down the process than that and you're thinking, "I want to make a move, I'm now in, how do I make it happen?"  So, we've got questions for both of those mindsets. 

But we thought we'd start with some move watchouts.  So, before we even start answering these questions, often you are more likely to make a move if you're bored easily; if you get attracted by shiny objects, like status, job titles, brands, money; or perhaps are naturally more short-term in your thinking.  And you're more likely to stay in a role if you appreciate certainty and you like being good at what you do; if you are perhaps waiting for someone else to sort your progression for you, so you maybe get a bit passive; and if you like your manager, because there is lots of evidence that people leave managers way more than they do roles or organisations.  And none of those are right or wrong and we don't need to beat ourselves up, but it is worth just perhaps considering, do you have a bit of a move watchout, just before you get into this.  It's kind of a bias that you might already have in terms of your behaviour that might stop you from answering some of these questions honestly or accurately. 

So, Helen, do you have a move watch out there from that initial list that I came up with?

Helen Tupper: I think my move watchout is, I'm sometimes a bit binary about what good looks like.  So for example, if I love it, I'm like, right, I'm in it, I love my job, I love this company, amazing, tick, tick, tick.  And then if there's something I don't like, so if I'm not getting on with my manager or I'm like, "Oh, this project's too much like hard work," I think sometimes leaving is the easy way out.  So sometimes, I really think that's my move watch out.  Sometimes I think, "Oh, if you just --" I don't think I'm very good at staying and sticking it out because I just go, "Oh, gosh, what's the point in this?"  It's a lot easier, more fun, more enjoyable to do something else instead.  And I think sometimes, when I look at other people, people in my personal life or people that I know, and they are very good, actually someone that used to work for me in a company, I don't want to name them because they probably listen to the podcast, but I know the person, they have gone through some really hard things in an organisation that I used to work with, and I really admire how they have stuck it out.  I'm not sure I would have done, if I'm honest.  I think I probably would have gone, "No, thank you.  I'll go and have fun elsewhere".  But as a result of them sticking it out, I think they've achieved an awful lot in the organisation and created lots of opportunities for them. 

So I think, yeah, my move watchout is probably feeling frustrated about something in the moment because I don't particularly like it, and then leaving being the easier answer, just a little bit of a signal like, "Are you doing that again, Helen?"  What would yours be? 

Sarah Ellis: I think mine changed over time.  So, I think earlier in my career, I was way more ladder-like in my thinking.  So, I was quite short-termist.  So, though I always looked ahead, my looking ahead meant, "Well, what's my next rung of the ladder?"  So, I was really short term, it was all about climbing the ladder.  And I think I missed out on learning and opportunities and probably roles that I would have enjoyed because of it.  Almost as you described, I was too quick to move for the wrong reasons, and then I think I missed out as a result.  I think over time that changed, probably as we started talking about Squiggly Careers, and I was thinking differently about my career, and my watchout is much more now related to people.  And so certainly, when I was still working in big organisations, liking my manager, I was definitely somebody, because I have fewer, deeper relationships, if I'd got a really good connection with my leader and I was like, "Wow, they're brilliant and they're inspiring and I'm learning a lot from them", I often had the opposite problem.  I didn't leave the managers, I just got some really good ones.  And so occasionally, or not occasionally, obviously they left, they went off to do other things and I was then thinking, "Oh, I was almost maybe relying on them".  You know, we've talked before about making your development dependent on other people. 

Sometimes I think I hadn't spread my wings enough across the organisations I was in, creating connections, thinking about what else I might want to do in those companies, because I did a lot of squiggle and stay.  I didn't move organisations that often, but I did move roles within companies a fair bit.  But sometimes I think some of those opportunities that would have been really good for me didn't come my way if, for example, I was in that transition period, not because of my career, but because my manager had left.  So, that's definitely a watchout for me, is don't be over-reliant on one or two relationships for your career.  Obviously, you should care about your own career and you should take ownership for yourself, but just making sure that I'm not too narrow, I think, sometimes in those conversations I'm having about my career. 

Helen Tupper: So, let's get into these questions then.  So, we've got a set of questions, three questions if you want to make a move, so almost quite high-level, zoomed-out, not sure what it could look like, but you're in that kind of, "I think this might be something that I want to do in the next couple of months or so".  And then the next few questions are more about, you've got a move in mind, so you've seen a role or a position in an organisation, and it's about the questions to ask yourself at that point. 

So, let's start with the first question on wanting to make a move.  First thing we think is useful to ask yourself is, "What are your move-makers and what are your move-breakers?"  And the reason that we think this is useful, I kind of liken this to when you're thinking about like moving house or kind of moving your apartment, or wherever you're living at the moment.  And so, if you don't have that list, you can sometimes get distracted by the stuff that you see like, "Oh, it's got", I don't know, "a coffee shop down the road, it's amazing", and you sort of ignore all of the other things that are actually important to you.  And so, having a bit of a criteria before you go and look at roles means that you've got a little bit more clarity when you see the potential things.

So, some of my move-makers would be something about the people that I'm working with, so I really like high-energy people.  That's a really, really important move-maker for me.  If the people aren't positive and pacy, it's not very good for me.  And I really like organisations that are very externally connected.  I think because I probably like meeting and connecting with lots of different people, I like a volume of people.  I like the outside in, I like an organisation that's got influence so you get to talk to lots of different people, I also like an organisation that's doing lots of new stuff, either they're innovating and getting new products, or they've acquired a new business.  So, for me, those things have to be present in order for it to make a good move for me. 

Then my breakers, based on my experience so far, would be things that if an organisation is too process heavy, that's definitely not going to be a great move for me.  I don't work very well, I don't really enjoy those contexts very much.  I think if it is an organisation, what else would be a breaker for me?  Probably, I think sometimes an organisation, this is going to sound really bad, but like an organisation that is very risk-averse and regulated, which is going to take out loads of industries for me, but I think that's probably --

Sarah Ellis: And also ones you've worked in, right?

Helen Tupper: I know, I know, I have worked in them!  And that's the thing.  Because some of those financial services being one of them, I think for me, it might just have been some of the ones that I've worked in, but I feel like obviously because of the risks that are associated with working in a regulated industry, it does sometimes reduce some of the different things that you can do, because rightly so, there's a lot of things that it has to conform to.  But then I look at other companies I've worked in that haven't had the same sort of compliance levels I suppose, I've just enjoyed it more, to be honest.  So, I think just knowing your move-makers and breakers means that you might not get distracted by the shiny stuff, the job titles, or maybe some of the brands, or maybe some of the things you might get presented with in job interviews and things like that.  What would go on your list, Sarah?

Sarah Ellis: I was just thinking actually as you were talking, I think what it helps you to be is really confident about your compromises.  I don't think there's any job move you make where there aren't some compromises along the way, but you need to be clear about which are the ones that you're comfortable with and feel like you're making a choice about those compromises.  I think it's often when it feels like they happen to you that then you think, "I've made a bad decision".  So, what would mine be?  And also, we've not really talked about salary.  So, the other thing I suppose for all of us, as part of this, would be you will definitely have your own definition of, "Well to make a move, I need to be earning 10% more to make it worth it; I need to be earning at least the same; or actually, I'm looking for a significant increase".  So, that might come into your thinking here. 

I think mine would be, my move-makers would be definitely the same as you on new stuff.  I like starting things but definitely the ability to have ideas and then to make those ideas happen, to feel like I'm creating.  I think that really matters to me.  I think a breaker for me now, because I've experienced it and I suppose I wouldn't want to give it up again, is I do like having the freedom and flexibility that comes with running your own company.  Now at times, it feels like you have very little freedom and very little flexibility, so definitely that's a rollercoaster, but it certainly feels different to when you work in a very big organisation.  So, I suppose you feel like you're defining, in lots of ways, kind of how you work, and you have lots more choices around what does working brilliantly and best like look like for you, and that just feels very different to me.  And I think now, I think I'd be really -- I find it very hard to let go of that because I think I do better work because of it.  I think I've found the thing where I can add the most value through the work that I do, and I think part of that is not just the work that we do, but it's also kind of how we work.  So, I think that would be a breaker for me, which I am now wondering, does that make me unemployable forever?  So, we do really need to make Amazing If work. 

Helen Tupper: So, question number two is, "What experiences are you looking for and what expertise do you want to take with you?"  And we really like this idea of what experiences you're looking for, because again it gets you beyond just a job-title-based move.  And I think careers really now are a collection of experiences and thinking, do you want the experience of working in a large company because you've only worked in a small company; do you want the experience of managing a bigger team?  That was definitely what I wanted when I was thinking about making my move from Virgin.  I really loved what I was doing at Virgin, but I knew that I wanted to do something else and I couldn't tell you exactly.  I was actually very open about what my next move could be when I was at Virgin, but I did know that one of the experiences I wanted was managing a bigger team, because that's what I loved.  I love managing people, and I thought, "You know what?  I want to stretch that strength a bit.  I think this is something that I'm good at and I love", and I definitely had a very finite amount of people that I was going to manage.  In the role that I was doing at Virgin, I couldn't see how that was going to get bigger any time quicker, and so for me, the experience was, "I want to work in a larger organisation where I can manage a larger team", and I was actually really open about where that would be beyond it. 

So, what experience are you looking for; and then the expertise.  These are things that you want to -- it could be technical expertise, you're like, "Actually, I've got this quite unique ability", because of knowledge of a particular system or process or technical thing.  Or it might be maybe a softer skill or expertise you're directly taking with you.  So, maybe you're really good at, I don't know, like a

coaching thing or something like that, and you think, "Wherever I go, I want to be able to use this particular competency".  But starting with the experience and the expertise, I think it just gives you a nice little map of when you're thinking about making a move, having that at the centre gives you a bit like a compass really when you're considering different options.  What would your experiences be, Sarah?

Sarah Ellis: I actually found this really helpful.  I think I have used experiences as a filter quite a few times when I've been making moves, actually between organisations and in organisations.  It's kind of that question, "What will be true as a result of making this move that wouldn't be true today?" because I think I'm a collecting experiences person.  So, it might be that I want to take with me my ability to create, that's a consistent expertise that, wherever I go and whatever I do, I want that to be at the core of a job or a move that I make.  But then I would think, "Oh, I'd love some experiences working in a different team or in a more digital-based role".  And when I did move from financial services to supermarkets, the experience I was looking for was, "I wonder what it will be like working for a brand where I am personally really passionate about the product".  And so actually, that didn't have to be a supermarket.  I do love food, so that was a good filter. 

Helen Tupper: It was a move-maker!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!  I was enjoying the role, really enjoying the role that I was doing in financial services when I was working at Barclays.  And so I did leave a role, and a leader actually, both of whom I felt like I was gaining really good experiences.  But the industry I kind of didn't connect with in the way that I had imagined that there would be an industry I could get closer to, in terms of my personal passions.  And so, I used that as a filter.  So, when I was looking at experiences, I was thinking, "Okay, what kind of industries can I imagine getting really interested in?"  So, I'd got sport, I'd got food.  I actually looked at some more like startup things around health and various different things around careers and coaching, even at that time.  And so it wasn't like, "Oh, it has to be food or nothing".  But I was really clear that a big motivator for making that move was to try and get some experience in a different kind of organisation, where I think I was like, "Well, I like the fact with food that I go shopping, I consume food".  And I did, that definitely became true, I did like that.  I liked the fact that everybody went into a Sainsbury's here in the UK and everyone had got a point of view on their favourite Sainsbury's product at the shop they went into.  And so I enjoyed that, that was a good motivator for me.

Helen Tupper: I used to love hearing about, and you used to tell me about in, I don't know, it'd be July or August or something, you know when you would tell me about, "Oh, we've just tasted all the Christmas products.  And I'd be so envious.  I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, that sounds so cool that you got to eat all the Christmas food really early".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, in July!  We always used to call it Christmas in July.  But even now, when I go into any supermarket, particularly the ones that you go to quite frequently, I can definitely tell you, These are my favourite products from that supermarket", just because I like it.  And I love tasting.  I saw my friend recently who still works at a supermarket, and she bought lots of their different range.  And we were like, I love trying loads of different things and I can very quickly reconnect with that kind of passion for food.  I was like, "Well, this was one of the best things about that".  So, it was good, I found it really useful and it kept me open-minded.  And also, it gave me lots of options.  Because at this stage, when you're thinking about making a move but you're not quite sure exactly what it is, you want to stay flexible and adaptable.  So, I think this gives you just enough to get you started. 

Helen Tupper: And then that actually feeds really nicely into the third question, which is, "What might your move look like?"  So, this is still saying, as Sarah said, really open, but what we're thinking here is we just kind of want some insight and information about what are the potential moves.  And you can get that data from quite a few places.  So, you could get it from looking at moves other people have made.  So for example, I could look at Sarah's career.  If I'm thinking, "I know I want to make a move, but I don't quite know what that move could look like", I could look at someone like Sarah's career and go, "Oh, that's interesting, that role in corporate social responsibility that Sarah did, that sounds like an interesting move that I could make".  Or, "Oh, managing director of an agency.  That sounds like it'd be really cool, working in a creative agency and having that kind of role.  I wonder if that's an interesting move that I could make". 

You almost want a collection of different career moves, and these aren't things that you are definitely going to do.  It's just something that you can almost say to yourself, "I think the move I want to make is along these lines, it's in this sort of space".  And that does make it a bit easier for you to go, "Okay, this is a bit what it's like", rather than going, "I just want to make a move".  But it also makes it easier to talk to other people about.  So, if I was saying to Sarah, I probably wouldn't say it like this to Sarah, "I'm thinking about making a move"!  She'd be like, "From our business?"

Sarah Ellis: Big chat, big chat we need to have!

Helen Tupper: Big chat.  "Here's my collage of potential career moves".  She'd be like, "That might not be the thing we need to talk about right now, Helen"!  But if I was to do that, let's say Sarah was a mentor, and we didn't work with each other running a business, I could almost be like, "Okay, these are five potential moves that I'm interested in, and the move that I will make might look a bit like it", it's almost a starter for a conversation.  It just gives you a bit more insight of, "Okay, it's something a bit like this". 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think I have quite a lot of conversations with people who are in this first space.  They are thinking about making a move, and they're being really open-minded and they're not in a rush and they appreciate it will take time, which I think is a really good way to approach making a move.  And often, people are quite good at one and two.  So, they know their move-makers and breakers, they know what experiences they're looking for and what expertise they want to take with them, but then I will often say, "Oh, could you just give me a couple of examples?"  You don't want to pigeonhole people, but examples are useful, because then you can help spot for other people opportunities that could be interesting.  So, I think what this really starts to get you into is kind of connecting the dots between kind of what matters most to you for making a move and what's out there, you know, the reality of the roles and the moves that are available. 

It might not be a job advert, it might be, but it could just be, "Oh, I work with this person and they're in…" and describe their role, you know, "Oh, I work alongside Helen, and her job is this, and she gets to do this kind of work and these sorts of projects".  And just by describing that, and if I was somebody listening, I'd be like, "Oh, okay, so it's a project type role, it's something where you do lots of cross collaboration".  You just get a feel for what a move could be.  And then, I think you can then start to then get into that, "Well, okay, so what now?" which is part two.

So, we're going to move on to now when you've got a specific move in mind.  So, the risk here is that you might rush into it because you might be like, "That's the job, I'm off to do it".  So, the three questions here are just helping you to consider the move maybe a bit more deeply to make sure it's the right move for you.  So, the first thing we recommend asking yourself is, "Does the move pass the Squiggly Stress Test?"  And you might be thinking, "What is the Squiggly Stress Test?"  Well, this is based on the five squiggly skills that we write about in our first book, The Squiggly Career, and we've also done a podcast episode on this, which we will link to in case that helps you learn a bit more about the skills in order to answer these questions.  But there are effectively five very, very short questions which are just yes, no or don't know.  And the idea is that the more yeses you have, the more likely this is going to be a good move for you to make; and the more no's or don't no's you've got, either the more information you might need to find or just the more flags you need to be aware of.  Because if you are making a move with a lot of no's to the squiggly skills, then that might be a bit of an issue.  It might be a bit of a flag that you're being distracted by a shiny object, or you're just likely to introduce more risk. 

So, here are the things to ask yourself.  And again, we'll put these in the PodSheet for you, which is the one-page downloadable summary, so that you've got them to kind of tick off and check.  So, question number one for the Squiggly Stress Test, "Do you think that you can be you?"  So, this one's all about your values.  This is making sure that you can feel like you can be authentic in the role.  Second one, "Does the role need what you want to be known for?"  So, this one's all about your strengths.  The more we use our strengths at work, the more engaged we are and the more impact we have in our roles.  So, you definitely want it to be a move that needs what you want to be known for.  Number three, "Do you believe you can do the job?"  This one is linked to confidence.  So, when you make that move, we want you to have a strong level of self-belief, so it is actually useful for you to think, "Do I believe I can do the job?" because if you're not starting with self-belief then that might be a bit of an issue for your confidence. 

Number four, "Do you have the network that you need?  So, it's a lot easier to make a move if you've got a career community supporting you; whereas, if you feel like you're really isolated, you're not bringing that community with you, it can be a bit more difficult for your development.  It doesn't mean it's going to be a disaster, it just means there's a bit of a flag for you to be aware of.  And then number five, "Will it increase your possibilities?"  So, in a Squiggly Career, we're letting go of this idea of a plan, we want to create lots of possibilities.  So, when you're making moves, it's really useful that it increases your career possibilities, rather than reduces them because of the type of role or type of organisation you might be working in. 

So, it's not a definite yes to all of them, but the more yeses you have, the less risk you'll have when you make the move; and the more no's or don't no's, just I think it's something to be aware of if you're tipping over into more of those. 

Sarah Ellis: And I think where you have don't no's, it can be a good prompt to see whether, can you dive a bit deeper; are there questions you could ask; are there people you could talk to; is there any research that you could do, where you still might ultimately end up answering, "I don't know for sure, but I know a bit more than I did".  So, if you're thinking, do you believe you can do the job, I think often when you're making a move, none of us know whether we could definitely do the job.  But if you're really unsure, you might talk a bit more about what are some of the priorities, what are some of the outcomes, and then getting a feel for, "Okay, is that something I feel like I could deliver on?  Or have I done something similar in a different context?  Can I see any role models or any examples of people a bit like me who've gone on to do these jobs?" 

So, you'll never have certainty, you could never go -- I don't think with any move, you'll ever answer all of those yes, yes, yes, "Oh, great, all good to go".  So, I don't want people to feel like that's the objective here.  But I do think the no's, Helen and I were both reflecting that if you have a no, it is a useful red flag.  You know, if you don't think you can be yourself, that's a real red flag; if you don't think you're going to get to use any of your strengths, that should be a real red flag; if you feel like it's going to decrease your possibilities, I'd be like, "Oh, red-flag scenario".  So, it just gives you that very quick, I think, stress test and sense check like, "How do I feel about this move?  Does this feel like the right move for me?"

Sarah Ellis: So, after you've done your Squiggly Stress Test, question two, "If something changed about the move, manager, who owns the company, the team structure, how would that impact your decision?"  So, this will happen, I think, to all of us at some point in our Squiggly Careers.  We make a move thinking that our team is going to be in one part of a company; two weeks later, half of that team moves to one part of a company, and the other half moves to a different part of a company.  Or, you think you're going to work for this brilliant leader; they get a new job, or they get another opportunity in the company, suddenly you find yourself either without a manager or working for somebody very different.  And I guess what this question helps you to do is a bit of scenario-planning around just making sure that you're not anchoring your move to something that you have relatively low levels of control over.  All of those things can change and there won't be an awful lot you can do about it. 

So, if your decision is very motivated by one of those three things and then that changes, does that then mean it wouldn't be the right move?  In which case, maybe it isn't the right move in the first place.  And this has happened to me, I don't know, two, three times in various different ways.  And one of the things that I've been really glad about every time, obviously it wasn't ideal, you're not wishing this scenario to happen, is that there were other reasons, there were other motivations for my move beyond the exact team I was in or the exact person I was working for.  I might have been disappointed or I might have thought, "Oh, I'm not sure how this is going to now affect my career or the possibilities I had got in mind", but I'd still got enough upside that it made it the right decision. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and I've had it too.  I remember, so I was at Virgin, my job changed day one.  I mean, that was dramatic, that's not the norm!  Literally, within the first day of the company, within half an hour, my manager was like, "You're not going to do this job anymore, you're going to do this".  But that was very Virgin.  And then, I remember at Microsoft, because of a big reorg, I'd done three months of the role, then I went on maternity leave, came back after about four months, and then on the first day, my job changed.  That was within seven months, my job changed.  And the move to Microsoft was quite a big move in my career and that was quite a big change of my job.  So, I do think it is worth running these thoughts by you, like if you were doing a different job within a week of joining this company, would you still want to do it?  Or, you know that cult of the manager?  I've definitely made moves before where I've been so impressed by the manager. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: And then if you think, "Well, what if that manager's moved on?"  And your notice period, let's say you've got a notice period between one job and another, if they move on, would you really still want that job or are you just moving because you want to work for that person?  Often, I think there's the allure of a manager that makes people do the move. 

Sarah Ellis: And then our final question is, it sounds maybe a little bit negative and this is definitely kind of worst-case scenario-planning, but I think it is a really helpful question to ask yourself, "If you do move and it doesn't work out, what options have you got?  I know quite a few people in the past couple of years, and I hope this is because Squiggly Careers are becoming more normal and everybody's talking about their careers in this way, I hope this becomes more acceptable.  And there's a couple of people I know who've moved organisations and quite quickly, it just hasn't worked out.  And they have almost asked themselves this question beforehand, so they did have a backup plan.  So, maybe they made quite a risky move, maybe they'd done the Squiggly Stress Test, they thought they could be themselves and they were going to be able to use their strengths. 

But you know sometimes, you can't understand the reality of a role in an organisation properly and fully until you're in it.  Yes, you can read Glassdoor; yes, you can talk to people; but I do think there is just this kind of, "But you've got to live it and breathe it to really know, is it right for you, or is it enough right for you?"  Hopefully yes, but if you did get there and you were like, "Uh-oh, I know this is just not right", what would you do?  Have you got enough money saved up that you could, I don't know, could you leave quite quickly and would it be okay to not work for a while?  If that's not an option, could you go back to the company that you worked for before?  I know quite a few people who've done that and been like, "Actually, this hasn't worked, have you got a project that I can come and do for a bit?  Often, if you've done a great job, people will be like, "Yeah, we do, great, come on back", and back doesn't have to mean backwards, we know that.  When you're thinking about your network, have you got people who you could quickly call or get in touch with who you think might be able to put you in touch with, I don't know, doing some consultancy work; or, would you be prepared to do something like a secondment or a mat cover or parental cover job, you know those often more temporary type roles. 

If you are thinking, "I move and if this doesn't work out, I have no options", it's just making sure that that feels okay for you, because that would be quite high risk.  It probably depends a little bit on how dramatic the move you're making is.  If it's quite close to where you are today, you probably have way more confidence because you'll have more knowns.  If you are doing something very different, so let's say when Helen and I both moved from working for very big companies to Amazing If, I think we both had this in mind.  I think we were both like, "Right, let's see how it goes running a company".  If this doesn't work out, I think we both felt confident we could go back to the industry that we'd come from, which is very different to where we are today, and that we'd got a good network of people who would at least be able to connect us with some roles or some opportunities.  We'd probably just about got enough money to last for a little bit.  So, I think we both had, even if we hadn't described it in this way, two or three backup plans, if Amazing If ended up being fun, but something that was never going to be the day job. 

Helen Tupper: I remember, I specifically had a nine-month plan.  I remember making that move.  There was nine months because I knew how much money that we had saved and how much money, back to the makers and breakers, I knew how much money I needed to pay mortgage, pay my child care, and I thought, "It's got to turn within nine months, otherwise it's not -- we'll still keep doing it --"

Sarah Ellis: It's not viable, yeah. 

Helen Tupper: "-- probably the way that we always had as a side project rather than it being a --"  And I also knew that in nine months, I could go back. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Helen Tupper: I was like, "Maybe not to the same role in Microsoft, but I know I could go back".  Whereas after nine months I thought, "Oh, I'm just going to be less known to them and they're probably less likely to just have me back so easily".  So, yeah, I'd specifically got this nine-month thing, and thankfully, it was the right move to make.  It just made me think when just listening there, I wonder whether there's a podcast episode in this for people, because I've definitely made some moves that were just, I mean, I don't know, is any move the wrong move if you learn from it?  I don't know.  But it felt at the time, I was like, "Well, this was a bad decision.  This is not the way"!  At the time, I was definitely like, "This wasn't the right move to make, and now I feel really stuck".  And I was really worried about, "How can I recover from this move, because it's going to look really bad on LinkedIn and it's going to look like I'm not good at making career decisions?"

You know when you're in that moment where you feel like you've made the wrong move, how do you recover from making the wrong move?  I just wonder whether it could be an episode.  Maybe people could let us know.  If you think, "Yes, I would quite like that episode, please, because I'd find it really helpful". 

Sarah Ellis: "I've made the wrong move, basically"!

Helen Tupper: "I've made the wrong move, I'm in the wrong move right now, and I'm really worried that if I leave this, my career is going to be over", or whatever the thoughts are that might be going through your mind, let us know because we haven't covered it as a standalone topic and we could go a bit deeper.  Best way to let us know is email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, or just message us on LinkedIn @amazingif.  And if enough people say, "This would be helpful", then we can always cover that as a future episode. 

Sarah Ellis: So, if you are considering making a career move in the next year or the next two weeks, we hope this episode has been helpful for you and you've got some useful questions to ask yourself.  But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.