To me, this helpless state of crisis feels like a glitch in the system that opened up a new realm of lies, deception, promises and bullshittery in the corporate world (too).
Survival mode to us is the garden of Eden for capitalists. While we’re trying to find and hold on to driftwood and save ourselves from drowning, employers have more access to talent and more leverage to push down prices than ever before. Our Maslowian pyramids are shaken from the bottom up, pushing out our tolerance levels to comedic heights.
A few months ago, I applied for a management consulting gig. One of the partners saw my CV and wanted to talk about roles they could put me forward for. Sounds promising, right? But let me reveal the punchline: weeks of meetings, free labor and various versions of an imagined future later there’s still no offer on the table.
I met their colleagues, filled my profile in their system, and reviewed a handful of roles for which I update my CV. This took hours of emotional and cognitive labor.
I was also asked to do something really, really uncomfortable: contact previous colleagues (from one specific company) to ask for references. To me, this type of request doesn’t come easy - not because they wouldn’t say yes (they did), but because job opportunities fall through so easily that it feels like I’m asking for free labor from people I respect just to add to the free labor I’m already doing.
After a few weeks of you-can-hear-the-crickets-chirping kind of silence I did what every person with actions-speak-for-themselves-level self-management skills would do: I followed up and got an invite for a catch up call.
The partner showed up shamefully unprepared, opened my CV and oral exam-style started asking me to rate my own skills like presentation, stakeholder management or excel. Red flag number 3217894 was when he started recording numbers he taught I should have said - not ones I actually said. When confronted, he brushed it off with a classic “oh, these numbers are just internal”.
Then came the money talk. Again. In earlier chats, they shared a salary range - one where I had mentally anchored myself to. It wasn’t amazing, but I was okay with it. A 25% pay cut, but hey, let’s stay flexible in the name of market conditions. Except now, the partner pulled out some internal calculator telling me I’d need to go even lower. Because, you know, margins and the market conditions.
At that moment, my inner voice made a loud decision that I won’t pursue this role anymore. Not out of bitterness. Not out of ego. Just a clear, embodied no. The kind of no that comes from your spine, not your mouth. And while my nervous system was screaming at me to walk away, my old programming was whispering back: "It’s still an option. Maybe you can negotiate. A bad deal is better than no deal."
Then I remembered a harsh lesson from my sales days: the significant difference between a prospect and an opportunity.
A prospect looks like potential - they show interest, ask for info, keep the conversation going. But the case with a prospect is that you can never lose them, for you never had them to begin with. However an opportunity is a lead with real substance to it. A lead that has some kind of fuel to push the deal forward. They have the budget, the buy-in, the clarity or simply just the right attitude to risk to take a bet on your solution.
Now, you tell me: does my story sound like I was dealing with a prospect or an opportunity? (Probably the number of red flags is a fine indicator.)
So many of us believe that our worth is tied to how employable we are. We really believe our inner critic when it says that something’s wrong with us, not the situation. But these kinds of prospects are just glorified maybes. Pure energy leak. And honestly, I find the audacity appalling.
The true power lies in recognizing when something is just a prospect and not a real opportunity. Because one thing is for sure: you’ll have to work to get a job that gets you paid. And knowing when to push through or when to walk away is the most valuable skill you can develop. I’ve learnt the hard way, but it’s true: saying no to unfavorable things also means saying yes to the abundance of possibilities that can find you.
I’ve been re-learning what meaningful work really looks like.
If you’re willing and able to open yourself to uncover your unique strengths, book a free consultation and see if I’m the right guide for you.
