Leaving In House Role After Less Than A Year - How Best to Spin Forum

[Anonymous User]

I took a new in house job in January, leaving from typical NYC biglaw. Long story short, I really dislike my new job. Almost all of it is totally inconsistent with what I was told when I was interviewing in terms of projects I was told I would be working on, level of responsibility, reporting structure, etc. Part of this is my fault for sure - I was really eager to leave biglaw and although I did my due diligence in retrospect I should have thought harder about a few things.

Anyways, I am unhappy enough that I want to start applying and interviewing for roles at other companies. What is the best way to pitch why I am looking again so soon? I feel like the truth - which is as described above - could reflect poorly on me, as I'm sure what I've experienced is not uncommon in house. On the other hand, I feel that if I don't offer an explanation, employers may make their own assumptions, which could be even worse.

[Anonymous User]

Is this your first in-house role or have you had prior in-house roles?

If you've had prior roles, then if you start applying now, you'll probably land somewhere late Q3/early Q4 of this year, so a one-year stint in this in-house role is fine given your prior in-house experience.

If this is your first in-house role, then I'd do the same thing (applying, interviewing, etc) but know you will get asked the question of why do you want to leave so soon. If you're okay staying at your company until mid-2023, then you'd be in a much better spot.

My 2 cents: have informal coffee chats now before formally applying to gauge if applying now would raise eyebrows. If you sense it's fine to apply, do so. If not, then stay in touch with those contacts, and loop back to them in Q1/Q2 of next year. You can use what you've learned about your next employer from your contacts ("X told me about the culture of this legal dept"), and your > 1 year stint by that point will be a much easier sell.

[Anonymous User]

I took a new in house job in January, leaving from typical NYC biglaw. Long story short, I really dislike my new job. Almost all of it is totally inconsistent with what I was told when I was interviewing in terms of projects I was told I would be working on, level of responsibility, reporting structure, etc. Part of this is my fault for sure - I was really eager to leave biglaw and although I did my due diligence in retrospect I should have thought harder about a few things.

Anyways, I am unhappy enough that I want to start applying and interviewing for roles at other companies. What is the best way to pitch why I am looking again so soon? I feel like the truth - which is as described above - could reflect poorly on me, as I'm sure what I've experienced is not uncommon in house. On the other hand, I feel that if I don't offer an explanation, employers may make their own assumptions, which could be even worse.

I also left a big NY corporate role in January, after getting my bonus. The new in-house role doesn't reflect what was advertised, and all the promises about on-boarding and support, reporting and responsibility, don't reflect the reality at all. I suppose my new insight into in-house roles is that by the time a company hires a new lawyer, things must have been so chaotic for so long that you're really just stepping into a house on fire.

I'm in the same boat about trying to find out how to get out of this while acknowledging that it's shorter than I anticipated. Can you leverage a change of location? Or a change between being in person and remote? I guess anything that distinguishes your current company from the one you're applying to is an identifiable reason for the move.

Wish I had more advice, but there's some comfort in knowing it's not that uncommon.

[Anonymous User]

Same boat here. Left firm in January, has been a total dumpster fire.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry to post off topic but can you guys please elaborate on what is so bad with these in house positions? Want to know what to watch out for.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is disconcerting. I have pinned all of my hopes on escaping biglaw asafp and I need to believe there is something better out there.

Sorry you guys are having a tough time.

[jhett]

You really need to vet in-house positions well before joining. In-house departments range from well-oiled machine to complete shitshow. I would ask questions about retention (and where people who have left gone), upward mobility, why the position is open, how the department is organized and makes decisions, how the department interacts with the rest of the company, etc. These factors matter just as much as the substantive work you'll be doing.

I've been lucky enough to land in two good in-house spots, but I've interviewed at places that just felt off. Don't rush the exit from biglaw, take your time.

To OP: lack of fit is an acceptable answer (assuming you haven't jumped around a million times beforehand). Sometimes it pays to just be honest about what you are looking for, and how your current job doesn't match that. Also allows you to open a conversation about whether a potential employer is a good fit for you (if it's not, better to find out at interview stage).

[Anonymous User]

I’m one of the above anons.

Counterpoint to my own dissatisfaction, a bunch of ex-coworkers who went in-house from our old firm really like their positions. So I think the comment above is right - do your absolute best to figure out what the department you’re joining is like. I thought I had a solid grasp, but in hindsight there were some red flags that I ignored because I was burnt out on firm life.

[Anonymous User]

jhett gives good advice and I wish I had listened.

OP, I empathize and wish you luck. I had to jump from my inhouse job after a month (was there for a total of 2.5 months after got done with interviews). Long story short, I was eager to leave biglaw. I went to a place that seemed good on paper, but the inhouse and entire exec team was in total disarray (1 member of C team left, 2 got fired, a bunch of people in the legal department left, stock price down y/y 80%+, all within that 2.5 month period). So it was easy to explain why I left, but I feel that it is a pretty big setback and blow to my career. FWIW, I had to jump to a firm, no inhouse position would have taken me serious trying to leave after 1 month.

In retrospect, while I had heard good things about the place and legal department (specifically from someone I knew who was outside counsel to them), there were bad vibes I should have listened to. The first being that the CLO was 15 minutes late to our first interview and didn't really seem to give a fuck about it, I just generally did not get warm and fuzzies from the legal team (there were other places I interviewed where I had got warm fuzzies and seemed to mesh instantly), and after I got the offer and had a few follow up questions before accepting, the CLO was super unresponsive.

[Lawman1865]

As a brief answer, not having gone in-house [yet] myself, I think finding a distinction between the new job, or just being honest on a couple of the reasons you are leaving (things that are reasonable, like type of work or hours, etc.) could be things to mention to a new employer. Alternatively, as an earlier poster said it might be better to start lightly looking now and make the move sometime next year with 1+ year under your belt.

To the extent you and the others are willing, can you share what some of the red flags were when interviewing, or things that you ignored that later you realized were bigger deals than you thought? Could be really helpful to hear those things so we can be aware of them in the future.

[Anonymous User]

I took a new in house job in January, leaving from typical NYC biglaw. Long story short, I really dislike my new job. Almost all of it is totally inconsistent with what I was told when I was interviewing in terms of projects I was told I would be working on, level of responsibility, reporting structure, etc. Part of this is my fault for sure - I was really eager to leave biglaw and although I did my due diligence in retrospect I should have thought harder about a few things.

Anyways, I am unhappy enough that I want to start applying and interviewing for roles at other companies. What is the best way to pitch why I am looking again so soon? I feel like the truth - which is as described above - could reflect poorly on me, as I'm sure what I've experienced is not uncommon in house. On the other hand, I feel that if I don't offer an explanation, employers may make their own assumptions, which could be even worse.

I also left a big NY corporate role in January, after getting my bonus. The new in-house role doesn't reflect what was advertised, and all the promises about on-boarding and support, reporting and responsibility, don't reflect the reality at all. I suppose my new insight into in-house roles is that by the time a company hires a new lawyer, things must have been so chaotic for so long that you're really just stepping into a house on fire.

I'm in the same boat about trying to find out how to get out of this while acknowledging that it's shorter than I anticipated. Can you leverage a change of location? Or a change between being in person and remote? I guess anything that distinguishes your current company from the one you're applying to is an identifiable reason for the move.

Wish I had more advice, but there's some comfort in knowing it's not that uncommon.

I don't think that's always the case. When I first started at my company (almost 10 years ago), I was super bored because there really wasn't much to do. The issue is that they had posted for my role in anticipation of upcoming retirements that hadn't happened yet. It took a good 3 years for the first retirement to actually happen, and it wasn't until the retirement came that I really had a full time job's worth of work to do. That's probably not the norm, but most of the hires these days are simply back-filling recent departures. There's typically no more than 3 months of things being unaddressed by the time the new hire comes in.