"Sometimes You Have To Stop Before You Know Where You’re Going"

Looking for a job when you have a job is very different from looking for a job when finding a job IS your job.

I met a Finance Manager yesterday.

A migrant who came to Australia as a student. Completed a Masters. Got the first job. Then the second. Eventually took a risk and left a blue-chip business to join a much smaller company in the property industry.

The idea was simple — take some risk to further the career. Life had other plans. The company went into administration.

The next move wasn’t upwards. It was almost two steps backwards. But sometimes you do what you have to do. So the candidate took the role, put the head down and did the grind again for another two years. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much career progression available.

Eventually, they hit a snag. Career wasn’t moving. Motivation wasn’t there. And there was no real idea where any of this was heading.

For various reasons, the candidate finally decided: Enough is enough. They resigned. And started looking for a job full-time.

That’s where our conversation yesterday became really interesting for me.

The candidate said something that I’ve known as a recruiter for years, but hearing someone actually experiencing it made it real again.

Looking for a job when you have a job is very different from looking for a job when finding a job IS your job.

When you’re employed, you can browse. Apply here and there. Have an interview. If it doesn’t work out, you go back to work tomorrow.

But when you’ve resigned? Every application feels different. Every rejection feels different. Every day without progress feels different.

And strangely, all that pressure eventually forced the candidate to ask a question they probably hadn’t seriously asked for some time: What do I actually want to do?

Not: “What job can I get?” But: What role do I want? What industry? What kind of company? What part of finance actually interests me? What am I genuinely passionate about?

And slowly, something that had probably been buried underneath years of simply making the next career move started coming back. Direction.

I don’t think resigning without another job is something everyone should do. For many people, it would be completely the wrong decision.

But this conversation reminded me that careers can sometimes become a sequence of moves. First job → better job → promotion → setback → another job → keep going. Until one day you realise you’ve been moving for years… but haven’t stopped to ask whether you’re still moving in the direction you actually want to go.

Maybe a career setback isn’t always the end of the road. Sometimes it’s the first time in years you’ve had a reason to look at the map.

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