Took the wrong job & am kicking myself for ignoring my gut.
Sep 19, 2021
11 Comments
I recently took a PM job at a startup (3 weeks in) and realized it’s not what was sold to me. The people are great but fundamentally this startup is not a tech company that it was sold to me as. I feel so dumb for ignoring what my gut was telling me and got blinded by the post-offer chase of being wanted. Time to bust out that fresh resume again.
Lesson learned: accepting an offer shouldn’t be an agonizing “should I or shouldn’t I” decision. Trust your instinct!
TC: 🥜
#productmanagement
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I recently took up a Product Owner role at a BIG company. Turns out I am a BA not a PO and joining in the middle of a project that started a year ago. The project is a BIG MESS with 4 different teams spread across the world in different time zones. I basically have a 24 hr job cuz I gotta talk to different people in different time zones at their convenience. Got a big dump of slide shows, pdfs and documents for project overview and everyone is expecting me to jump into the fire immediately by talking to business and getting their requirements and converting them to user stories. They expect me to learn one years worth of progression in less than a month. I am regretting taking this job but I have no choice. It took me over 150 applications and 6 months of search to get an offer.
I got through it by reading all the documentation that I could and setting up brief one on one meetings with subject matter experts. When I set up the meeting I had a bullet list of pointed questions. Under each question I would list out some assumptions I had. I found people were more willing to help once they saw I did some leg work…not great but ya know.
But the only real solution is to switch companies. Because if the company is already this bad it’s only going to get worse. Much much worse… A weak culture will only hold you back professionally. This is easier said than done, but at least now you’ll be paid in the interim. Try not to let the job drain you while you search for another job, it’s already hard enough.