A recent national survey by CareerWallet found that 18% of jobseeker who accepted a new role immediately regret their decision.
The poll by the leading tech firm, who processes up to 10 million jobs a day across the UK, suggests the main reason for this change of heart is down to the unprofessional – and even aggressive – behaviour of management or that the salary is less that what was agreed at interview.
This just highlights the value of a good management team and how important transparency is to employees.
Craig Bines, CEO at The CareerWallet Group, commented, “At CareerWallet we process millions of jobs a day and this allows us to quickly see how the job market is being impacted on a daily basis.
Our national employee survey has highlighted how important it is for accurate job descriptions and complete transparency and honesty when recruiting new members of staff. It is a very competitive market, and it is a huge effort to recruit the right candidates at the moment and the last thing a business wants is for this person to leave quickly or disrupt the team because they feel they have been lied to during the recruitment process.”
It seems the same is happening across the pond too. Another survey, by the Harris Poll in the US, found that, a fifth of people who resigned during the pandemic regretted it when they realised it wasn’t their dream job.
LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher feels there’s some regret on both sides as both employees and employers may have moved too quickly.
“What happened is that these companies were really trying to fill vacant roles that had been sitting for a long time, so they shortcut the system,” she said.
She also stated that some workers were lured into new jobs by larger salaries but didn’t consider working conditions, culture, or ask the “right questions” during the recruitment process.
“It’s important to say, ‘I took this job, I didn’t ask all the right questions that I needed to, and what I’ve discovered during this three-month job that I had is this is actually what’s really important to me.”
Perhaps, in this new world of post-pandemic recruitment, jobseekers should be encouraged to be more self-reflective and honest about what they really need from a job to avoid regretting their choices later. Similarly, employers need to be more honest and open about their company’s culture and what’s on offer to ensure they hire, and retain, the best candidates.