Here’s a line from a current job opening at Microsoft: “you’ll partner across the People Analytics team to build and test GitHub Copilot skills that encode analytical methods.”
You spent a long time becoming an expert in exactly this kind of niche skill set. Inside your company, people more or less understand what you do. But your parents don’t, and neither do your friends. Over the years you learned to simplify, saying things like “I’m in marketing” or “I write software”. The shorthand works as long as you’re in the role. Once you leave, it stops working.
What happens when you leave your company, and your status and identity leave with it?
The Status Was Never Really Yours
People inside giant companies share a language. You have a general understanding of what “project manager 3” means, and you know the acronyms and code names unique to your organization. And in turn, people in the company know you. Your level and who your skip-skip manager is all convey that your job, and you, help keep the system running. After a few promotions, you feel like a big fish, without realizing how small and specific the pond is.
Your title meant something at your company, though it could mean something completely different elsewhere. I, for example, am the CEO of my company of one. I could technically go out in the world and introduce myself as a CEO, and each person I talk to would bring their own definition.
It takes a while to realize that the status you enjoyed inside the company was borrowed from a corporate system. You walked into a meeting as the general manager of the group, and people deferred to you automatically. All you had to do was show up. Even if you worked hard for that title, you also benefited from not having to earn trust from each person you met.
Now, saying “I used to be GM, Server and Tools” at a dinner party will be met with blank stares.
What You Lose Along With the Job
A few things walk out the door with you, starting with the identity you got from the role itself. That identity might be so strong that it blended with your personality. You didn’t work as a marketing lead, you were a marketing lead. The social and financial status you got also takes a hike. And then you then discover that few people on the outside ever understood what you did or why it mattered. You’ll meet people who have never heard of your company, or who think that what it does is fundamentally terrible.
At my last office job I had a fancy title that made me look important, even if I spent most of my time sending emails and going to meetings. Saying what I did and where I did it got me nods of approval. Then I left, and my protective cover was gone. A few months later, I recall overhearing my husband tell his friends what I was up to: “she’s figuring it out” or “she’s taking some classes.” Ugh, kill me now.
The Exposure of Not Having a Title
Leaving is where the hiding ends. Without the tidy descriptor of your place in the world, you might feel uncomfortably exposed. That exposure might kick off an internal reckoning. Why did I spend so much time working on a product I never believed in? My job wasn’t even real. A doctor – that’s a real job. A landscaper. Should I work with my hands? Was my whole career BS? Am I even a good person?
That’s a normal spiral, though maybe not the best use of your emotional energy.
In the middle of all that, you have to deal with other humans. You might say you’re on sabbatical, which people will tolerate for a minute and then suggest that you should maybe stop dithering with your time and be useful. What are you going to do next, they ask. Are you retired now? Because they secretly yearn to also leave their jobs, their jealousy transmits as criticism and you end up feeling shame about your post-corporate recovery time. You have no answers, and that leaves you standing in an identity black hole where your title used to be.
What You’re Actually Afraid Of
It’s odd that the people who feel so certain, so relieved about walking out of their job for the last time then panic about how to define themselves. That job burnt you to a crisp. You long ago stopped believing in the company’s mission and you were bone-tired from managing teams. Now, without a title, you’re just – what – a person? What is legible about you?
A lot of people run through scenarios in their heads where they have to prove their worth to a stranger in five words or less. With that kind of imagined pressure, of course you’re going to panic.
You had an entire career with an easy shorthand at your side. Corporate job titles bring proof of your competence, and your successful adulting. Without it, you may feel like a mouth that goes around consuming things. That shame can feel confusing, and it makes sense. The title was doing a lot of work for you.
What Survives When the Title Doesn’t
I could not accurately explain the jobs of any of my corporate-employed friends. Your friends didn’t understand your job, and none of them are judging you based on what you do for a living.
And on the flip side, I bet you’d still love your friends if they quit or changed careers. So why are you so hard on yourself for doing the same thing? Instead of judging yourself using the voice of a critical parent or that awful teacher from high school, what would happen if you tried to be your own friend? Do your friends a solid and listen to them, especially the ones who have been encouraging you to get out of there for a long time.
As you float through this limbo zone after leaving the job, no title to hold on to, no plan crystallizing before you, it can help to spend time with people who never knew or cared what you did for work.
When you’re feeling brave, ask this to a few people who know you well: how would you introduce me to a stranger?
Related episodes
How to Explain Your Career Pivot Story
Staying on the Emotional Payroll
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