What To Do When Your Current Role is Your Greatest Stress

Paul Halsall

Red Tiger Consulting

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This blog post follows my previous on on spotting the signs of stress, and looks at exploring your current role to see if that the reason behind your stress. I also cover advice on what to look for in a new role if you do decide to move on. In my opinion, we all want that good (but supported) stress where it is motivational rather than limiting your performance, but too much stress can have a negative impact on your overall wellbeing.

current role stress - 10 tips to destress
10 Tips for Dealing with Stress

Work out what (and if) it is stress in the current role

It can be very difficult to work out what is wrong in your current role, or even whether your stress is caused by your current role or external/personal factors. As a recruiter, it would be easy for me to say “just go and change your role”, but this is not always the best solution.

The difficulty is that given modern pressures in life, it is very hard to find the time and the breathing space to work out what the problem is. This is where investing in a coach may be a good route to give you the framework to help get towards some answers – do get in touch with us if you are interested in some coaching, you can visit our Coaching page to book a free clarity session.

What can you do to resolve issues in your current role?

If you have worked out that the stress you are feeling is from your current role, it is well worth taking the time to write down what it is exactly that is causing that stress. It may only come down to a few big influences or a compilation of many small factors. If it is multiple things, try and rank them in some sort of order of what is giving you the most stress.

Then, write down next to each issue what you can realistically do about it. If you can cover some resolutions on a few of your top stresses, set up an action plan to manage these and then give a role time to see if it can improve from implementing your plan.

Many issues do tend to come down to line management – these are not always beyond the realms of change, but quite often it is very difficult to resolve. This can depend on the relationship you have with your line manager as well as the sort of personality they are too.

How to know it is time to move on

This is difficult and almost impossible to know 100% that it is time to move on. What I would say is that you have gone through the above process and you are not making any progress (again it is hard to set a time limit on this) then it is time to move on.

What to look for when moving elsewhere

We always advise that it is worth being in a role whilst looking for a new one (so please do not just quite your job and then look). Make sure you do take your time and do your research to find out if another company and role is right for you.

Here are some tips on how to try and make the right choice:

  • When speaking to recruiters i.e. us, be honest (in strict confidence) with what it is that is making you want to move on. We will have an honest conversation with you about the role we see fit for you and how it can relieve the stress you have been experiencing. Believe it or not it is in our interest to keep candidates that we place in roles.
  • Do some research on the culture of the organisation you are about to join – this is very important to make sure that your beliefs are aligned to the new organisation’s culture.
  • If you get an interview, make sure you think of it as not just them assessing you but also you are assessing them as a company.
  • Be careful on using the glass door for a full view of what it is like working somewhere – people do like to moan and are more likely to put negative comments than positive comments on there. So either you trust your recruiter on their view and/or you maybe find someone who works there/has worked there for their view? One client of mine as a final stage (when they know they want to offer the role), allows candidates to meet one of the team for an informal chat about what it is like to work there – this is a great touch!

So if you are thinking of moving on and you work in the areas of Location Planning, Property Research/Insight, Consumer Insight, GIS or Economic Research then do get in touch with us. It is worth a 20 minute chat where you have no obligation to go for a role if you don’t feel it fits what you want (we only want to put candidates forward that will be happy in a role and are 100& committed to getting it).

For more resources on the causes of stress and stress management:


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Published by Paul Halsall

Paul is an experienced head hunter, data and insight specialist, trainer and coach. His experience lies in Location Planning and Mapping but more recently within Business Management, working internationally on a variety of accounts.

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