Fear of changing job

May 30, 2012 3:28 AM

Fear of changing job, due to comfort level at present job. More details inside..

Hi, I have been working as an IT Finance professional with a mid sized Consultancy company from past 12 years in India. It was a startup when I started. I am at a point that I really want to leave my job and move on to an IT company specifically in NYC.
One of the reasons I stuck to this company for so long was opportunities to travel and work abroad (mostly NYC and London in this case).
I spent about 5 years in NYC, and had to eventually come back to Delhi due to my Work visa (H1-B) getting expired. Now it is extended again, but no work opportunity from present company to get transferred back.

The problem is that I have been so long with this company, that I am not very confident to change my job, and dread updating my resume which I have not done for so long. Iam just an undergraduate with few IT professional certificates, and work experience.
As a result I keep procastinating updating my resume, and posting it to a job site or passing it on to my friends.

How do I get away from this fear of change.?

posted by jassi to Work & Money (4 answers total)

I am just an undergraduate with few IT professional certificates,

That is the root of your problem, and fear. In changing jobs, you have a very specific desire: To move to NYC. We can consider that a dream of yours. And living your dreams requires taking risks, there is a chance you will succeed and a chance that you will not.

If you consider yourself to be just some dude with a college degree and some certifications, you're not selling yourself... to yourself.

How would it feel to say: "I am an educational professional with 12 years of experience taking a business from a startup to a going concern. I have 5 years of work experience across New York and London. Further, I have a competitive advantage, which is an H1-B visa that is ready to go."

If a dream seems challenging, it is often possible to underrate ourselves, because not succeeding can bring with it extreme disappointment. As you mentioned procrastination, procrastination is often living in the state of fantasy. Perhaps you love the idea of succeeding, you realise there is a chance of failure, thus you live in the middle, which is to continually dream about the dream.

Initially, this can be quite an exciting feeling, as you have a destination in mind, you don't feel ready to depart, thus you are making plans. After a period of fantasy without practical activity, frustration and fear set in. There is almost a prophecy, which is to escalate the dream to undeserved status, for you may have evaluated so many fears along the way, that you cannot see any way the the dream will actually become real.

Snap out of it man. You have all the tools you need to make a strong attempt. In fact, US employers are struggling to get H1-B candidates at the moment. The fact you have the visa is a huge step in the right direction.

As far as the CV, remember, whether you get to New York or not is not dependent on the CV. The CV is not the job. The CV is only designed to result in a phone call. If you were to walk to Mumbai and thought of it as a journey of 2,000,000 steps, it would be daunting and you would not go. If you consider it a walk of 55 days, it sounds a bit more manageable. If you said, I'm going to walk for two months, that's even easier. And if you said, I'm going to walk for the day, well, you're already on your way.

Do the CV. If it helps, use LinkedIn and print out a PDF. That's becoming increasingly more common.

NYC is waiting for you man. Go get it.
posted by nickrussell at 3:49 AM on May 30, 2012 [9 favorites]

nickrussell is right on. I can tell you from experience that my regrets are the things I was too afraid to do, not the risks I take that don't work out the way I thought they would. Work on your resume -- do a brain dump of all the things you've done and have that as a master copy, then pair it down and tailor it to include keywords that are in each job ad you're responding to. Believe that you can do this and that it will happen for you to help give you the momentum to push through the hard things. Just break them down what you need to do into manageable steps, sell the hell out of yourself and just go.
posted by Kimberly at 5:25 AM on May 30, 2012

I just heard on the news today that IT professionals are in short supply (so are welders, but that's a whole other kettle of fish).

Get on Monster, LinkedIn and Career Builder and just start searching for jobs that fit your interests and skills.

One thing you say is that you're "just" an undergraduate. Who cares?!? A lot of IT guys here just have the professional certification, in most cases no one in the US will give two cares about your education. (That's more of a British thing.) You have a degree, check the box and move on.

You sound like someone who has awesome skills and your visa is current. Start looking and see where it takes you.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:07 AM on May 30, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks a lot. This is very motivating to read. I will do my best to implement it.
posted by jassi at 7:31 AM on May 30, 2012