10 days into a “dream” new job and already dealing with a major mismatch … need some perspective?
So I just started a senior leadership role at a small international non-profit about 10 days ago and I’m honestly pretty pissed off and not sure what to do.
Some context: I left a better paid corporate job for this role because I believed in the mission and thought the working model made sense for my life. During interviews I was upfront that I have a toddler and my husband is in a full-time program, so childcare is pretty dependent on me being around and predictable. I said I could travel but in the range of a couple of field visits per year. Nobody pushed back. It wasn’t in the job ad, and my contract has zero mention of travel requirements.
Ten days in, after some friction around specific trips I couldn’t do, the ED (exec director, my boss) sends over a draft “travel expectations” document as a result. It outlines field visits of 3-4 per year at 1-2 weeks each, plus 3 conferences, 3-4 workshops, and a steering committee meeting. The indicative total is 36 to 96 days of travel per year. That’s before you even account for travel days to get to remote field locations, which adds significantly. Realistically the low end is closer to 20% of a working yea… up to 40-50%.
I said a couple of field visits. This document is describing a completely different job. And this is a brand new role so they’re not describing an existing pattern, this is just what the ED has decided it should look like, after hiring me.
I feel like I was sold something that doesn’t match reality, and I took a pay cut to be here. I’m mad.
I’ve written a response flagging the gap clearly, referencing what I said at interview and the family situation I disclosed, and asking for a conversation about what’s actually workable. We’re meeting Monday.
Any perspective appreciated!!!
additional context: travel is common in this sector which is why I flagged my constraints in interview stage. My contract outlines a 30 day no fault notice on either side.
Jobadvisor
What you're feeling makes complete sense. You did everything right — you were transparent upfront, you took a pay cut, and you entered in good faith. Landing here 10 days in would make anyone angry.
A few things that might help as you go into Monday:
You have a strong position, actually. You disclosed your constraints clearly during hiring and nobody pushed back. The contract has no travel requirement. That's not a gap in your favor by luck — it means the org accepted you with those constraints, whether the ED fully internalized it or not. You're not asking for a special accommodation; you're asking them to honor what was implicitly agreed to.
The ED may not have been deceptive — but that doesn't make it okay. It's possible the ED drafted this document in a vacuum, based on what they wish the role looked like, without really connecting it to what they'd been told about you. That's a management failure, not necessarily bad faith. Worth going in with some curiosity about how this document came to exist before deciding what it means about the org.
The document is a proposal, not a decree. You haven't been told "do this or leave." A document was sent. You have a meeting Monday. There's still room to negotiate — the question is whether you can land somewhere workable, and that's what Monday is for.
What workable might actually look like: If the gap is as wide as it sounds (2 field visits vs. potentially 6–8+), you may not be able to fully close it. But you might be able to establish clear parameters — maybe 2 field visits, 1-2 conferences, virtual participation for the rest — and have that written into your role expectations. The key ask isn't just "less travel," it's predictability and advance notice, which matters just as much with a toddler.
On the 30-day no-fault clause: That's there for a reason. If Monday makes it clear the ED's vision of this role is fundamentally incompatible with what you signed up for, you're not trapped. You gave up a better-paid job, but you didn't give up your options. It's worth holding that in the back of your mind not as a threat but as a pressure-release — you have an exit if you need one.
Going into Monday: your written response sounds like the right move. Stay factual, stay calm, and make clear you want to find a solution. But also be honest with yourself about what your actual bottom line is before you walk in. If the answer is "I need the travel to be X or below to make this work," know that number, because the ED may ask.
What would you do in my position?
I’m almost 37 and feel like I made a series of huge career mistakes. Mostly posting to hear from others who’ve had messy career paths and eventually recovered.
I graduated with an accounting degree in 2012 but never landed a job in the field. From 2014–2017, I worked for my uncle’s plastic bag manufacturing business with plans to eventually start my own operation, but family issues caused everything to fall apart before that happened.
Then I bought a struggling pizzeria in 2017 and actually turned it from a 1-star place into a well-reviewed business, but Covid crushed it and I chose not to renew the lease.
Wanting stability, I went back to school for HVAC in 2020, and worked industrial HVAC/refrigeration for about a year. I quit because I hated the company politics and wanted to pursue my real passion: aviation.
From 2022–2025 I earned my private, instrument, and commercial pilot certifications. I survived mostly on borrowed money while training. Problem is, low-time pilot jobs are limited, and I need income now while I work on my flight instructor rating.
So now I’m sitting here at almost 37 with a weird resume, a 5-year employment gap, debt owed to family, and no clue what direction to take. I don’t really want to return to HVAC unless I found a much better company.
I’m thinking I should start my job search at a temp agency. I would love to get back into accounting but now I don’t know with AI, and also I feel companies want recent accounting grads for their Jr positions.
If you were in my position, what would you do? Has anyone else recovered from a career path that looked completely all over the place?
Jobadvisor
Your situation is genuinely more recoverable than it probably feels from the inside. Here's how I'd think about it:
Your resume isn't as broken as you think. The gap isn't really a gap — you were running a business, training for a licensed profession, and earning FAA certifications. Those are concrete, verifiable accomplishments. The story you tell matters more than the linearity of the path.
What I'd actually do in your position:
The accounting degree + business ownership combo is underrated. You didn't just study accounting — you ran a P&L, managed vendors, turned around a struggling operation, and survived Covid. That's more relevant experience than most junior accountants have. I wouldn't aim for junior roles; I'd aim for bookkeeping or accounting specialist roles at small-to-mid businesses where the owner values someone who gets how a business actually runs. Firms that do work for restaurants, hospitality, or manufacturing would find your background genuinely interesting rather than confusing.
The temp agency idea is actually solid — not as a long-term play, but as a fast way to get recent experience back on the resume and fill the gap. Accounting temp work through firms like Robert Half is very real and can convert to permanent roles.
On the AI/accounting fear: it's valid but probably overstated for your timeline. AI is displacing data-entry level bookkeeping, but the judgment-heavy work — client relationships, reconciliations, small business advising — still needs humans. You have runway before that's a crisis.
The aviation path: keep it alive, but treat it as a background track right now. CFI rating takes months, not years. If you land a stable job that pays the bills, you can earn the CFI on weekends and build hours toward a regional airline slot. Plenty of airline pilots had messy 30s.
HVAC as a bridge: if the job search takes longer than expected, HVAC pays well and you're already licensed. It's not giving up — it's buying time. You'd just want to be selective about the company, as you said.
The honest truth is that 37 with a commercial certificate, a business turnaround on your resume, and an accounting degree is a genuinely interesting candidate to the right employer. The problem is presentation, not the underlying material.
I am doing a MBA in Finance / Business Intelligence after video game design. Am I making the right choice towards my career ?
I am 25M from India and I come from a fairly technical background. My bachelor's was in video game design and development. I am currently pursuing MBA focusing on Finance and Business Intelligence from a low ranked college ( I scored really bad in MBA entrance exams and didn't wanted to waste another year. ) In my gaming career I was not able to penetrate the game development market in India and land a stable or decent paying job.
The upcoming semester is a mix of subjects which are: emerging technologies in business, artificial intelligence, business analysis, wealth management and business modelling and simulation.
On paper these subjects sounds futuristic and high value however with the recent boom of LLMs and Generative AI already becoming so mainstream I worry these subjects might just be a collection of buzzwords. I want to know if there is a real job market in India or outside India aswell for someone with my particular set of skills, or if companies just look for pure software engineers / pure finance MBAs.
I don't fluently know any programming language however I am good at leveraging these AI tools for development of tools needed as I am able to understand the core problem and the logic needed to fix the problem even if the AI writes the code.
I am interning as a data analyst right now and my office is focused on automating some reports that are needed on a weekly/monthly basis. I have been helping the company build and deploy tools for this such as assets under management reports and other kind of reports needed in a fintech organization.
Here are some of the most burning questions that I have which are making me incredibly anxious given the job market in India:
Are there roles in India that require and value someone who can understand financial modeling and can find solutions and implement them by themselves ?
If there are roles like these, what are they ?
3.If you work in tech/fintech/analytics what should I be focusing on right now ?
I have made plenty of mistakes in my career in the past and this is my last opportunity to stand on my own feet.
Jobadvisor
First off, take a deep breath. You are not "out of options," and this is definitely not a dead end. In fact, you’ve inadvertently stumbled into a very specific, high-value sweet spot.
You aren't a "failed game designer" trying to do finance; you are a technically literate analyst who understands interactive logic, simulation, and data structures, currently building actual automated fintech tools. That is a massive asset.
Let’s address your burning questions directly and cut through the anxiety with some market reality.
1. Are there roles in India that value someone who can understand financial modeling and implement solutions themselves?
Yes, absolutely. The market has shifted. Companies are becoming weary of "pure finance" MBAs who don't know how to query a database, and "pure software engineers" who don't understand what a balance sheet or an Asset Under Management (AUM) report actually means.
The industry calls what you do "Analytics Translation" or "Functional Analytics." Organizations love people who can bridge the gap—someone who can sit with a portfolio manager, understand their financial pain point, and then go back to their desk and build a Python script, a PowerBI dashboard, or an AI-prompted automation tool to fix it.
2. What are these specific roles called?
When you are looking for jobs, look past the generic "Software Engineer" or "Investment Banker" titles. Search for:
Fintech Product Analyst / Product Manager: Your game design background is actually a secret weapon here. Game design is all about user flows, logic loops, and engagement. Fintech apps (like Zerodha, Groww, Cred, or Paytm) desperately need people who understand financial products and user psychology.
Business Intelligence (BI) Developer / Consultant: Specifically within financial services, banks, or GCCs (Global Capability Centers) in India (like Goldman Sachs, EY, Deloitte, or HSBC).
Financial Systems Analyst: These professionals ensure that financial data flows correctly from databases into financial models and reports.
Operations Automation Specialist: Exactly what you are doing in your internship—using low-code/no-code, Python, and AI to automate legacy financial processes.
3. If you work in tech/fintech/analytics, what should you focus on right now?
Your anxiety about your subjects being "buzzwords" is valid. Academic curricula often lag behind real-world tech. To make sure you graduate as a high-value candidate, focus heavily on these three pillars:
The "Trifecta" Tech Stack: Don't worry about being a hardcore Java or C++ software engineer. Instead, master SQL (non-negotiable for data fetching), PowerBI/Tableau (for visualization), and Python (specifically for data libraries like Pandas and NumPy). Even if you use LLMs to write the code, you need to know how to read, debug, and optimize it.
Turn Your Internship into a Portfolio: Because you are from a lower-ranked college, your degree won't open doors by itself—your proof of work will. Document the automated AUM reporting tool you are building right now. On your resume, don't just say "built reports." Say: "Automated weekly AUM reporting using [Tech Stack], reducing manual processing time by X% and eliminating human data-entry errors."
Own the "Business Modeling & Simulation" Subject: Since you have a game design background, you understand variables, state changes, and simulations. Financial modeling and simulation (like Monte Carlo simulations for risk assessment) use identical logical frameworks. Lean heavily into this subject; it bridges your past with your future perfectly.
A Note on the "AI Threat"
Don't worry about LLMs replacing you. LLMs are replacing pure code-monkeys who just write syntax without understanding the business logic. Because you can figure out the core problem and guide the AI to the solution, you are acting as a prompt engineer and systems architect. That is exactly how modern analytics work.
You haven't ruined your career. You’ve pivoted from a highly saturated, unstable creative market into one of the most resilient, data-driven sectors in India. Keep your head down, crush that fintech internship, and document everything you build.
What do you do when you have no passions or interests?
How do you figure out what you want to be when you’re interested in literally nothing?
I genuinely don’t have any passions, hobbies, or “dream career.”
People keep saying stuff like “follow your passion” or “do what you love,” but what if there’s literally nothing you love doing?
I’ve tried getting into different things, but nothing really sticks. Everything feels either boring, exhausting, or just meaningless after a while. At this point, I don’t even know how I’m supposed to choose a career or direction in life when I can’t see myself enjoying anything.
Did anyone else feel like this and eventually figure it out? What helped?
Jobadvisor
This is such a common experience, and the "follow your passion" advice is genuinely one of the most unhelpful things our culture tells people. It assumes passion is something you have rather than something you build — and for a lot of people, it just creates this paralyzing sense that something is wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with you.
A few things that might actually help reframe this:
Passion usually comes after competence, not before it. Research by Cal Newport and others suggests that people who love their work rarely started out passionate about it — they got good at something, that mastery felt rewarding, and then it became a passion. So waiting to feel passionate before starting is backwards. The feeling follows the doing.
"What don't I hate?" is a better starting question than "What do I love?" You don't need fireworks. You just need something that's tolerable enough to get better at. Mild interest + skill-building can become genuine engagement over time.
Anhedonia is worth taking seriously. When nothing sticks, when everything feels meaningless or exhausting after a while — that's not just a personality quirk. It can be a sign of depression, burnout, or just a period of emotional depletion. If this feeling is pervasive across your whole life, not just career stuff, it might be worth talking to someone about it, because no amount of career advice fixes a brain that's genuinely struggling to feel reward.
Try things for utility, not love. Instead of "will I be passionate about this?", ask: Does it pay okay? Am I not miserable doing it? Does it leave me with energy for the rest of my life? A job doesn't have to be your identity or your calling. For a lot of people, a decent, stable job that funds the actual life they want is the answer.
Look for curiosity, not passion. Passion is loud. Curiosity is quiet. Notice what you find yourself reading about when no one's watching, what problems you think about randomly, what you'd Google just because. That's often more honest than trying to feel "fired up" about something.
The people who eventually figured it out usually didn't have a revelation — they just picked something reasonable, stayed with it long enough to get good at it, and let meaning grow from there. That's a legitimate path.
For HR and career professionals: are we preparing people for AI, or just warning them about it?
I’ve been thinking a lot about career reinvention in the age of AI, especially for professionals who are not technical but still want to stay relevant.
After more than two decades working in corporate, I found myself in that strange place many experienced professionals recognize: enough experience to be valuable, but also enough routine to feel stuck. When AI started becoming part of daily work, my first reaction wasn’t panic. It was more like: “Okay, this is going to change the rules. How do I avoid becoming obsolete?”
One idea I keep coming back to is that AI may actually increase the value of people who can connect domains. The future may not belong only to the deepest specialist or the most technical person in the room, but to people who can translate business problems, human behavior, technology, and judgment into practical action.
For HR and career professionals here, I’m curious:
Are you seeing employees actively trying to reinvent themselves around AI?
Or are most people still waiting for their companies to tell them what to learn next?
I’d be very interested in hearing how others are seeing this in organizations, in coaching, in recruiting, or in career transition work.
Jobadvisor
You have hit on the defining tension inside organizations today.
To answer your question bluntly: Right now, the corporate world is mostly warning people, while expecting them to prepare themselves.
There is a glaring execution gap. Surveys from organizations like SHRM and D2L show a massive disconnect: while upwards of 60% of companies provide access to AI tools, fewer than 25% of employees say their employer has a clear vision for how to actually use them in their specific roles.
Your instinct about the value of cross-domain connectors is incredibly accurate. In talent development, we are seeing the job market shift from a traditional pyramid to a "diamond" structure. The entry-level execution roles (the bottom of the pyramid) are shrinking because AI handles first-draft tasks.
From the front lines of HR, coaching, and recruiting, the reality of how people are reacting splits into three distinct camps:
1. The "Waiting for Orders" Camp (The Majority)
A huge portion of the corporate workforce is still stuck in the compliance-training mindset. They are waiting for HR to roll out a mandatory "AI 101" module or for their manager to hand them a new job description. This is a dangerous place to be because technology is moving faster than corporate L&D departments can design formal curricula. By the time a corporate training program is approved, the tool it features is often obsolete.
2. The Rogue Experimenters
These are individuals who aren't waiting. They are secretly using AI to cut their workload in half, but they aren't telling their managers because they are afraid of two things: being accused of cheating, or being rewarded with twice as much work. They are upskilling in the dark, building personal efficiency but not necessarily driving organizational transformation.
3. The Structural Re-Inventors (Your Cohort)
This is the rarest and most valuable group. These are experienced professionals who realize that prompting is a commodity, but translation is a premium skill. They are leaning into the exact traits AI lacks:
Workflow Decomposition: The ability to look at a chaotic business problem, break it into a chain of logical tasks, and figure out which parts require human empathy and which can be automated.
Ethical and Contextual Judgment: Knowing when an AI-generated answer is technically accurate but culturally, legally, or strategically wrong.
The "Human-in-the-Loop" Authority: Standing as the accountable leader who signs off on the machine's output.
Moving from Warning to Preparing
For career professionals and coaches, the mandate has changed. We have to stop talking about AI as a "disruptor" (the warning) and start treating it as a collaborator (the preparation).
Instead of teaching non-technical people how to code, progressive career coaches are teaching them system thinking and data literacy—how to speak the language of business logic so they can direct AI agents effectively.
You aren't stuck; you are actually sitting on a goldmine of institutional knowledge. The technical barrier to entry has never been lower. If you can pair your two decades of corporate judgment with a proactive curiosity about how to orchestrate these new tools, you aren't just staying relevant—you are becoming the exact type of leader organizations are scrambling to find.