Hi, it’s Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m the head coach for JobSearch.Community. Someone wrote to me with a question. And as the subject says, should I stay in a job where I’m very underemployed for at least a year if I don’t want to damage my resume? Here’s the extra detail.

I’m 40. I’m earning $14 an hour in a job as a social media manager for a small company on Long Island. I’m being told I need to stay in this job for at least a year before looking for a better job.

The position is an unchallenging dead end with no advancement opportunities. Why should I stay? Well, let me start off with something simple. And actually, the simple answer is, there’s no reason you should stay.

The however is, I’m wondering whether you have the skills and experience yet to command more money. Because why didn’t you get a job paying more than $14 an hour if you had those skills and experiences? Now, the real question is, how can you get them? If it’s not at your current job, where can you get them? What training can you get? What can you do on the side that beef up your capabilities? Because it’s not about staying there for a year stuff. That’s the kind of crap that agencies tell job hunters that no longer applies.

What really matters is, why was it necessary to take a $14 an hour job doing this at a firm with a dead end? Why were you unable to get something better? Now, usually, there are two reasons. One is lack of skills. Number two is lack of job search skills, which is what job search coaching HQ is about.

And you can visit the site and get a sense of how I help people. But there you get one on one coaching, so that you’re not just simply learning through trial and error and getting stuck. At least the job search side of this is handled.

I can’t help you become excellent at what your real career is. But I can help you with the job search. So, again, there are two reasons.

There’s no reason to stay. However, there may be reasons why you got stuck in this role that makes sense to look at and what you can do to correct them. Because it’s not about the company.

It’s really about you at this point. What you can do to get stronger, both in terms of your career, and in terms of your job search skills.