How Long to Stay in a Job: Guidance for Academics.
Historically, you should stay in a job for a minimum of 2 years. It’s becoming more common for people to move after 1 year. Changing jobs comes with both pros and cons, here we discuss them in detail.
In the current day and age, social mobility and changing careers is the norm. Previously, it would be expected for someone to pick a profession or career and stay there for most, if not all, of their life. A few years back it wouldn’t be hard to find people who had worked one job for the last 15-20 years. The current ecosystem of the world of work however has changed, with it becoming significantly more socially acceptable to change jobs every 2-3 years. However, how long should you stay in a job for? There’s a range of different perspectives and it’s important to cover the pros and cons of this decision.
To answer the question of how long should you stay in a job for, we really need to dive into the specifics but the best person who knows what the right option is, is yourself. Subsequently, the short answer is, it depends. The long answer however relies on a series of factors which will influence your decision. Here, we’re going to explore what these are, so you have some key points to think about over the course of your career journey.
The Cons of Changing Jobs:
It makes more sense for us to highlight the negatives first as there will be substantially less cons to career changing, with a lot of ‘grey area’ on what is and isn’t favourable. If we avoid most of these cons, then you’re probably all clear to think about embarking on your next adventure when you’re ready.
The biggest point to consider when weighing up how long to stay in a job for, is how frequently you’re moving from one job to the next. Traditionally, the mantra has been to stay at a particular organisation for a minimum of 2 years. More recently, working for an organisation for a minimum of 1 year has become more socially acceptable and isn’t really a frowned upon. The caveat comes however when you’re doing this to much. If you’re moving jobs every year or two on a consistent basis, it will actually start to hinder your opportunities.
If there is hard factual evidence of you getting bored and moving on every 2 years, it’s going to suggest that you’ll likely leave the current job you’re applying for. In turn, less employers will be willing to give you the chance as you’re too high risk. In this instance the trail of employers on your CV perpetuates that you’re bit of a revolving door, could be problematic to work with, don’t like to stick around, and is likely to count against you in the long term.
The second con is really about your own skills development. It’s true that if you’re not progressing in your career, you probably will start to consider different prospects depending on where you are in your journey. However, if you’re not purposeful enough it’s quite likely that constant career changing will prevent you from developing a certain set of skills. Constantly changing roles (say every 1-2 years) means you’ll spend most of your development on settling into a new role and mastering it. Here, most of your development is spent on the logistical and functional parts of your job. This isn’t all bad as you will development a lot of transferable skills and it’s likely to give you more comprehensive knowledge about a particular area/industry (if you decide to stay in the same industry).
The part where this starts to break down however is that you prevent yourself from developing interpersonal and strategic skills which are just as, if not more, important than the functional ones. Staying in a role for a reasonable amount of times allows you to have a better understanding of that organisations leadership, internal politics and more. It means you can start engaging in broader, more high-level conversations that may directly impact the direction of the organisation.
Furthermore, with seniority comes people management which again may come with new challenges, opportunities for skill acquisition, increased salary, and career development. If you keep moving jobs to do the ‘functional’ tasks you perhaps never get to a point where you’re looking more long term. The scope to focus on the broader, more strategic elements of any job get missed as you’re effectively always the ‘junior’ or ‘new starter’ to a team.
The other caveats of changing jobs to often are the fact you’re also not demonstrating or practicing any sense of resilience. This is similar to the skills mentioned above, but if you’re always looking to jump ship when things get hard or when you’re bored it’s likely going to hold you back in the long term. All jobs have boring periods at times, the ones who thrive are the ones who know how to master this period and still be productive and contribute.
Another small point is keeping track off and knowing where your pension funds are. It’s maybe not something we think about in the short term, but if you move to many jobs, you miss out on the opportunity to compound your savings (unless you keep moving it with each new job, consolidating your funds) or you simply lose track of them all – getting lost when you reach the age of retirement.
The Pros of Changing Jobs:
They’re the main cons. There really isn’t too many to keep a track of when you ask yourself ‘how long should you stay in a job for’. The pros typically outweigh the cons, but it’s something to always think about when the time is appropriate.
First and foremost, the most important part of changing jobs is to enable you to thrive and reach your full potential in the world of work. It enables you to embark on lifestyle design, selecting jobs to consciously curate your life to look a certain way. Whether that be stress levels, work life balance, number of holidays, remote working, company perks, company culture, you name it. You have the freedom to start picking and ‘collecting’ these important aspects to help reach your ultimate happiness at work.
The key goal here is that you move jobs for one or several of these driving factors. Using your life values as a compass to help enable you to cultivate a life you want is going to be more fulfilling and impactful to you than simply moving jobs for the sake of it, or for the sake of monetary gain.
We could be here all day talking about the importance of these life values, but we’ve saved that all for another post and something you should reflect on in your own time. In short, it’s thinking about ‘what do I need to feel happier at work?’ – then carefully selecting that thing in your next career move.
The final, more obvious, benefit for changing jobs is that it’s substantially easier (on the most part) to negotiate a salary raise. Companies that are looking to hire the best talent in the world are likely going to make their offer as attractive to you as possible. In turn, it’s more than likely you can ask for a higher pay bracket in your next job – even if you’re doing the same job to some extent. It’s the fastest way to get that pay rise, but remember, at some point that steam will run out and you’ll be at the top end of the pay scale for that role. Long term, you’ll need to perhaps dig in and consider building up a longer time at a particular organisation to develop additional skills and highlight that you’re an employee who’s willing to stick around!
