Hi! I did this!
Job searching was hard. In my non-profit/academic role, I wore a ton of hats (including doing a lot of HR functions) and was looking to pivot into a more structured/formal HR role. Demonstrating that my accomplishments and skills were transferrable was tricky and required a lot of resume tweaking and feedback. My cover letter also felt pretty important, as was explaining in a compelling way why I wanted to move into corporate. I ended up leaning pretty heavily on internal referrals and my personal network for getting my foot in the door; once I was actually in an interview, it was pretty easy to explain how my experience translated. That being said, I did have to take a few steps backwards in my career when I did finally get an offer that fit.
Once I started, it was kind of amazing. My first corporate role had a narrow scope and was more operational/tactical than my previous nebulous, more strategic role. But it also paid more. And the benefits were better. And the perks were also better. Mostly in the sense that they existed at all. Working for a financially successful company also meant there was so much more access to resources for professional development and growth (my previous org did have L&D offerings, but they were…really, really bad).
But for me, the absolute best part – and I know this will be controversial – was that I wasn’t emotionally invested in my work. At all. The work itself was interesting enough. But it didn’t really…matter that much? In the grand scheme of the world, at least (it mattered in the context of the company). This meant that when 5:00 rolled around, I was able to close my laptop and actually disconnect entirely. If it wasn’t work hours, I didn’t care. And after years of a heavy emphasis on the importance of “the mission” and making a difference in the world, being able to disconnect like that was incredibly healing. I had more time for hobbies, for friends, and more resources to still support causes I care about. My job became just a job, instead of something that consumed my whole life.
To be clear, all of this wasn’t only because my previous org was a non-profit; corporate environments are also perfectly capable of being extremely toxic. But even just being freed from the emotional exploitation of “the mission” being used to justify treating us badly and underpaying us was so helpful in allowing me to be more comfortable setting boundaries and doing my job well, but not necessarily going above and beyond unless I had time and wanted to do so.
TLDR; do it, it’s awesome, but go in knowing that you may feel less fulfilled (unless you happen to find a for profit that is also fulfilling).
