Dear Liz,
I read your columns and get a lot of inspiration from them. Right now I'm feeling completely stuck. I took a job that was billed as a 'staff position' but it's not -- it's an entry-level position that seems to have a sky-high turnover rate, unsurprisingly. I'm working for a consulting firm as a project coordinator. It's not even on a consulting-career track.
It's the job that you get when you come into the consulting firm not through campus recruiting but some other way (I was referred here by my friend Jason) and they want to try you out.
I am happy to pay my dues. I've been out of college for four years. I had a really good job for the first year out of school but I wanted to get out of the industry (insurance) and so I took a job with a start-up. The start-up was fun but it failed after 18 months and I took a job quickly.
That job was working for the city. I hated it and stayed almost eighteen months before spotting this opportunity and jumping on it. I have a lot of experience under my belt for a 26-year-old but they put me in this project coordinator role and told me "Prove yourself." That's fine. But how?
My biggest job responsibility is to keep the Project Managers posted on about two dozen status levels regarding their projects. My fellow project coordinator Brianna and I meet with our assigned project managers once a week and bring them up to date on the projects we are handling for them.
Brianna and I answer phone calls, check in with clients and consultants, check on permitting issues (our company is an engineering firm that works with a lot of municipalities and other government bodies) and make sure the wheels are turning on all our projects. We don't get to make presentations, meet with clients, have (much less implement) ideas, or generally get our heads above water at all.
We do what we're told, as fast as we can. Then we go home exhausted, get some sleep, and come back to work and do it all over again the next day.
I've been asking around about the career path for project coordinators who were hired earlier than me. I replaced a guy named Nathan who got tired of waiting for his chance to be promoted, and quit. He worked here for a little over two years. I can see why Nathan left. I don't think I could do this for two years. I never sit down.
I almost never get lunch. In this job you run back and forth across the outfield catching fly balls all day. The last person anyone here can remember who got promoted from the project coordinator job to an Associate role (that's a junior consultant) is Lucia. I have met Lucia a few times.
She told me that she was a project coordinator like me for sixteen months and that she finally told her manager she needed to be promoted out of that job or she would leave. Lucia told me that other people have laid down the same ultimatum and have been told "If you want to quit, go ahead."
I don't know what to do. How can I prove myself in a job that has so little room in it to show what I can do? Should I give an ultimatum the way Lucia did, and if so, when? I've been in my job for five months now.
Thanks for your help,
Tyler
Dear Tyler,
The Project Coordinator job you hold right now sounds like the kind of role that can easily overwhelm you. When you work in a job that is all about responding to requests coming in from who knows where and always at a furious pace, you feel like you're driving into a snowstorm. The snowflakes hit your windshield at eye level and almost blind you. You can hardly see ten feet ahead of you. All you can do is keep driving.
I agree with you that you won't have much chance to improve your situation (or your firm's situation) down at ground level. All you can do there is keep your hands on the wheel. You need to get altitude on your job. You need to back up and look at the situation from a higher place. You can do that one weekend.
Give yourself few hours, a pad and paper and a cup of coffee or whatever fuels you. Think about the projects you coordinate, the people you work with, and the most common problems that crop up and because of which the project coordinator job was created in the first place.
You say that your job is very challenging and it absolutely sounds that way. It also sounds like your job is an Up or Out proposition. Some people, like Lucia, get promoted from the project coordinator role into a consulting position. Others are invited to find their career path elsewhere when they get tired of driving into a snowstorm.
I detect a bit of resentment in your message, as though somebody sold you a bill of goods when they offered you the position.
I encourage you to let any bad feelings go. Consulting firms are famous for following the Up or Out standard. That's the way they are structured. None of us has any guarantees that if we do a good job in our current position, a promotion to a higher position awaits us.
I know you are smart and capable, but I didn't hear anything in your letter to suggest that you know where you're headed in your career, and that is a critical element. Once you know your path, you can take steps to move forward on it. When you don't know your path, other people get to decide where you're headed and how fast you can move forward. That may be part of your obstacle now.
When you sit down with your coffee and your pad of paper, ask yourself "What do I want to do in my career?" Forget about this job for the moment. What do you want over the long term? What do you want to learn and to try in your professional life?
I would hate to think that your career path is created by people who happened to hire you because you happened to apply for a job opening you saw posted somewhere. You get to take control of your own career, and by the same token you must take control. It's your career!
Are you dying to be a consultant in your company? Apart from your hard work in your current project coordinator position, what other elements should make your managers see that you were born to follow a consulting career path? From your letter it sounds as though your principal impetus for trying to get promoted is that once you're promoted, you won't have to do the taxing job you perform now.
That is not a winning strategy for selling your managers on your upward progression! Most people don't get promoted based on the sales pitch "Please promote me so that I don't have to do this job anymore!"
When you get altitude, you'll lay out your career plans -- whatever you know about them right now. You've had four years to experience the working world. You must have some opinions about what you're good at and what you love to do. Get them on paper! Maybe they point to a wonderful career as a consultant in your current firm, or maybe not.
Your job is to explore and see what you learn!
You can prove yourself in any position, from sweeping the floors at McDonald's to selling peanuts at the ballpark. You have a wonderful opportunity to prove yourself in your project coordinator job, once you know why you're bothering to do so. You meet with project managers every week.
Can you get enough altitude on your position to see why the job is so frantic and so taxing, and begin taking steps to get a jump on the most common problems you encounter?
Your personal gravity and presence are critical elements. You must take a lunch break. Your job is all about handling crises, and the crises will wait while you grab a sandwich. Much or most of what managers above you will be watching for in your performance is your ability to handle stress.
In my experience, the people who thrive in driving-into-the-snowstorm jobs are people who keep their heads and tackle the most significant problems first, rather than the newest ones. Here are five other ways to prove yourself in this job:
- Your preparation for your weekly meeting with the project managers is a huge indicator of your insight and clear thinking. Bring a written agenda to every meeting and send an email follow-up to all participants.
- Your communication (in writing, in person and over the phone) with the people you interact with every day is another huge indicator of your talent. Make sure that your email messages are polite and thorough, with perfect spelling and punctuation. Use your email signature in every message that goes out to a client or anyone outside your firm.
- Your day-to-day interactions with your teammates show your maturity. Whatever is happening in your email inbox or on the phone, don't curse out loud or show your frustration at work. Get a punching bag and pound on it at night or find another way to blow off steam!
- Your dress and professional image are important. I have a feeling that when Lucia had your job, she dressed as though she were already a consultant. Be sure to do the same thing!
- Finally, your judgment in tough situations marks you as ready-for-promotion or not quite there yet. Take a minute to clear your head when something falls off the rails. Get up and walk around the office if that will help you compose yourself, then jump into action. Thank everyone who helps you solve a problem, and as you learn about the most common points of failure in your company's processes, note them and bring them up for discussion at your next weekly meeting.
Every job is an opportunity for quality control, process improvement and personal growth. You have a magnificent opportunity to learn a ton in this job and show the people you work with what you're made of. Don't hold yourself to Lucia's promotion timetable or anybody else's. Instead, ask yourself "What did I learn on the job today?" The learning is the key. You're going to learn about yourself and other people.
Get a journal and start writing in it every day or every few days. After a few months, look back to the beginning of your journal and review what you wrote in your early journal entries. I think you'll amaze yourself! Here's to you Tyler!
Best,
Liz
