[Closed] Deciding to change job - how to evaluate the opportunity

If you were doing the same thing in 5 , 10 years would you be bothered?

Count up how many times you think you'll live. If it's significantly more than once then stay where you are. The serious answer is that nobody knows but you. How important is stability over new experiences? I've moved around jobs a bit and never regret it. Ymmv

I'd just toss it off where you are and fly under the radar until retirement if possible

Moving has risk, but I guess allowing my career to stagnate also has risk?

How old are you?

With hindsight the 2008 Crash was the reason mine stagnated, and now in my mid-50's I'm just aiming at early retirement.

The secret to a successful career is to leave good jobs. Challenge is why I go to work.

Define a set of criteria that apply (how long is the commute, how good is the coffee, pay, time off etc), score for each role, add weighting for importance, and do some sums. It’s not really the answer it gives that is important - it makes you think about what is important to you at this time - right now, job security might be more important than a pay rise for you.

2.5yrs ago, I left a reasonably secure, comfortable and well paid role, to take a role on a new project, in a different company not associated with the industry I’ve worked in all my career.

Unfortunately, that project got abruptly cancelled, approx 9 months after moving house (sale and purchase), about 18months in role. So I’m now a second house sale/purchase further on, and working back at my prior employer, but in a different but not unconnected role.

Do I regret it, not in the slightest, if that project had gone through to completion it would have been something special to have been part of (actually it still is, with what the team achieved in the time). For me, one factor in the decision was how would I feel if the project had been a success, and I had not taken that chance to be part of it.

The secret to a successful career is to leave good jobs. Challenge is why I go to work.

Im just coming to this realisation.  I’m in a good job with decades of redundancy within in it.  I can carry on being Super Salesman.

But, I can either challenge myself by selling outside the industry ive grown up with and testing my core skills, or much rather what I’ve discovered I’d really like to do is to take professional services or sales team and use my experience to grow it.  So my ambition isn’t necessarily to change companies but to find an team - or company -  that I’m comfortable working within that’ll provide me the challenge to help it grow to a measure of success a bit like TedC above.

Sounds like a choice between two attractive options.
What’s keeping you in the current role?

what’s pulling you to the new role?

pop these things in two adjacent columns. ID the similar things. See what you prefer about the differences.

I recall two or three trite adages that might apply:

if in doubt, chuck it out

the grass is not always greener

if only I’d known then what I know now

Enjoy deciding!

I think it's very hard to objectively evaluate a new role and decide if it's the best option. You can't possibly know what the new role will be like for real, and particularly in consultancy market conditions can dictate how much fun / redundancy you have.

For me, if a new role meets my needs in terms of income, family and location then it comes down to how it aligns with my values & long term aims.

Once you decide to move you need to be open to the prospect that'll it'll be a disaster but that doesn't mean it was a bad decision, as you don't know what would have happened if you stayed.

I pressed enter before I finished my post, then had to think about what I wanted to summarise / advise.

As I said I can choose to stay, but rather than looking at job titles and salaries I’m - after receiving some career mentoring - looking very hard at what I’d be happy doing.  I’m writing that down and then investigating company’s via their websites, contacts, other resources and finally looking for the opportunity to “have a coffee” with a senior member of the company and/or employee to discuss what it is I can offer them and to evaluate whether I’d want to work there.  This is all pre interview, and doesn’t discount the same process with my current employer.

It’s very much a process of deciding what it is that would make me joyfully leap out of bed in the morning and look forward to going to work tbh, with the first step being a discovery of what that is.

Did you make any move OP?

There's quite a few career threads on STW but I'll bump this one because some views above resonated.

TL,DR: I'm not learning much and got assigned a boring project that feels like a polite "please move on" request. Any views welcome!

TheBrick- if doing the same thing in 5 or 10 years time I think I'd cry.

Boring long details-
* Mid-30s, PhD maths/stats, modelling/analytics, ok but not stellar salary.
* Been at current employer for 5.5 years, always in the same team, 3 years as manager (off shore team). There are lots of great points of course.
* I was the most junior when joining and still one of the youngest. I'm one of the few who even vaguely knows the 100+ systems we work with. I get a lot of dogsbody work because of that.
* I barely learned anything on the technical side since becoming a manager. I have developed a lot of management skills of course (planning, dealing with stakeholders, coaching junior team members, blah blah) and grateful for the opportunity. However, I've had little say in hiring, timelines, platform investment etc while taking a lot of flack from the sponsors.
* My most recent big project failed due to issues that I had clearly highlighted at the planning stage in mid-2019. I still fully committed, pushed team, gave hard sell to stakeholders/sponsors, worked weekends to hit milestones etc. I got good ratings and expect a reasonable bonus BUT it was mentally draining and .....
* Now I get a low visibility project that my manager knows won't serve my longer term goals and is zero interest to me from a technical perspective. It feels 2021 will be a dead year for progression if I stay.
* Despite manager giving me top ratings I think he believes better hustling from me might have scraped the project home.
* Haven't met manager (or any colleague) in person for nearly a year. In person we got on well socially and played football together etc. In the office had coffee or lunch with him everyday but I stopped bothering with Zoom catchups as they felt a bit forced and I struggle with personal conversations like that. So I haven't directly asked him if he wants rid of me (for whatever reason). The only thing I can think of is asking someone senior in a sister team for their view.

Basically it feels like I should put max effort into finding a new job despite how competitive the market is now.

My CV resembles someone with career ADHD LMAO. The only advice I can offer is a cliche; the grass is not always greener and problems that are to do with you will follow you.

I'm in my early 40s now but need a new career (oil and gas is dead for me) but otoh unlike 20-something me, I don't see a 'career' as something that will lead to any real fulfilment, and I don't feel like I have a 'duty' to virtually kill myself for my 'career' (again). I suppose that means I'm not willing to make the same sacrifices as new graduates. Consequently, I'm keeping an open mind about what to look out for going fwd. It may be that there is nothing out there for me, so I may have to settle for a min wage job and look to put myself to use in other ways.

Believe it or not, having come to realise that I'm not my job, I feel quite liberated.

The secret to a successful career is to leave good jobs. Challenge is why I go to work.

I used to think that, now I'm much more in the camp of

I’d just toss it off where you are and fly under the radar until retirement if possible

@twowheels sounds like a similar background to me. If you feel you're stagnating move I say. I am just 40 so a little ahead of you. I said too long at my first company post phd and didn't develop enough skills. Stayed too long at second as well but at least I was earning good money (what I consider) for the last 2 years and travelled loads. Now because of my technical holes I am not really good at anything just know a lot of different things so stuck mid level. I am hunting technical roles maybe different if your aim is corporate climbing.

P.s. if it's a small / medium company two points. #1. You will probably struggle to move up of that's your aim (dead man's shoes). #2. If you get some special knowledge to the company you can become trapped with golden handcuffs.good on the money front bad bad because you loose keeping up to date with industry skills so your market rate starts to drop!.

@twowheels you sound a bit moany (I’m guessing this is reflective of life in general)and a bit like you know what you should do, but can’t.
Sounds like your line manager would think well of you, no? - I certainly wouldn’t socialise with a colleague I didn’t like. If you think you’re being side-lined/eased out the door, have a 1to1 and revisit your career path goals; if you meet disinterest or rejection you’ll know then for sure.

I’m very much in the “don’t jump” camp unless you have something much better/happier/fulfilling lined up or a big pay-off. Certainly with the current global pandemic thing going on 🤗

If I'd never read STW employment related posts I'd say go for it, challenge yourself. But given all the people complaining about horrible bosses, nightmare co-workers and crap working conditions I'm now of the opinion if you can tolerate your current job you're probably better off staying put :p

I’ll never leave my current job unless I’m sacked or the business closes. I could earn (quite a lot) more elsewhere, I could be more challenged elsewhere, I could grease my way up the corporate ladder elsewhere whereas I am stuck where I am in my current role but...

I have a boss who genuinely cares for their staff, treats each one of us a family, he has no one to answer to so all the decisions are his and he makes the right ones and I have zero stress or pressure. Yes, together we want to grow and move the business forward but I never have to justify my performance or actions etc against targets and other demands.

And you can’t put a price on that side of things. If you like your current job what are the reasons for thinking of moving on? Will you be leaving a job with very little stress and pressure and moving into a role where the unreasonable is expected of you?

I’ve moved before because an opportunity looked good on paper but in reality it turned into the job from hell and I should have stayed put.

I barely learned anything on the technical side since becoming a manager.

Sounds about right, do you manage people and dedicate time to it, or do you want to become a technical specialist.

If you have withdrawn from 1:1s, your manager may well be respecting this and acting accordingly, it sounds like you at least owe them a conversation to discuss how you feel about the new project, unspoken assumptions are rarely correct in my experience.

Holy thread revival!

OP here: I opted to stay where I am for the time being. I have passed up the better job, no question, but the dealbreaker was unclear expectations around post-pandemic work patterns, and likely going back to a fairly normal office-based working pattern. There is little need to go to the office regularly, so no way. My current place is jettisoning offices as fast as it can. Also, a change in family circumstances means less financial pressure to change.

Thanks all, appreciate your thoughts.

@TheBrick - Yes, sounds similar. I'm naturally more technical and not particularly excited about climbing the greasy pole- it's just the general theme here that young(ish) people do the technical grind and then either move up or go elsewhere.

Agreed with your PSs.
#1/ It's a sprawling top heavy global corp, so not dead man's shoes problem but a queue of more senior people waiting to pounce on interesting openings. (That's the external job market too though I suppose :))
#2/ Yeah honestly I haven't kept up in my field since ~2016. Guess I see management (at same dinosaur employer) as the "solution".

@paulneenan76 - haha fair cop on moaning! 1-1 on Friday. Minor correction-

you know what you should do, but can't without more conviction

@footflaps - I understand the appeal and it worked well for an older friend on the team. Now being made redundant (after 20 years) but has savings (and madgainz from his flat as backup), so he's not too bothered about competing with 30 year olds .. not sure I can gamble on that future though 🙂

@i_scoff_cake - some issues will follow me indeed. Agreed "I'm not my job" approach is best but I still get sucked in. I won't be making fresh grad sacrifices though!

@FuzzyWuzzy - I've seen those threads too..

@dannybgoode - sounds like a great situation! My manager is friendly and focuses on results (which is good given my slightly aspie ways), no complaints there. Can't say it's low stress though/

@toby1 - yes stopping 1-1s was a mistake, trying to fix.

@reluctantlondoner - agreed 80-100% WFH long term is another advantage of staying- harder to negotiate at a new employer where nobody knows you. From your username I guess you weren't super enamoured with London life either. I fled my flat share (too claustrophobic with everyone there all the time) and now buying a house back in the midlands. I miss London a little but not keen to move back full time. It'd be a hassle too if I need to let the house.

I'll let the thread die now!