Bad 'Expert' Advice: Why you shouldn't just quit your job

Beware of random advice

If I see one more article online that says you should just quit your job if you don’t like it, then I’m going to scream. Absolutely, positively, without reservation, it is the single worst piece of career advice that you could ever receive.

The person usually giving the (bad) advice is most often famous, rich or privileged in some way, and they have the luxury of just walking off of a job they don’t like. Actually, I even doubt that the people who tell others to quit have actually done it themselves.

I often get emails from celebrity personal assistants who said they just quit their job with some A-lister, and they’d like to get another job with an A-lister. Well, it’s not so simple. If you can’t handle the pressure or hours at your last job, it’s not going to be any better at your next job. In fact, it might even be worse. 

Well, guess what folks? If you follow some “expert” advice to just quit your job because you don’t like it, these are some of the real-life things that can happen to you (whether or not you have a back-up job waiting in the wings).

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No certainty

Even if you have another job lined up, then you walk into a world of uncertainty at your new job. For all you know, you will get fired during your probationary period for something that’s completely out of your control. Are you willing to take that risk and be unemployed? Jobs with celebrities and billionaires can be very uncertain.

You can become “unemployable”

There is a stigma attached (in some employer’s minds) to people who are unemployed. And this “unemployable” situation is especially toxic if you are unemployed for six months or more. The conclusion that some employers draw from extended unemployment: If nobody else wants this candidate, then we don’t either (because something must be wrong).

“The grass is greener on the other side” syndrome

If you quit your job and start another one, you just trade one problem for another. Just because there is some aspect of your job you don’t like doesn’t mean you should quit. Your new job will also, undoubtedly, have some aspect that you won’t like either. In short, no job on the planet is 100% free from headaches.

The really great jobs are scarce

Speak to a career coach about changing jobs

Scarcity of jobs is the “new normal” and the actual unemployment statistics are much higher than are published. The published numbers don’t actually include underemployed candidates (or the ones that have given up searching altogether). A number of high-profile experts put the real unemployment rate much higher than published ones (Just Google “the real unemployment rate” and you’ll see for yourself).

It makes me laugh when I see the nightly news say that “unemployment is down” because the fact is that millions of people are still unemployed. For much of the middle-class, the “recession” is still here. If you leave your job in search of another one, you’re going to find out (if you haven’t been in the job market for a while) that it’s ultra-competitive even for minimum-wage jobs. One job ad can easily get 100 submissions, so at best you have a 1% chance of getting a job you apply for. The better jobs could actually bring as many as 500 to 1,000 candidates to the table, so then your chances drop dramatically lower than 1%.

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The takeaway

Don’t quit on emotion and find a way to solve the problem that you have a work, whatever it may be.