Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Help You Break a Career Rut
Transcript
- Lucas: You know that feeling when your morning alarm goes off and you're not dreading your job, exactly—but you're not energized by it either. The work is fine. Your boss is fine. The pay is fine. But there's this low-grade hum of 'Is this it?' Luna: Yeah, I think a lot of people know that feeling. It's not burnout, not misery—it's a rut. Lucas: Exactly. And here's why I want to talk about this today: the Harvard Business Review published a study last year that found forty percent of employees who'd been in the same role for more than three years reported feeling stuck in a professional rut. Not actively unhappy—just stuck. And the surprising thing is, many of those people had access to internal job boards. They just didn't use them. Luna: So the opportunity was there, but they weren't seeing a lateral move as the way out. Lucas: Right. And I think that's partly because we've been trained to think of career progress as a ladder—you move up or you move out. The lateral move gets framed as a consolation prize. But I'd argue it's one of the most effective tools for breaking a rut, if you do it the right way. Luna: Okay, let's define 'the right way.' What's the wrong way? Just jumping to any open role? Lucas: That's exactly the wrong way. I know someone—let's call her Meera—she was a marketing manager at a large financial services firm. She'd been in the role for four years, felt totally flat. She saw an opening in corporate communications, applied, got it. Within three months she realized comms had the same structural problems as marketing—same meetings, same stakeholders, slightly different vocabulary. She'd just changed the wallpaper. Luna: Ouch. So a lateral move that's too similar to your current role might not provide the novelty you need. Lucas: Exactly. The research on career plateaus suggests you need what I've started calling 'desirable discomfort'—a move that uses maybe sixty to seventy percent of your existing skills, but forces you to learn new ones for the rest. Enough familiarity that you're not starting from zero, but enough stretch that your brain has to engage. Luna: That sixty to seventy percent number—is that from a study or more of a rule of thumb? Lucas: It's a synthesis of several pieces. There's a 2021 paper in the Journal of Vocational Behavior on 'skill adjacency' that found employees who transferred into roles with moderate skill overlap—not high, not low—reported the biggest gains in engagement and learning. The sweet spot was around sixty-five percent overlap. Luna: So Meera should have looked for something that used her marketing skills but in a different context—maybe product management or data analytics. Lucas: That's exactly what eventually worked for her. She later moved into product operations—still involved understanding customer journeys and messaging, but now she had to learn agile workflows, stakeholder prioritization, and basic SQL. She told me the first three months were exhausting, but in a good way. Luna: I love that phrase—'exhausting in a good way.' That's the opposite of a rut. Lucas: And the payoff was measurable. Her company does an internal engagement survey every quarter. In her last marketing role, she was scoring around three point two out of five on the 'I feel challenged at work' question. After six months in product operations, that score jumped to four point six. She also got a modest pay bump—about eight percent—but she said the real win was waking up curious again. Luna: Before we go further—Lucas, I think we should acknowledge something. This kind of content, the specific research and real examples, takes effort to produce. And one reason we can keep doing it without ads or sponsors is that listeners who find it valuable sometimes choose to support the show directly. Lucas: That's a fair point. If today's episode helped you think differently about your own situation, or gave you a concrete framework you can use, that's exactly what we're here for. And the way the show stays ad-free and independent is through listener support at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, but if it's useful to you, it's a way to keep that going. Luna: It genuinely helps. And now, back to the skill adjacency idea—because I think there's a trap even in that. You can't just pick any role with sixty percent overlap. You have to pick one that leads somewhere. Lucas: That's a crucial point. Not all lateral moves are created equal. Some are dead ends—you transfer into a role that's technically different but has no upward trajectory. You've just changed the flavor of your rut. So you have to ask: Does this new role build a skill that's in demand in the organization? Luna: And ideally one that's in demand at other companies too, in case you ever want to leave. Lucas: Exactly. So when you're scouting for a move to break a rut, you want to look for roles in functions that are growing, not shrinking. At most large companies right now, that means data, product, revenue operations, or anything tied to AI implementation. Even if you're coming from a non-technical background, those functions often have entry points for people with business acumen. Luna: I want to bring up a counterexample though. I was talking to a friend who works at a healthcare company—she transferred from HR operations to a role in employee experience. On paper, it looked like a great lateral move: similar skills, new context. But she found the new team had a toxic manager, and she ended up more frustrated than before. Lucas: That's the other trap. You can pick the right function and the right skill adjacency, but if the team culture is bad, you're just in a different kind of pain. So you have to do your homework. Talk to people on the team before you apply. Ask about turnover, about how decisions are made, about what a typical week looks like. Luna: And if the team is bad, but the skill adjacency is perfect—would you still do the move, knowing you can leave after a year? Lucas: That's a tough one. I think if the skill is truly transformative—like you're moving from a non-technical role to a technical-adjacent role that doubles your market value—it might be worth enduring a mediocre team for twelve months. But you have to have a clear exit plan. Otherwise you risk burning out. Luna: Let's talk about the negotiation piece. When you're making a lateral move from a rut, you're not in a strong negotiating position—you're the one who wants out. How do you still get a good deal? Lucas: You have more leverage than you think. The hiring manager knows you're an internal candidate—you have institutional knowledge, you're a known quantity, you're lower risk than an external hire. So you can ask for a transition period that includes training time. Say something like, 'I'm excited to bring my marketing experience to this role, but I'll need the first month to ramp up on the product side. Can we build that into my first thirty days?' Luna: And you can also negotiate for a mentor or a buddy in the new team. That's a low-cost ask for the company but huge for you. Lucas: Absolutely. And one more thing—if you're moving to break a rut, try to negotiate a delayed start date if you can. Give yourself a week or two between roles. That mental reset is valuable. Otherwise you might carry the rut's emotional residue into the new job. Luna: I think that's a great practical tip. Take a breather, clear your head, and then start fresh. Lucas: Alright, so to sum up: if you're in a career rut, a lateral internal transfer can be a powerful move—but only if you target a role with about sixty to seventy percent skill overlap, in a growing function, on a healthy team. And you negotiate a transition that sets you up for success, not just a change of scenery. Luna: And if you know someone who's been in the same role for three or four years and seems a bit flat, maybe share this episode with them. Sometimes we don't realize we're in a rut until someone names it. Lucas: Exactly. And if you found this helpful and want to support the show, you know where to find us. Until next time, take care of yourselves.