The Strategic Case for Changing Jobs

There are many genuinely personal factors to change your employment situation. However, from a purely strategic point of view, there are four superb reasons to change occupations within the same (or similar) profession three times during your first ten years of employment:
 
Reason #1: Shifting jobs gives you a greater base of experience: After about three years, you’ve learned nearly all of what you’re going to know about how to do your job. Therefore, over a ten year time frame, you attain far more experience from “three times 90 percent” compared to “one times 100 percent.”
 
Reason #2: A more diversified background creates a higher demand for your skills: Depth of experience means you’re more valuable to a larger number of employers. You’re not only familiar with your current company’s product, service, procedures, quality programs, inventory system, and so forth; you bring with you the proficiency you’ve acquired from your preceding employment with other companies.
 
Reason #3: A job change results in an accelerated promotion cycle: Each time you make a change, you bump up a notch on the promotion ladder. You jump, for example, from project engineer to senior project engineer; or national sales manager to vice president of sales and marketing.
 
Reason #4: More accountability leads to greater earning power: A promotion is usually accompanied by a salary increase. And since you’re being promoted faster, your salary grows at a quicker pace, sort of like compounding the interest you’d earn on a certificate of deposit.
 
Many people consider a job change as a way of promoting themselves to a better position. And in most cases, I would agree. However, you should always be sure your new job offers you the means to fulfill your values. While there’s no denying the strategic benefits of selective job changing for the objective of career leverage, you want to make sure the path you take will lead you where you really want to go.
 
For instance, there’s no reason to change jobs for more money if it’ll make you unhappy to the point of hindrance. In fact, I’ve found that money commonly has no effect on a career decision unless it materially impacts your way of living or self-identity.
 
To me, the “best” job is one in which your principles are being fulfilled most effectively. If career growth and development are your primary goals, and they’re represented by how much you earn, then the occupation that pays the most money is the “better” job.