You don’t need me to tell you that in our careers, nothing is guaranteed, and the job you spent entire career working on may not be yours tomorrow. The industries we work in change, and change fast…. leading to adaptations in our employers’ products, services, management styles, culture and environment.
So we must keep pace too, and know when it’s time to make a career change at the right time.
But when is the right time?
Here are a few pointers…
You Have Nothing Else to Accomplish
This is the proof that changing and reinventing your career does not have to be driven by the fear of losing the current job. Although you are earning well, and love your job, there is a point when you feel that you have depleted all the possibilities for learning and growth within your company. We know that in such situation playing safe and staying on your workplace may seem as the more rational choice, but you’re not progressing. If you are not going forward, you may as well go backwards, and such decision can only hurt your career in the long run.
You are not earning your market rate
You may work in a great company, allowing you professional self-improvement, but if you are not paid enough to support your family and live comfortably, what is the point? I wouldn’t normally suggest that moving jobs for financial reasons is the best argument, but sometimes this is what it takes. You might choose to take a job where your career options are more limited, for higher pay, but once you have your finances sorted then you can begin looking for that next career progression then. These are hard choices but we have to face them occasionally…
You lack passion
This is common amongst people who are thinking about making a career change. It happens. After what can feel like a long time in a career, we can simply lose passion, and therefore the motivation to complete duties at the highest possible level. That is the situation that is potentially dangerous both for you as an employee, and your employer. If you find yourself in this situation, do not be afraid to consider making that much needed change. Create options for yourself, and go wild. There are numerous blogs, where you can have a skills talk and decide upon your career’s future.
Your company is performing poorly when compared to its industry peers
Is your company performing so badly that you can easily predict some extensive lay-offs, or being shut down completely? You observe signs such as declining sales, corners cut, headcount freeze, the coffee machine is removed. The only good thing about such situation is that you have enough time to carefully devise your next move, and preferably start enriching your professional skill-set. The worst thing you can do is to wait to see if your position is at risk. Don’t gamble – stay ahead of the game and create options for yourself. Besides, its much harder to find a great job when the market is flooded with your laid-off colleagues.
You are not using your strongest skills
It’s surprisingly easy to find ourselves in jobs that do not make use of our strongest skills. You might have take the first job your were offered out of desperation, and found out to your misfortune that it isn’t a good match for your skill-set. Or, you might have been promoted upwards or sideways into a role that takes you away from your strongest skillset. You have a choice: persevere and hope that you can develop and master new skills to meet the demands of your job, or you can decide that you are wasting your best skills, and start working something where you can be more productive.
You are working in the hostile work environment
So your boss hates you; you’re being bullied; your team ignore you and don’t share information with you. This is a hostile environment. Very different from a challenging environment. There is one plain truth here: Continuing to work in such an environment will get you nowhere, other than more pain and no gain. Get out now and don’t look back.
These are six of the most common situations that should indicate to you that it is time to quit your job and move forward.
This is a guest post by Nate M. Vickery is a business consultant and a blogger from Sydney, Australia. He is also an editorial writer on Bizzmarkblog.com.
