Ada Offonry explores why highly capable, intelligent people still make career decisions they later regret. She breaks down the hidden psychological traps that keep us over optimising for salary, security or titles, staying too long in roles that no longer fit, or leaping into new ones for the wrong reasons.

Today, you'll learn about:

Optimising for the wrong thing
Fear disguised as “safety”
A smarter way to choose what’s next

Data Sources:
Job regret (72%): Joblist U.S. Job Seeker Survey 2024
Staying too long out of fear (58%): CIPD UK Employee Outlook 2025
High earners + comp-only decisions: Harvard Business Review, "The High Earner's Dilemma" 2024

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About your Host: Ada Offonry

Ada Offonry provides talent and career intelligence for quantitative finance and technology.

She spent four years as Global Head of Talent at Quadrature Capital, and over 20 years in executive search partnering with hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and elite investment banks across New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Ada now works with firms building high performance technology teams, and with senior quantitative and engineering professionals navigating complex career inflection points, through Inference Talent Advisory.

Her work sits at the intersection of market intelligence, talent strategy, and career decision making in an increasingly volatile world of work.

0206 Why Smart People Make BAD Career Choices