How Long it takes to know if a Job Is Right for You or Not

Summary

A few eagle-eyed readers have noticed that it’s been 4 weeks since my last entry in what I have been thinking of as my “niblet series” — one small piece per week, 1000 words or less, for the next three months. This is true. However, I did leave myself some wiggle room in my original goal, when I said “weeks when I am not traveling”, knowing I was traveling 6 of the next 7 weeks. I was going to TRY to write something on the weeks I was traveling, but as you can see, I mostly did not succeed. Oh well! Honestly, I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve written well over 1k words on bsky over the past two weeks in the neverending thread on the costs and tradeoffs of remote work. (A longform piece on the topic is coming soon.) I also wrote a couple of lengthy internal pieces. This whole experiment was designed to help me unblock my writing process and try out new habits, and I think I’m making progress. I will share what I’m learning at a later date, but for now: onward! How long does it take to form an impression of a new job? This week’s niblet was inspired by a conversation I had yesterday with an internet friend. To paraphrase (and lightly anonymize) their question: “I took a senior management role at this company six months ago. My search for this role was all about values alignment, from company mission to leadership philosophy, and the people here said all the right things in the process. But it’s just not clicking. It’s only been six months, but it’s starting to feel like it might not work out. How much longer should I give it?” Zero. You should give it 0 time. You already know, and you’ve known for a long time; it’s not gonna change. I’m sorry. 💔 I’m not saying you should quit tomorrow, a person needs a paycheck, but you should probably start thinking in terms of how to manage the problem and extricate yourself from it, not like you’re waiting to see if it will be a good fit. Every job I’ve ever had has made a strong first impression I’ve had…let’s see…about six differen...