Over the past two years, as job candidates and employers have assessed each other over Zoom, I suspect a lot of people have ended up with that “did I just make a huge mistake” feeling. Kathryn Minshew is chief executive and co-founder of job search and career advice site The Muse, as well as coauthor of The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook to Navigating Your Career

It’s normal to feel nervous starting a new job, but it can be a big problem to be hired into a role with one set of responsibilities and then be expected to perform another, or to join a company culture that turns out to be cliquey when you were sold on the idea of camaraderie. I call this unpleasant surprise “shift shock” to distinguish it from ordinary new-job jitters. Thirty per cent said both the position and the company were very different. And it turns out this phenomenon is more common than many people realise.Īccording to a new survey of more than 2,500 respondents from career site The Muse, which I founded, 72 per cent of American workers said they, too, have experienced starting a new job and realising - to their surprise or regret - that the position or company was very different from what they were led to believe.

I had a similar experience at 23, when I took a job that promised international travel - but in reality, mostly involved trips to Ohio. Gen Z and millennial employees are more likely than not to quit their new jobs inside six months if they are unhappy (Photograph courtesy of Resume Now)

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