How to make the most of a job that's not a good fit
Does a wave of dread wash over you when your alarm goes off in the morning? Do you spend Sundays sulking about your week ahead, pretty much every week? The feeling of knowing you’re spending 40-plus hours a week at a job that’s not quite right for you can permeate your entire life and make you miserable, whatever the reason for the bad fit.
However, it just doesn’t always make sense to make a change right away. Maybe you’re sticking it out to see if things get better, or maybe you’re worried you won’t be able to find another job. This might really feel like the best you can get with your current skills and experience. Perhaps you are actively looking, but the job search is taking awhile. Or maybe you want to develop some tenure on your resume. In any case, you need a strategy — not just to survive, but to squeeze every last drop of career value from your current situation so that when you look back, it’ll have felt somewhat worthwhile. But how do you do that without going crazy in the meantime?
Note: In 2014, I wrote a weekly blog series on travel and career advice for eHow. This post is from that series, so you'll have to head over to their site to read it in full. Thanks for reading!