When Should You
Change Your Job?

The Carrer Warrior Podcast

In this episode:

• Why people should change their job every 2-3 years.
• Why you should look at boosting your income level.
• The importance of stretching your roles in your job.
• When is the best time to change your job?
• How to gauge your pay options for a new job?
• Take the quiz "Does Your Work, Work For You?.

Please listen to the podcast below.
Click the white arrow to start the podcast.

The Career Warrior Podcast Transcript

Why People Should Change Their Job Every 2-3 Years

Chris: (01:13)

And welcome to the Let's See Grandma Career Warrior podcast in today's minisode our guest has a pretty hot take. Why you should consider changing jobs. Every two to three years earlier, I sat down with Sonya dynamo price who recommends employees change positions often in order to achieve greater long-term mobility and pay in their careers. Sonya has over 15 years of experience in career and leadership consulting and has worked with a wide range of clients, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, and HBO. You can find Sonya on LinkedIn under her name Sonya price, and you can check out her website at DynamoCareers.com, check this conversation out and I hope you find it to be equally as interesting as I did. So, Sonya, one thing that we talked about in our last conversation is why employees should change jobs every two to three years. This was something that I think you mentioned earlier and I was kind of taken aback by it, but it kind of made more sense as I was speaking to you a little bit more, but I'll ask you on behalf of all of our listeners here today, why do you believe that employees should change their jobs?

Chris: (02:20)

Every two to three years?

Sonja: (02:22)

Oh boy, this is kind of a hot topic for me.

Chris: (02:25)

Um, and me too, cuz I'm an employer. I wanna keep my employees. They're poor to me.

Sonja: (02:30)

Yeah, you're on the retention side of things. You're trying to keep folks around. Um, and for employees, you know, as an employee, you should always be thinking about how do you maximize your earning potential throughout your career. Um, and so one of the best ways to do this is to change jobs every two to three years. Okay. And the data shows us the data proves that you know, when you move on to a new organization, uh, you know, you, you will make significantly more. If you stay in the same job, this is the most frustrating thing. And I, I really empathize with a lot of career seekers from this perspective because it's if you stay in the same job, you stay there for 5, 7, 10 years, generally year over year over you'll get a cost of living increase of okay, two to 3%.

Why You Should Look At Boosting Your Income Level

Sonja: (03:23)

You know, the average is like two to 3%, which I mean, we have incredible inflation rates these days. So oftentimes your cost of living increase doesn't even keep pace with inflation. Um, so we want to be rewarded for our loyalty and our hard work, but very early, does that happen if you stay in the same role in the same company, usually you're gonna get that two to 3% cost of living increase. But if you move onto a new organization, uh, generally you're going to receive probably a 10 to 20% increase. Um, and if you really dial in your positioning, you know, you get you to your job targets, you dial in your positioning, you know exactly what you're going for. You can actually make significant jumps and income much, much higher than that. Um, you know, at dynamo careers, we've actually helped clients, land jobs, making up to a hundred thousand dollars more per year than what they're previously amazing. So there are significant opportunities if you know how to approach the whole process,

Chris: (04:26)

That makes so much sense from the pay perspective. And I've heard that too, people getting stuck, um, in a certain range that they're, they're not happy with or just wanting to grow. Um, but yet what are the reasons, uh, I guess beyond pay, uh, to change jobs every two to three years?

The Importance of Stretching Your Roles in Your Job

Sonja: (04:44)

You know, earlier we talked about stretch roles and I'm a firm believer in the importance of always going after stretch roles because that's gonna that's what will help accelerate your overall career progression? And it's gonna keep you, you know, cutting edge. It's gonna keep you up on the latest and greatest in the industry. You know, so if you do want to progress into leadership or higher level of leadership roles, you need to constantly be increasing your responsibilities, increasing your scope, you know, increasing your overall, um, umbrella of what you're doing and what you're responsible for. And if you're, you know, more aligned with a specific product or a technology, you know, you need to kind of stay working on the latest and greatest. And, and if you go to a new organization, you're going to continue to expand your skillset and gain a much broader perspective of what's out there, what's available how different industries or different organizations do it. And then you'll have a much broader background and experience to pull from. Yeah. So that, you know, you're always accelerating your career. You always have more work success stories to draw from. And generally, when you stay in the same organization and particularly in the same role for years and years at a time, you kinda lose that cutting edge, you lose that, that innovative, uh, you know, process or that innovative front that will keep you in high demand in the job market.

Chris: (06:08)

Yeah. And I've seen that just speaking with a lot of friends, you know, changing jobs. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken with, um, who have left for growth. You know, a lot of people who are leaving and resigning right now, it just ties back to want people wanting to transform themselves and to grow and to have a better, a better situation than before. So if I'm a company right now, then how do I respond to this in order to retain good talent? And perhaps this answers the question on the job seeker end that says, why should I stay with the company? Um, when would it be a right choice for me to stick with the company that I'm at right now?

When Is The Best Time to Change Your Job?

Sonja: (06:48)

Yeah. Great question. Um, you know, I think for, well, I mean it's two sides of the coin, right? But for employers, I mean, things that they can be doing is constantly looking at their workforce satisfaction. You know, how satisfied are people with the organization and pay is one component of that, right? It's actually when we look at the top retention rates, the number one and two top reasons why people stay in a role and they remain loyal to an organization is because one, their manager cares about them as a person. Like they actually have a personal connection with their manager. Doesn't mean you have to be, you know, best buds outside of work or anything like that. But that, you know, your manager actually cares about you more than just, you know, get this report done by this point in time. Um, that's a number one contributing factor to retention and number two is having a best friend at work.

Sonja: (07:42)

Um, which just means you have somebody to, you know, to have watercooler talk with and you, you know, you have someone to kind of relate with about the, you know, the day in, day out work and that, um, you have someone to confide in. Yes. Um, so you know, that work culture, the work environment is so crucially important. So that's one thing to think about is just the culture itself a hundred percent, um, pay is also a consideration as well. So I think companies can actually, you know, they can pay attention to market rate standards and at times actually conduct leveling exercises where they come through and say, Hey, you know what? We've recognized that these roles are not on par with the market rate, therefore we're going to give you, you know, X percent more to year-based salary. That can definitely be something that a company can do that will really help gain trust and respect from their employees as well then there are many other factors. Yeah. As well too. But the flip side of that coin as an employee is just be thinking about, do you vibe well with the culture? Do you like your current team? Do you like your manager? Do you like your coworkers and also, you know, are, are they paying you on, you know, market-rate pay are, is your current salary competitive or are you lagging far behind what the, you know, the market rate or the market average is.

Chris: (09:05)

Yeah. And that was a really good response cuz earlier we talked about it, I asked you the question, so how can employees manage their earning potential right now? And so you're saying to do your research, correct. Make sure you're on par with the market. You actually want to go and look at real hard numbers, correct?

How to Gauge Your Pay Options for a New Job?

Sonja: (09:22)

Absolutely. Yep. You wanna look at hard numbers and you need to be paying attention to what does your industry pays and what does your organization or similar competitors pay. Okay. Because it's, it's for your specific role, right? So you could just look up your role and say, oh, what's the, what's the overall range for my role. I'm a project manager. What do project managers make? Well, you're gonna find a really, really, really wide range as far as what the, you know, the overall base salary is for that particular role. You wanna be looking in your area, you wanna be looking in your industry and you wanna be looking at your company and also competitor companies as well. Cuz if you can see what your company typically pays and what competitor companies pay, well, then you know, it's not that hard to shift over, to work for a competitor. And if one competitor is, is paying significantly more, then that's a good reason to either make a shift or, you know, potentially, um, you know, look to see if you could negotiate a higher pay internally, which awesome is actually way harder to do than getting a new job. But it is, it is one strategy that you could try.

Chris: (10:27)

Cool. And what was this quiz you were telling me about earlier? It's does your work, work for you or something along those lines? I think that might help people.

Take the Quiz "Does Your Work, Work For You?

Sonja: (10:34)

Yeah. I have a really fun quiz and it's at DynamoCareers.com/quiz. And it's called the, "Does Your Work,  Work For You" quiz? Within five minutes or less, you can answer some questions, which I think will really start to get your gears turning around. Hey, is this job the right fit for me? Does my work, work for me? It is unintended there. We will give you some great data at the end. We can give you a good idea of, you know, do you, are you just working in a job, just kind of, you know, paying the bills and doing the day to day to get through. Do you have a more comprehensive career plan? Is this something that gives you the out longer-term trajectory? Or are you actually working inside your calling where you have that meaningful and fulfilling work? Check it out. It's dynamo careers.com/quiz and let's find out does your work for you?

Chris: (11:34)

Awesome. All right, warriors that just about wraps it up for today. Do you agree with the statement that employees should change jobs every two to three years or do you disagree? I would love to hear your thoughts just post this episode on LinkedIn and tag, both Sonya and myself, Sonya is under Sonya Price and I am Chris so let us know what you thought about this episode and that's just about it for today. Can't wait to see you next week.