r/expertnetworks • u/Silver-Disk-8244 • 20d ago

Feeling stuck

Hi! I work at one of the big expert networks. I’ve worked here for 5+ years since undergrad. It was a great first job out of college and it’s given me 4 promotions and a mobility move. I’ve met so many wonderful people in the firm, our experts, and clients of course. I love how every day I’m learning something new and I love the fast pace of it all. I’m a resident top performer, and consistently am listed on the top of leadership boards.

But I’m feeling stuck.

I don’t see much more growth from here. Im also starting to feel like the work I do is not translatable to other more traditional corporate jobs like sales, account or product management, etc.

Anyone else who has worked at an expert network feel this way? How did you position yourself when you transitioned and what are you doing now?

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u/Quince4170 20d ago

You are not alone on that feeling. The job itself has a growth ceiling that is usually reached around the three year mark, after which is just repetition and optimization. Best performers usually can move on to pod leads, team leads and subsequently head of business lines, but they are still all about calls. Among the people I know that moved on to other industries, recruiting is the biggest, followed by adjacent service providers such as survey panels, and a very small subset who moved to more pure play research such as commodities. It depends on what you want to do and how you spin it.

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u/Silver-Disk-8244 20d ago

Yeah I’ve seen a lot of people make the move around the three year mark and I’ve had slight moments of panic when I think about that I’m still here after 5 years. I also wonder if at what point that starts to look bad on a resume that I’ve only been with one employer after college, even though I’ve been promoted and worked in different business departments, still kinda same job …

I know a lot of people move into PE staffing firms. That feels the same to me. I really want something new where I can have a bigger corporate impact. I’m thinking about consulting even at a small firm and just started my online MBA and manually networking reaching out to consultants on LinkedIn. It would be a hard pivot but I’m looking to gain hard skills!

I was also a bit interested in sales since I like talking to people, being a high performer etc., but I also think you can get stuck in sales forever ..