In this article, I’m going to (hopefully) give you that push to get up and apply for a new job.
So if you’re sat at home, in the 11th month of lockdown, in the same 4 walls you’ve been in since March 2020, dealing with the same issues and people you were dealing with since Boris shut the country down – this article is for you.
So let’s kick-off, why should you look for a new job?
Recruiters look for breadth of experience not years at a company
Recruiters are no longer looking for people to have stayed for X amount of years at places before moving on. You don’t need to have ‘shown loyalty’ by sticking to one company for years on end as your parents might have. ‘Portfolio’ careers are here to stay.
Re-energise your career
Lockdowns and the pandemic have taken the wind out of many of us.
I, for one, have felt so… “what’s the point?” about work at various points over the last year.
If this is you, you need to get up and find your passion again. The passion you once had for your company or your role. We work 35+ hours a week for 50 years of our life, do you really want to spend it in apathy about what you do or where you work?
Have a think about what excites you at work – what do you not dread on a Sunday evening? Take it back to the bare bones.
Not “I like it when I get to work on a specific part of a project” but why do you like that part? Because you feel closer to the customers? Because you get to research and come up with insightful insights from data?
Think about it.
Salary increase
I don’t know about you, but I don’t work for free!
It’s great to stay with a company you know and love, but you do pay for that through limited salary increases.
Having been on both the employee and employer side of pay reviews; it’s very rare that significant jumps would happen internally.
Too often your current bases are used as the starting point. So if you want to really make that significant jump in salary, and I’m talking 20% upwards, you’ve got to look external.
Ultimately, an employer will rarely look to pay you significantly more unless they consider you a flight risk that they wouldn’t want to lose.
(If you’re not actually going to leave though, don’t threaten to leave as you’ll look very silly if they call your bluff!)
Align better with your values
Does the company you work for align with your view of the world? Does it value what you value?
It’s super important for your own mental wellbeing that you align with a company’s values as ultimately you’re helping to support that for the majority of your waking hours each week.
And I can speak from experience. Having worked somewhere that I didn’t align with how things are done, it really drags your mood and morale down and every day becomes tough to motivate yourself.
Ultimately, don’t stay in a job or company you don’t enjoy.
Job security is of course important, but so is your wellbeing and your career.
There are lots of companies right now who are recruiting and offering pay rises and bonuses.
We’re hopefully on the ‘home straight’ as Matt Hancock put it in terms of COVID-19. So take a look around, don’t be loyal for loyalty sake, the market in the digital space is especially strong right now as you’d expect. Just remember, when looking, don’t undersell or undervalue yourself!
