1. 1. Are you resigning or quitting? There is a big difference. See my blog ‘Are you a lover?’ highlighting the subtleties. If you are quitting, rethink the situation, work through the issues, assess and strengthen your resilience, work on your patience, all great attributes to assist your future employability. Don’t be a quitter; always choose to resign.
   2. Are you still learning? The learning doesn’t just fall onto the shoulders of your manager or the company you work for. There must be new skills you can learn in our current environment, and the responsibility sits with you. Research what you might like or need to learn and present a business case for it. If you have tried this and there are no new avenues or opportunities to learn, then maybe it is time to look at other job opportunities. Learning and developing must be a constant in any job. It keeps you current, fresh, fulfilled and therefore employable (Maybe check out our book, Employable. you can download the first chapter free here).
   3. It’s not you; it’s me? Or is it? One way to consider the conundrum is to review/analyse your work tenure. It might be a tricky one to navigate. If you have regular movement on your resume with no more than 2 years of longevity in one role–ask yourself why and how? Have you made poor decisions on where to work, taken the road easily travelled, been swayed by money or status, sold a lemon, or simply not done enough background checking? Have you quit when the going gets tough? Have you regularly not had good relationships with each of your managers or the team members?Consider the reasons you have left each job. If there are consistencies and patterns, i.e., is it always, ‘I didn’t get along with my boss’, then maybe it is you. While every relationship consists of ebbs and flows and strengths and weaknesses, repeating the same pattern is usually very telling. These patterns don’t need to be negatively perceived; for example, you may be just too nice, and in your desire to please everyone, you forget to establish boundaries. Only you can answer these questions. But reflect and use your self-awareness. From my experience, after the two-year mark, those deeper working relationships are forged, learning and expertise are accelerated, and career and growth opportunities present themselves.

      Equally, if you have been working with the one company beyond, say 7 years, it’s not necessarily time to move, but it may be time to evaluate your growth, learning, personal satisfaction, and the value you are creating. We all get stagnant at different periods in our careers. The tip is to be aware. Changing jobs isn’t always the answer. You always need to be employable, so if you are at 7 years, start thinking about what skills you might need to stay relevant and fresh.

   4. Are you creating value? When you create value, you feel great about yourself and your job. Nothing beats that lovely warm, deep intrinsic feeling of a job well done. You are also learning and providing ROI, and after all, this is something all employees need to do.
   5. Ah…The headhunt. I’ve lost count of the number of times when at an interview, I ask, ‘why did you leave that job–you said you liked it and your boss was great’. The answer, ‘I was headhunted’. And now why are you leaving this job? ‘It wasn’t what I thought it would be’. When you are headhunted, typically people are flattered. There is nothing wrong with it; we all love to be sought after and genuinely recognised for our abilities, especially when it’s external! However, please don’t be too easily swayed. Whenever I am headhunting, I always say, ‘if you are happy, love your job and have a good boss–don’t leave’. These two components are exceptionally hard to find, so don’t give them up if you have them. You would have worked hard to gain respect, reputation, trust, and the relationship; why would you throw that away for ego and flattery–I’m being brutal here on purpose.So, if you have been headhunted and feel wanted, flattered and powerful from this–great, enjoy it, you likely deserve it, but it’s your responsibility to do the due diligence with your decision making. As a final thought on headhunting–ask yourself, would you leave a good friendship or marriage because you might get something better? Unlikely. If necessary, you work on current relationships and make them better.

If considering changing jobs, well before you start, write a list of what is important to you, rate it in significance and use that as a guide. Also, write a list of what is not working and ensure you check that against the next job offer. When being interviewed, ensure you, too, are interviewing your prospective employer. Make active, well thought through decisions. More than anything, take full responsibility for your final decision.

Now, to flag with you, I’m a recruiter (of course!) and a recruiter in a tough candidate short market, meaning I need candidates to operate my business–so some might say I should be doing everything to encourage resignations. You can see I haven’t done that, as it would work against all that I believe in and know to be valuable for my lovely readers.

But, I also know that life is precious and that sometimes we need to take the risk, have blind faith or just shake the status quo. That, too, is fine, as long as you know what motivates you. In the times of uncertainty that we are still experiencing, we either gravitate towards proven and well-known, which provides a sense of safety or seek something new and exciting to inject novelty and excitement. That can depend on your personality and your circumstances.

If you really want to change jobs and careers, come to us, the beautiful team at EST10! We will give you the best advice and solution that actually works for you.

An employee’s job is to give his or her best work every day. A manager’s job is to give the employee a good reason to come back to work tomorrow.” – Liz Ryan, CEO and founder of Human Workplace