How soon is too soon to jump ship at a firm? Less than 4 months in and don’t see how the work I’m doing will add any value towards my goals / my career manager gives zero Fs about me / besides (Cont)

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You need to reset your expectations for what to expect as someone with 4mos of experience.

likehelpful

You need to be a little more patient. Even more experienced consultants experience swings where they are doing mindless, tedious tasks that “a trained monkey could do”. You have a very long career ahead of you. Try to learn what you can on the side during the times where you have extra bandwidth and no one is being responsive.

Don’t leave the experience off your resume. It’ll likely come up in a background check performed by your new firm and will force unwanted questions.

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Thanks everyone; this has all been helpful! I’ll put in some more time and be sure to take ALL the advice given above. I thought for sure I’d get some people telling me to leave so wasn’t expecting these answers but clearly I just need to chill out and give it time. I really appreciate all the wisdom here.

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I am in the same place as you. My current project is fully staff aug and the job is tedious. The work doesn’t require a college degree, and there’s no room for learning new skills. I worked hard hoping that it would lead to more challenging work. I received a positive 6 month review, but there were no changes to the work. I see what my direct seniors are doing, and it seems just as tedious.

Don’t worried about seeming like a stereotypical Millennial jumping ship so early. You wouldn’t be leaving so soon if your firm was treating you well. It’s not just that the current position is boring but that there’s little room for growth or skill development. If you’re like me, you may be significantly underpaid as well.

Also, if you just graduated from college, you’re probably 22-23 and part of Generation Z. I’ve already had someone comment how different we are than Millennials. You’ll have a chance to interview and explain why you’re leaving. Once you get a new position, you can leave the current one off your resume.

I started looking for something new after 6 months and just got offered a position that seems like a much better fit and pays almost 40% more (outside of consulting). Keep doing your best, but in the meantime, put feelers out for other positions that align well with your skills and goals. To my surprise, the interviewers for my new position didn’t even ask me about my current job; they asked about my internships. If you’re seriously unhappy at your current job, you owe it to yourself to look for something else.

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So many questions with this type of post. Do what you will with this job, as I don’t have context to anything, but a couple of things I’ve learned over the years (and taking myself back 18 years when I was in your shoes).
1. Your reputation will define you at any company and this reputation can be scarred with a cocky/indifferent attitude. Not saying this is you, but I get a vibe.
2. At 4 months of experience, a more senior leader would proceed with caution with you until before mentioned reputation is firmly entrenched- we need to trust you. You will learn a tremendous amount and your perspective will shift over time. Unfortunately, there are some menial tasks, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have to be done.
3. Have you sat down with other Directors/Partners to go over your career goals and how you could support them? The go-getters are the ones I want on my team, not the ones complaining about a menial task. If it is monkey work, do it quickly and do it right, or find ways to automate it, if possible. Or, get monkeys trained up to do it for you. This job is about building a team to get ALL of the work done
4. Voicing that you have availability or like to stay busy is a good start, but understanding ongoing proposal pipeline, internal development efforts, etc can make your asks more specific. I simply don’t have time to think of things for you to do all the time, especially if I don’t know you. There are highs and lows in this business. Engrain yourself into a team.

Good luck to you. Not sure what form you are at, but there are VERY few jobs that allow as much flexibility as consulting, so my advice is to take a breath and rethink how you are approaching this, both internally to yourself and externally to others

likesmart

This 100%

It’s all what you make of it. Network. Get involved. Take training. Learn firm economics. No one will hand you a promo or give two shits if they don’t even know who you are.

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Given context, how long do you expect to be in this role? I’d preach more patience.

Think about it - you’re in this role cause you’re new and nobody trusts you yet. If you switched, very likely you’d reboot that

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Unless you work for a nichey boutique who does very specific types of work, I read this and my initial reaction is “grow up.”
You think you can assess the totality of the firm and job after four months? There is more than a whiff of entitlement here. Mememememe! The work doesn’t challenge me, the people don’t inspire me, I am not entertained.
Again, if your firm does a variety of work, you might find after doing a couple of different projects with a couple of different teams that you may have a different opinion.
But it starts with your attitude. Focus on what you can contribute rather than what you can take. It’s what the more successful, engaged and happier people do, in my observation.

likehelpful

Besides the friendly people I’ve met there (btw none of which inspire me) there isn’t really anything positive. If I start applying elsewhere do I leave it off my resume? Thoughts on packing up too soon?

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Did you have any prior experience before joining the current firm? If so, how long was that?

As long as you don’t have a trend of jumping ships every 6-12 months, then its fine imo. I would still include it within my resume and explain that you aren’t enjoying the work or see it adding any value to ur goals. They should be able to understand that’s why you are back in the market looking for another position.

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Be patient. You’re saying you only have menial tasks, and no learning opportunities. Is that really true? You have zero things to study on the side? You know all of your clients inside and out? You know everything about what’s happening on your project? I find that hard to believe.

Write down a list of things you don’t know, and start to study them. Study more complex deliverables on your project and get to understand how they’re made.

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What kind of work excites you?

Patience. Patience. And patience.
Think about it this way - to train / teach you into more challenging tasks always involves some (sometimes a lot of) time and effort on you managers/ co workers side. That’s not always possible. So give it some time, and stay proactive asking about it. Like, what are you working on? Anything I can help with? Even if you do monkey work, this might get you into a topic and once you have some basic understanding, someone might get a better idea of what to further involve you in.
It’s usually not that you come to the firm/project and everybody been waiting for you. Level set your expectation there. Usually associates mean first of all an investment of time, effort and (yes) patience for the manager/team. It will pay of, we know that, but usually that takes at least 4-6 month until it does.
And it is like that for everybody, no worries. I know you feel so important and knowledgeable after internship and hiring, but face it, it’s a new world. For interns, the project team gets prepared for (because we have to). Keeping interns busy with interesting stuff is marketing (and temporary). As soon as you are hired, you get staffed on a project and you managers might not even know you’re coming. So, find time to find something to do for you, teach and train you, in a heartbeat? Not possible.
You are responsible for yourself. Keep being persistent on new tasks, but also be patient.
I would give it a year at least

4 months in you've probably only done one project. It's possible you got unlucky with your first project. I would wait to see if that first project is actually a representative experience or not. Plus you interned in consulting and something made you take the full time offer right? Either you had a better experience as an intern (therefore wait to get on another project) or you didn't do proper due diligence if this is such a big mismatch from your expectations.

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