Job Moves

Job Moves Plot Summary

Introduction

Alex sat at his kitchen table, head in hands. His manager had just announced that his department was relocating to another state, and remote work wasn't an option. After fifteen years with the company in a job he loved, Alex faced an impossible choice: uproot his family or find new employment. His wife's aging parents needed them nearby, making relocation impossible. Though not technically laid off, it felt that way—forced to leave a job he excelled at and cherished. When change arrives unexpectedly, most of us respond with anxiety and resignation. We believe companies hold all the cards in the employment relationship. But what if we flipped the script? What if, instead of seeing ourselves as passive job seekers waiting to be chosen, we recognized our power to "hire" our next employer? This paradigm shift transforms the job search from a desperate scramble into a deliberate journey toward progress. Whether you're feeling stuck, burned out, undervalued, or simply ready for your next challenge, understanding the deeper forces driving career transitions can help you make moves that align with your true priorities. By identifying what energizes you, cataloging your capabilities, and embracing necessary trade-offs, you can approach your next career move with clarity, confidence, and purpose.

Chapter 1: Understanding the Four Quests for Career Progress

Clara, a rehab technician in her late twenties, was feeling restless in her role at a physical therapy clinic. Having previously worked as a lab manager in Ireland, she'd moved to Colorado for this position but now found herself increasingly bored. Her days felt repetitive, and she wasn't learning anything new. Though she appreciated having time for rock climbing—her growing passion—she missed the intellectual challenge of her previous work. When Clara approached career advisors for guidance, her ideas about potential next steps were scattered. Perhaps she needed another degree? Maybe a completely different field? Without a clear understanding of what was driving her dissatisfaction, she risked jumping into another unfulfilling job. Through careful analysis of her situation, Clara discovered she wasn't simply bored—she was experiencing a fundamental misalignment between her capabilities and how they were being utilized. Her master's degree in neuroscience and research skills were sitting idle while she performed routine tasks that didn't challenge her intellectually. She was experiencing what the authors identify as the "Regain Alignment" quest. Research reveals that career transitions typically follow one of four distinct patterns or "quests." Those seeking to "Get Out" feel stuck in toxic environments with managers who drain their energy and block their progress. The "Regain Control" quest is driven by people who feel overwhelmed by work demands that leave little room for personal priorities. Those on the "Regain Alignment" quest, like Clara, feel their skills and credentials aren't properly valued or utilized. Finally, the "Take the Next Step" quest motivates those who have reached a milestone and seek greater responsibility or new challenges. Understanding which quest you're on provides crucial insight into what's truly driving your desire for change. It helps you look beyond surface-level explanations like "more money" or "better title" to identify the deeper forces propelling you toward your next move. By recognizing your quest, you gain clarity about what progress means for you at this particular moment in your career journey.

Chapter 2: Identifying Your Energy Drivers and Career Assets

Jacob, a content producer at a media company, approached career coaches with a troubling pattern: after just a couple years in each role throughout his career, he would find himself bored and disengaged. By the end of his tenure, he would drift through his day without purpose. A couple of employers had even laid him off as a result. When asked what energized him in his current role, Jacob needed time to reflect. After a couple weeks, he identified several things: hearing clients praise his work, finding creative ways to be efficient with budgets, creating win-win situations, and knowing his division supported company growth. When Jacob examined the patterns across his career, a revelation emerged. He enjoyed solving problems, developing novel efficiency solutions, and satisfying clients. He thrived in struggling companies that needed turnarounds—but once situations stabilized, he grew bored. He also realized he enjoyed having clear performance metrics, improving processes with existing resources, and working his way up from the bottom. Although this seemed obvious in retrospect, Jacob had never connected these dots before. Similar insights emerged for Avery, a software engineer who had been promoted to product manager. She was stressed by her team's constant demands for technical guidance while her managers pushed her to focus less on technical problem-solving and more on people management. By cataloging her capabilities—her "career balance sheet" of assets—she realized she needed to decide whether to continue investing in remaining a technical expert or to build her leadership skills instead. The key insight here is that your résumé tells only part of your story. By identifying what activities consistently energize or drain you across different roles, you can make more intentional choices about your next move. Energy drivers might include security, creativity, independence, making an impact, helping others, or creating new things. Common energy drains include lack of control over your time, unrealistic goals, office politics, excessive travel, or repetitive work. Similarly, by cataloging your professional assets and liabilities—your skills, knowledge, credentials, and experiences—you gain clarity about which capabilities you want to develop further and which you're willing to let depreciate. This balance sheet approach helps you make deliberate choices about your investments in yourself rather than drifting into roles that don't align with your long-term goals.

Chapter 3: Designing Your Future Through Prototyping

Alex, the product development manager who couldn't relocate, was eager to prepare his résumé and start applying for jobs immediately. Career advisors encouraged him to slow down and take a different approach: instead of rushing into applications, he should first create several "prototypes" of potential futures—ranging from managing product development at another company to starting his own business, working as a teacher, or even pursuing music professionally. This process of prototyping isn't about finding an actual job yet. It's about exploring contrasting visions of your future to expand your sense of what might constitute progress at this point in your career. For Alex, it was an opportunity to think beyond his immediate constraints and consider what kinds of roles might build on his skills while giving him the flexibility he needed. Clara also developed diverse prototypes—from science journalism to physician assistant work to rock climbing instruction. To test these prototypes against reality, she conducted informational interviews with people in these fields. When speaking with an emergency medicine physician assistant, she discovered that the role wouldn't allow for the ongoing patient relationships she valued. Through conversations with science writers, she learned about significant differences between freelance journalism and in-house writing positions. The prototyping approach borrows from product development, where designers create multiple rough mock-ups before committing to a final version. Just as over 90% of consumer products fail after launch when companies skip adequate testing, career moves often disappoint when job seekers rush to apply without exploring multiple options first. After creating diverse prototypes, you can evaluate them against your energy drivers and career assets. This convergence process helps you identify which one or two options best align with your quest for progress. Clara eliminated rock climbing and physician assistant roles from consideration, eventually focusing on in-house science writing as her preferred direction. This option would let her learn and be intellectually challenged while still maintaining flexibility for her outside interests.

Chapter 4: Navigating the Real Job Market with Clarity

With her preferred prototype in mind, Clara began exploring actual opportunities. She discovered that her LinkedIn network included an old college acquaintance who had worked at National Geographic. Through this connection and conversations with close friends and family members, she began building a network of people who could help her understand the science writing field. When an expedition coordinator position at National Geographic appeared in her search, Clara was initially excited. The role seemed perfect—combining her love of travel with opportunities to work with scientists. However, when she spoke with her acquaintance about the day-to-day reality of the job, she learned it would involve mostly purchasing tickets and handling logistics like airport pickups for travelers, with little intellectual challenge or scientific engagement. Although initially disappointed, Clara was grateful to have discovered this mismatch before switching jobs. By unpacking real job descriptions and comparing them to her energy drivers and assets, she avoided making a costly mistake. This illustrates a critical principle: there is no perfect job. Understanding this reality allows you to approach trade-offs not as "settling" but as empowering choices based on your priorities. An MBA graduate who had worked as a parts buyer at an automotive company went through a similar process. Interested in business strategy roles, she conducted interviews with managers in those positions to understand the realities behind vague job descriptions full of terms like "transformation" and "critical thinking." These conversations helped her determine whether these roles would provide the creativity, learning opportunities, and independence she sought. After exploring several internal strategy opportunities, she realized her top priority was security—a solid salary in a stable job not subject to the whims of a fickle manager or volatile market. This insight helped her make an intentional trade-off: although she had considered nonprofit work to help her community, she wasn't willing to sacrifice stability. Instead, she could pursue community work as a volunteer while maintaining financial security through her corporate role. This approach to job searching—learning before switching—minimizes unwelcome surprises and regrets. Rather than letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, you can make informed trade-offs that unlock the progress you want most at this stage of your career.

Chapter 5: Crafting Your Story and Making the Move

After going through the process of identifying his quest, clarifying his energy drivers, and prototyping potential futures, Alex had converged on an ideal role: a position within consumer products that would build on his current skills but allow more flexibility in how he worked. He began sharing this narrative with hiring managers in his company, explaining how he wanted to keep developing novel digital products in an agile way, but with the freedom to work remotely. As managers heard his story, some wondered how they might leverage Alex's capabilities. One manager in a different division even created a job that would allow him to work from home while coaching executives on agile product development. When his current manager heard about this offer, he called a time-out and asked Alex what he really wanted. After Alex shared his career story—including the trade-offs he was willing to make—his manager revealed that the department had been developing a cross-departmental role to build capabilities in agile innovation throughout the research and engineering group. This centralized position wouldn't require relocation and matched most of Alex's requirements. Though it would involve some travel and hybrid work, everything else he wanted was there. Crafting a compelling narrative about your career journey and desired future is a powerful tool for opening doors. One effective approach borrows from Pixar's storytelling structure, which follows a seven-part "story spine": 1. Once upon a time... 2. Every day... 3. One day... 4. Because of that... 5. Because of that... 6. Until finally... 7. And ever since that day... A firefighter used this structure to tell two interconnected stories: one about his past journey from unfulfilling work to a meaningful career in the fire service, and another about his aspiration to become a fire chief. This framework helped him articulate both where he'd been and where he wanted to go next, creating a coherent narrative that resonated with decision-makers. Your career story becomes the foundation for your "elevator pitch"—a concise statement about what you want to do next and why you're the person for a particular job. It shapes your résumé, cover letters, and interview responses. During interviews, you can leverage your story spine to answer common questions about overcoming challenges or achieving results, grounding each response in specific details from your past while connecting them to your future aspirations. The final step in making your move is creating a personal "cheat sheet"—a one-page guide that details how others can get the best out of you. This document summarizes your energy drivers and drains, your capabilities, and your working preferences. While initially for your own reference, it can also be shared judiciously with new colleagues to accelerate your integration into a team and ensure you're positioned to contribute effectively from day one.

Chapter 6: Supporting Others in Their Career Journeys

Joseph Carver, who leads leadership development at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, uses assessment tools to help people identify what quest they were on when they left a previous job. He focuses on why they left, especially if it was for negative reasons, so he can work to prevent the same issues under his leadership. During regular check-ins, he asks questions like, "What should I be doing to help you be more successful or give you more challenges? How can I help you stay engaged?" Carver recognizes that when team members have fulfilled their pulls and he can't offer ways for them to continue growing within their current role, it's better to have an upfront conversation about what's next rather than delay their inevitable departure. This approach prevents employees from stalling in their quests for progress and keeps the team from stagnating due to their loss of energy and productivity. The paradoxical idea—retaining top talent by setting them up to move on someday—makes many managers anxious. However, research shows this approach benefits everyone. Teams and organizations are on their own quests for progress, with missions to fulfill and results to deliver. By supporting team members in their quests, managers increase the likelihood that employees will "rehire" their team each day, as long as their quests remain mutually reinforcing. Forward-thinking organizations are embedding career development conversations into their culture. IDR Solutions, a UK software company, incorporates discussions about what motivates employees and what might cause them to leave into development and review processes. This approach lets workers have less emotional, more productive conversations about what's blocking their progress and enables managers to "pre-empt people leaving for the wrong reasons." Human resources departments can collaborate with managers to systematize support for employee progress in several ways: helping employees identify their quests during onboarding, teaching them to craft compelling career stories, making personal cheat sheets an organizational tool, designing roles around real people rather than rigid job descriptions, and prioritizing long-term development over short-term gains. The goal isn't just retention at all costs—it's creating an environment where both individuals and organizations can thrive by aligning their respective quests for progress. Sometimes this means supporting valuable team members as they pursue opportunities elsewhere, recognizing that boomerang hires and positive alumni relationships can benefit everyone in the long run.

Summary

The transformative insight at the heart of career development is that you are not merely a job seeker waiting to be chosen—you are hiring your next employer. By understanding the deeper forces driving your desire for change, you can make intentional moves that align with your true priorities rather than drifting into roles that look impressive on paper but fail to deliver the progress you seek. The nine-step process outlined in this journey—from identifying your quest to prototyping possible futures to crafting your career story—empowers you to approach career transitions with unprecedented clarity. Whether you're seeking to escape a toxic environment, regain control over your time, find better alignment between your skills and your role, or take your next step after reaching a milestone, understanding your motivations allows you to make deliberate choices rather than reactive moves. And as Clara, Alex, and many others discovered, sometimes the perfect next job isn't what you initially imagined, but rather a thoughtfully chosen role that delivers the specific type of progress you need at this particular moment in your career. Each career journey involves trade-offs—there is no perfect job that maximizes every possible benefit. But by knowing which energy drivers and capabilities matter most to you right now, you can embrace these trade-offs as empowering choices rather than disappointing compromises. This mindset shift transforms job searching from an anxiety-inducing ordeal into a purposeful quest, one where you're fully equipped to learn before switching, negotiate from a position of strength, and ultimately find fulfillment in work that helps you become who you want to be.

About Author

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Ethan Bernstein

Ethan Bernstein is the Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches the Developing Yourself as a Leader and Managing Human Capital courses. He spent five years at The Boston Consulting Group in Toronto and Tokyo and two years in executive positions at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington DC, including Chief Strategy Officer and Deputy Assistant Director of Mortgage Markets. He currently serves as a board member of Protocol Labs and ModuleQ. Originally from Los Angeles, he earned his AB in Economics at Amherst College and his doctorate in management at Harvard, where he also received a JD/MBA.

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