We've reached the final week of our spring career series, and if you've been following along, you've done a considerable amount of honest self-examination over the past month. You've assessed where you are, reflected on what the industry's direction of travel means for you, and — if an opportunity has presented itself — thought carefully about how to evaluate it. Now comes the hardest part: actually deciding what to do.
Career decisions in publishing are rarely as clean as they appear from the outside. Even when you know rationally that change is needed, the emotional weight of leaving a team you care about, stepping away from a familiar environment, or simply admitting to yourself that you want more — it's all surprisingly difficult. So this week, we want to talk honestly about what strategic career decision-making actually involves, and how to make a choice you can live with.
Staying Is a Decision Too
The first thing to acknowledge is that staying in your current role is as much a deliberate choice as leaving — and it deserves the same level of conscious thought. Too many publishing professionals drift through years in roles that have stopped serving them because they haven't explicitly decided to stay; they've simply never explicitly decided to leave. If, after a month of reflection, you've concluded that your current role has genuine potential — that there are real opportunities for growth, that your employer values you, that the list or the team or the culture genuinely resonates with you — then stay, and stay with purpose. Recommit. Talk to your manager about your ambitions. Ask for what you want. A conscious decision to stay is a powerful thing.
The Case for a Strategic Move
On the other hand, if your honest assessment has confirmed that you've plateaued, that the culture is not serving you, that your skills are not being used or developed, and that opportunities are systematically passing you by — then staying is not loyalty, it's paralysis.
A strategic career move is one made from a position of clarity rather than desperation. The best career transitions we see are made by professionals who have taken the time to understand what they're moving towards, not simply what they're moving away from. They've identified specific things they want in their next role: a different type of list, a more entrepreneurial culture, a step up in seniority, a move into a specialism they've been curious about. That specificity makes all the difference.
Managing the Emotional Reality
Let's be honest about something that career advice often glosses over: making a significant career move is emotionally demanding, even when it's completely the right thing to do. Imposter syndrome tends to intensify precisely when opportunity increases. The fear of the unknown is real. And in an industry as relationship-driven as publishing, concern about how a move will be perceived by colleagues, mentors and the wider community can feel genuinely paralysing.
Our advice: separate the decision from the announcement. First, get genuinely clear on what you want and why. Once that clarity is in place, the conversations — with your manager, with your network, with a recruiter — become far more straightforward. You're not asking for permission; you're acting with intention.
When to Involve a Recruiter
A specialist publishing recruiter is most useful not at the point of desperation but at the point of possibility. The most productive conversations we have with candidates are those where someone comes to us not because they're urgently unhappy, but because they're thoughtfully considering their options and want an honest, informed perspective on the market.
A good recruiter will tell you things you might not hear elsewhere: which publishers are genuinely growing, which companies have a reputation for developing talent, which roles are likely to lead somewhere and which are lateral moves dressed up as promotions. That kind of intelligence is invaluable — and it's entirely free to access.
Your Spring Commitment
As we close out this series, we'd like to leave you with a challenge. Not a grand, frightening leap — simply a commitment to one concrete next step. That might mean booking a coffee with a contact at a publisher you admire. It might mean updating your CV for the first time in three years. It might mean picking up the phone to have a confidential conversation with a recruiter. Or it might mean walking into your manager's office next week and asking for the conversation about your future that you've been putting off.
Whatever it is, make it specific, make it real, and make it happen before the end of March. Spring doesn't last forever — but the change it represents absolutely can.