Help please - feeling inferior...

[LadyShirazz]

My first started thread so please be gentle.

6 weeks ago I started at a Big 4 consultancy in quite a niche area (not Audit, Tax etc).

This was a big move for me - I'm 32 and had spent the last 8 years within a dot.com company, most recently managing my own team in said niche area (i.e. not a consultant before). I felt at the stage where I wanted a new challenge, and was amazed to even land an interview with this company, let alone a job - plus sizable pay rise. .

I expected to have a difficult transition period, knowing that these companies can be quite demanding and have high expectations of new joiners, plus adapting to a consultancy environment, different corporate culture etc etc, but felt like the role would offer me the chance to learn a lot about my industry and the name on the CV would be good as well.

But now I feel like I've made a MASSIVE mistake.

I feel in waaaaaaaaay over my head and vastly inferior to all these bright young things (until now, I thought I was a reasonably high achiever), and am getting very little help or support from anyone - my director is a genius (truly!) but doesn't really seem to do "listening" or "support" when it comes to people under his management.

Workwise, I feel between a rock and a hard place - either I am sitting doing nothing, or being thrown into things I'm not equipped to do. I feel like I'm either playing in the paddling pool or being chucked in the deep end, IYSWIM - no one is helping me swim at all! The bits and pieces of work I've done so far have got some positive feedback, but that's quite small fry stuff really.

I hate all this emphasis on "networking" and "building yourself as a brand" - I can't bear networking (am quite shy) and have to force myself to do it each time! And all the buzzwords ("granularity", "boiling the ocean" etc) that people here use in a non-ironic sense . And am dreading the day they throw me in at the deep end in front of a client, and I end up making a total tit of myself for total lack of any training (none at all - bar generic induction) or clue what I'm doing here...

I feel like I need to make it a year here for this to be for any greater good and not look a quitter on my CV, but there's a nagging voice saying to start looking again and get the hell out as soon as possible...

I guess this is less of an AIBU and more a plea for a bit of objective advice. I know I am lucky to have landed a job like this, but in all honesty I'm wondering now whether for the first time I have bitten off more than I can chew here....

Thanks myotherusername - plan at the moment is to survive the year, and move on.

Client taking a shine would be a dream scenario. I am still umming and ahhing about whether or not to contact HR from the other non-consultancy role I was offered on the same day as the Big 4 one (I wasn't inundated with offers, btw, just like buses - two good ones come along at once). Only pride and the expectation that role will be filled by now is what's stopping me.

They may not want to promote me anyway after this one!

Glad it's not just me then Billy!

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has posted so far - you have made a big difference in one person's life!

Please keep the "feedback" coming :)

Six weeks is a horrible stage in a new job. New enough to feel overwhelmed, but not new enough to expect to feel incompetent still. Please wait till 12 weeks and see how you feel then - I'd bet you'll feel COMPLETELY different.

PS wtf does "boiling the ocean" mean?!

Well, you can network in different ways - Linked In, thru existing friends or friends of friends or old colleagues etc etc. Not sure re the contacting another team's manager if you want/need expertise tho, I would if i didnt know the team at all but if i had been there a while and knew them/what they did, then direct with the person who can help is fine/quicker/perfectly ok, more 'networking/relationship building' IYSWIM...than asking their manager's 'permission'. If they arent quite the right fit, they refer you to a colleague who is.

The person you have met once or twice somewhere, may not have the skills or knowledge that you need at the time, but it doesnt mean he wont know someone who does. And, he might come in useful in the future for something else even if he cant help now. Thats networking!

Are you sure this job is for you? Oh and for I dont know what projects are going on around me .. have you got a Company intranet , they always have latest new projects and latest Press/PR re old and new projects.

Boiling the ocean = boiling my piss, but bigger :)

No am not at all sure, Sazzle!

Hence the post...

Now I'm here, I've little choice but to give it a year - minimum six months - and then likely move on.

Anything less and it'll look like I can't hack it.

Which evidently I can't.

But don't want anyone else to know that...

Read the book, give yourself more time to find your feet, then decide.

Best of luck.

WHAT BOOK??? THERE'S A BOOK??? WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THE BOOK???????

@ what book?
Are you not on a project yet? Of they can't assign you yet can you read around possible sectors? So if they're all pitching for white goods or financial or public sector read up up on recent developments- at least you'll have something to do and something to talk about.

I am on "bits and pieces" of projects.

Apparently getting on a proper project is half the battle at these places...

I have never worked at a big4 but a lot of my close circle of friends have (I can tick them all off). What you're describing is not unusual at all, so don't worry. Give yourself more time to settle in and get busier - things will even out. But also make your concerns about support heard - this seems to be a problem in the big4 as far as I can tell as an outsider - and a big cause of stress and anxiety. Try to make sure your own experience isn't marred by that.

The one thing I have picked up on in what you've said is that you don't really want to progress up from your current grade. Unfortunately, and I'm sure you realise this, you will be pressured to move up the ladder as this is how their recruitment and retention policy works. The better title you have the more they can charge for your work and almost certainly the more profitable you become - you get a decent pay rise but your charge out rate goes up to a greater degree.

Ask if there is a resourcing person or someone responsible for operations within your team /division. There is usually someone who has oversight of the current projects and proposals.
Ask a colleague if there is a database or directory of team CVs or statements of experience. This could help you to see how your colleagues articulate their experience and may help you to do the same with yours.

Lovely, there is so much bs out there in corporate world. Relax! The most intelligent, highly rated, well thought of professional I know (who won't even go on linked in as doesn't want the hassle) is a massive introvert, yet hugely well thought of by people whose names you'd regularly read about in the business pages of national newspapers, and is thoroughly well liked and thought of by everyone who has ever worked with her. And she has told me that even she thinks one day people will 'find her out'.

Half of business is chutzpah. I well remember sitting in a meeting once and saying 'but why don't we just blah blah', which was immediately followed by the company's shit hot £600 per hour lawyer saying, at great length, 'have you considered blah blah?' Which was, pretty much, word for word, what I'd just said. I looked at him like 'wtaf?, I just said that, did you not think the others heard?!', but it's having th eballs to say it!

Be yourself, no one, but no one, apart from arses who have no fucking idea what they're talking about, uses corporate crap speak.

Failing which, of course, pick some low hanging fruit, try not to boil oceans, employ a few game changers, and reach out to colleagues... As for networking, alas that is important, and shit if you're shy, but I find it helpful to try and relate to people on individual levels, try to get to know them, find something to like about them, and it gets a bit easier, because you can find something to genuinely relate to.

As pp have said, you got the job because you have the skills, you just have to believe in yourself and not be daunted by the bullshit!

The book you've ordered from Amazon

In a year you will look back at this and see how far you've come. Most people feel this way when they start there if they haven't been there before. You will get through the anxiety.

You're probably a breath of fresh air amidst all the bullshit.

I'm a totally different sector but am also a massive introvert who has wandered into quite a 'peopley' role and struggles with the networking bit. You can fake what you need but don't worry if you don't throw yourself into the social side, the work output is ultimately what matters. I find it easier to develop lots of 1-1 relationships my own way than do the group networky bollocks.