Turning My Worst Mistake into a Career Opportunity

In this series, professionals share all the right — and wrong — ways to leave a job. Follow the stories here, and write your own (please include #IQuit somewhere in the body of your post).

Not many realise this but Chelsea Football Club’s manager Jose Mourinho and I have something in common. We both returned to a previous employer, after taking a job elsewhere. This isn’t unusual and there are plenty of people who have realised leaving their previous employer was a huge mistake.

According to a study published in Personnel Psychology, employees who return to a company after leaving voluntarily can make up to 20 per cent of that company’s new hires. The report examines how and why these people left, and states that “these boomerangs can be a valuable staffing resource to their organisation”.

For me, it was simply about naiveté. I joined Accenture in 1987 right out of University and started working on system design and programing work for our clients. After three years, I saw my friends starting to move to new jobs and roles, making me feel a bit restless. I thought that as it was my first job, three years seemed to be a reasonable time to look around. As I was attracted to marketing, which always seemed to be exciting to me, I managed to land a role as head of marketing at a financial newspaper.

Then, as now, I soon realised how naive I was, taking all the great things in my first job for granted. By that I mean the calibre of my colleagues who were clever, smart and collaborative, being able to avoid any politics and remaining focussed on the work in hand to ‘make stuff happen’ for clients. I assumed that every company was like that. After moving, I soon found out that wasn’t the case. I entered a new work environment where internal politics was the norm, exacerbated by complex governance structure that added instability at that specific time.

Having regrets on joining a new company is not unusual and you should give yourself time to consider the factors that might be making to feel this way, be it a lack of relationships or simply the change itself.

For me it was more fundamental than that. I experienced a controlling environment for the first time. By this I mean my boss wanted to make every single decision for me, I no longer had the autonomy that I had taken for granted at Accenture. So I decided to cut my losses, but wasn’t sure what to do. To cut a long story short, the partner who hired me was kind enough to offer me the chance to return, a second chance for which I am still grateful.

He and his team saw this period away as good experience, while returning gave me an opportunity to find a different role, this time working on strategy work for clients. So in hindsight I ended up getting a role that really suited me, helped considerably by my choice of retaining too relationships at Accenture. There are lots of ways in which people can make it impossible for an employer to consider rehiring them and so burning bridges really should be avoided when you resign from a job.

Wherever you are working, it is vital to find a role at a company where you are able to perform at your highest level. If you find that, cherish what you have and don’t take it for granted as the grass is not necessarily greener somewhere else. Before you resign from any job, take the time to reflect on what you have.