"Turns out the Great Resignation may be followed by the Great Regret" Everyone is talking 'Great Resignation' but I'm getting increasingly more calls from people that left the industry and are desperately trying to get back.

These can be the most challenging career transitions because not only do you have to interview and win over a hiring manager based on your qualifications and experience but you have to answer an additional set of questions about why you left your previous gig and/or the industry. 

I started looking at trends as a result of The Great Resignation and quickly found data more startling than 4.5 million people resigning a month. Recent surveys and interviews are indicating that a large majority are remorseful and regret quitting.

Here's data points to consider:

Seven out of ten workers — about 72% — admitted that they were surprised to learn that their new roles or companies were different from what they were led to believe during the interview process, according to the survey by The Muse.

Nearly half (48%) of these workers said they would try to get their old job back thanks to a phenomenon that the Muse is calling “shift shock”.

According to a survey from recruiting platform Jobvite, 30% of new employees leave their jobs within the first 90 days of getting hired.

As a professional Career Coach and Mentor, the three things I tell my clients they need to evaluate before they quit are:

1. Your Mission
2. Future Opportunities
3. Money

Your Mission:

Does your role still excite you because what you do and does it align with your mission? Take your answer down to the simplest and lowest level. Peel back everything that isn't in your job description and current role. Forget about the people, work life, and the money, those things will come next. Do you love being an on-camera journalist or tv host or creating digital content? If the answer is 'Yes' it's time to slow down and start looking at a bigger picture.

This is the place to start when it comes to evaluating a resignation and leaving the industry or profession. Are you proud of your profession and your body of work? If you love what you do, we can work on the other things one by one to craft a more fulfilling job in that role. Conversely, if your role and your mission don't align, it's time to think about transition on a larger scale, pointing to a new role outside of the industry. 

When it comes to alignment of role and mission, now is the time to think hard before you take the next step. If you make an attempt later to boomerang, answering the interview question "so Mike, if the role and your mission didn't align before, why do they align now?" is going to take a very convincing answer.

Future Opportunity:

Three things to think about here:

1. Are you good enough? Do your skills set you apart?
2. Do you have a sponsor or champion within the organization and industry?
3. Is the company embracing industry trends that will result in future opportunities?

If you passed the Mission/Role alignment test and answered the three set of questions above with a 'Yes', you are likely well positioned for future success and just need to embrace a couple paths within your current organization.

I would first approach my sponsor or champion for coaching on how to change the parts of my job that are contributing to my dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Getting internal sponsorship to construct a strategic and thoughtful path forward resulting in a solutions based conversation with a News Director or GM is always the best way to go.  

If this option turns out to be infeasible and the effort to have a meaningful conversation fails, you need to ask yourself if you can wait it out. Sometimes a few weeks seems like an eternity but the reality is that Managers and News Directors are churning nearly as quickly as Producers and Reporters. How would you feel if you left a role that you loved and two weeks later the manager you couldn't work for resigns?

Love the Neil Peart lyric from Tom Sawyer "change isn't permanent, but change is". What is your pain threshold to wait it out while positioning yourself to take advantage of change, because it's coming.

Money:

If you leave solely for money, you most likely left for the wrong reason and all the sources of your dissatisfaction are likely to soon reappear. There are so many other pieces to our work life that we will be changing simultaneously, many of these things can bring happiness or satisfaction. 

They include:

• Our personal and professional networks. We form friendships and networks of personal resources within our work lives. 
• Job security. What's the longer term prognosis of the new organization and industry?
• Alignment of skills and responsibilities. You could be putting your future job performance at risk and ultimately your future career trajectory.
• Schedule and workflow. Are you really ready for driving to the same place of business and sitting at a desk 9am to 5pm only to return again the next day, and next, and next …..

Money can make a significant impact on material things and quality of life to a modest degree but it certain doesn't guarantee job satisfaction. I believe Patrick Lencioni is right when he said "money is a satisfier, it's not a motivator. 

That said, you need to be fairly compensated and your wages need to align with your differentiated skill set. You should always be paid what you are worth.

In summary, start evaluating your true motivators, like Mission and Opportunity, before you make a decision to resign and leave a foundation that you have worked so hard to build. I've found over the course of my 35 year career that at some point, the money is very likely to follow.

Quote credit: Gene Marks, The Guardian

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