If you’re trying to make more money, waiting around for your boss to give you a raise probably isn’t your best bet. Real talk — for over 10 years now, people who switch jobs have been getting bigger pay bumps than those who stay put. That’s straight from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
📈 Your advantage in switching: leverage timing
You will be on the favorable side of “they appreciate your contributions” curve for sure. And you will get salary bumps that are bigger overall when switching…
At least until you get to director level where long term equities stuff can start adding up.
⏱️ Make job search a habit
To do this job switching successfully you will have to put at least 10% of your time into maintaining contacts outside the current company.
Maintaining at least part-time relationships with former colleagues, going to conferences and being active in professional organizations and such to meet new ones. Keep up on LinkedIn and so forth.
🤝 Network wins:
80% of the time your next job will come from someone you previously worked with.
🚨 Reality check on loyalty
Do not under any circumstance assume the current employer will protect you or take care of you long term, or reward you for your long years of service.
That doesn’t happen anymore (and really I am wary that it ever did like people claim).
🐒 Monkey bar career moves
My advisor once gave me the advice to use the “monkey bar technique.”
If you have achieved success in field X, and want to move into field Y, then you really don’t want to have to go back down to the bottom again and have to work your way up. Instead, a better approach is often to use your skills in field X to get a job that allows you to build expertise in field Y.
Sometimes you might need to take several steps to get where you want, where in each step you use your current skills to get a job that allows you to build new skills. This is similar to the way a child moving across the monkey bars holds onto one bar while reaching out for the next one.
In my case, I started out with a degree in programming language implementation, which led to a job as a research scientist where I learned about the web, which led to a job as a software engineer where I learned about product design, which led to a job as a product manager
👉 I’d love to hear your take.
Have you switched jobs and seen a salary jump? Or stuck it out and made it work?
Hit reply and tell me your story — I read every response.
🔗 Forward this
And if you’ve got a friend who’s feeling stuck at work, forward this to them. It might be the nudge they need to grab the next monkey bar. 🐒💼
