The May Burnout Signal
58.9% of new Korean employees consider leaving within a year due to job-fit mismatch. When the first performance review lands in May, separate the weight into four coordinates instead of one decision.
What gets sorted out in May
In Korean workplaces, May is when the first-quarter close and the first performance review typically land. For first-year employees, this also overlaps with their 6th to 12th month on the job. Looking down at the review, the question 'is this actually the right work for me?' often becomes clearly visible for the first time.
In Incruit's 2025 new-employee survey, 58.9% of respondents reported considering leaving within a year due to job-fit mismatch. In the same period, the 2025 Workplace 119 × Global Research survey reported that 58.1% of Korean workers in their 20s are concerned about AI replacing their job. The heaviness of May is less an individual weakness and more a shared signal among early-career workers.
Sujin's May
FICTIONAL PERSONASujin Kim, 28, 1st-year marketer
Six months in. Her first performance review came back with the comment "above expectations." And yet, on the way home from a late shift in the first week of May — "I was told I did well; why do my feet still feel heavy every time I walk toward the office?" — the question quietly surfaces. A friend tells her "every newcomer feels that way," but a weight remains that the phrase does not resolve.
*(Illustrative fictional persona based on the representative profile of 28-year-old Korean marketing/sales/design/CS first-year employees described in our Stage-1 market research. Not a real individual.)*
Sujin's weight does not come from a bad review. It comes from the gap between the review (an external coordinate) and her own values and strengths (an internal coordinate). A review tells you you performed well; it does not tell you whether the work suits you. Most of the May shaking grows in that gap.
Separating the shaking into four pieces
When the walk to the office feels heavy in May, the source of that weight rarely fits into one word. Borrowing a pattern often observed in Life Portfolio measurements, the shaking can be separated into four pieces:
- Job-content mismatch — when the actual work runs against your strengths and interests.
- Relational friction — when the work fits but the people and culture do not.
- Value conflict — when you are doing well, but that doing-well points away from your own values.
- Operating-style friction — when work and people both fit, but decision speed, autonomy, or operating style does not.
Separating those four creates room to pause before the one-word decision 'should I quit?' Some shakings only resolve by leaving the company; some resolve by changing the role inside the same company.
A review is an external coordinate; measurement is an internal coordinate. May tends to feel heavy when those two coordinates diverge. What needs to come before a decision is drawing each of those two coordinates separately.
The InBody analogy, once more
When the body feels heavy we measure with InBody first, before designing a workout plan. The reason is that a single number 'weight' is less useful than the separation into muscle mass, body fat, basal metabolic rate. Self-management works the same way. Rather than driving the one-word phrase 'this job isn't right for me' straight into a decision, separating it into four coordinates — job content, relationships, values, operating style — changes the quality of the decision that follows.
The 76-question Life Portfolio instrument asks self-management across 11 domains (self-awareness, values, transitions, emotion, relationships, motivation, energy, drive, decision-making, execution, areas of interest) and organizes the results into a 4-axis report: self-understanding, self-expression, self-design, self-execution. The full flow of measure → report → interpretation → next step is laid out in the pieces below:
- [Pillar] In the AI Era, How Should We Practice Self-Understanding
- [Series 1] Inside the 76 Questions — All 11 Domains
- Before You Decide by 'What You Like'
"Is this the right work?" is not a question to answer all at once.
Separated into four coordinates, 'is this the right work?' becomes four questions — about job content, relationships, values, and operating style. You don't have to answer all four at once. May feels lighter the moment even one coordinate becomes clearer.Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Q1. Why does the burnout signal arrive so often in May?
In Korean workplaces, May is when the first-quarter close and the first performance review usually land, which often overlaps with the 6th to 12th month for first-year employees. In Incruit's 2025 new-employee survey, 58.9% of respondents reported considering leaving within a year due to job-fit mismatch. The heaviness of May is less an individual weakness and more a shared signal — the gap between one's self-coordinates and actual job content becoming clearly visible for the first time around the 6-month mark.
Q2. Should I decide on quitting right now?
This article neither encourages nor discourages quitting. What it suggests is two pre-steps before deciding in the middle of May's shaking: first, separate the shaking into job content vs. relationships vs. values vs. operating style; second, do that separation on paper rather than in your head. The decision itself comes after.
Q3. Why am I shaking even though my review was good?
This is a common pattern. A review tells you 'you performed well' but not 'is this the right work for you'. The better the review, the sharper the second question can become — 'is this performing-well actually sitting on top of my own values and strengths?' A review is an external coordinate; measurement is an internal coordinate. May tends to shake when those two coordinates diverge.
Sources: Incruit 2025 new-employee turnover intention survey (58.9% job-fit mismatch as reason); Workplace 119 × Global Research 2025 AI workplace perception survey (58.1% of workers in their 20s concerned); JobKorea 2024 burnout survey (75.3% of workers in their 30s, reference). Sujin Kim is an illustrative fictional persona based on the representative profile of 28-year-old Korean marketing/sales/design/CS first-year employees in our Stage-1 market research — not a real individual.