Saturday, January 12, 2008

Move Up the Career Ladder

I think that tendency for American's to job hop more now than ever before can be a good thing...for you that is. It sucks for employers but they have to deal with it. That is just the way we are now. No one stays in a job for 30+ years anymore. Here is why this can be a good thing for you:

1. You can keep moving up the pay ladder. Often, the best way to get paid a substantial amount more money is to a) Leave and get a higher paying job or b) Threaten to leave and force your employer to pay you a substantial amount more to stay. Often this tactic is the only way you will get anything more than a 2 or 3% standard of living raise every year.

2. If you want to stay with you current company, you can often move into a higher ranking position very quickly because of people constantly leaving the company. If you have proven that you are a capable worker, often you can move into a team lead or management position pretty easily. Companies are generally more likely to promote capable workers that already work for the company, rather than take a chance on someone from outside the company.

3. Doing a little bit of job hopping can help you obtain a lot of experience in a shorter period of time. The more well rounded you are, the more marketable you make yourself to prospective employers, thus giving you more choices. I suggest staying at each position for at least a year if possible. While moving around a bit can be beneficial for you, it can also be detrimental if you do it too much. Nothing will turn a recruiter off more than someone who has worked at 6 jobs in 2 years.

With all that being said, I really hope that you can find your dream job and never have to look for another job again. However, the majority of us just go to our jobs to receive a paycheck and feel that we are doing something with our lives. It can't hurt too much to move around a bit and see if you can fall into that dream job that we all hope is out there. You'll never know unless you give it a shot and aren't afraid to leave your current situation every now and then. Especially if you think you found a better opportunity.

1 comment:

ChampDog said...

Moving up in the career ladder is not as easy as we thought. Not only just hard works, it also sometimes also based on the opportunity and luck. Doing a dream job is another story where majority of us do not work for our dream job. The real problem is you need to give up something (i.e your pay check amount) in order for you to go for your dream job. Due to the fact that most of these people have dependencies (e.g. family or mortgage), quitting with lower income is not an option. So majority of them end up no choice to climb up the career ladder. :D