Job Hopping: The top reasons

Are you excited with so many new job openings and getting tempted to the luring pay packages? Have you decided to move-on to a new job?

Being someone who has hopped few times, I have gone through the pre-hop and post-hop scenarios. I have also seen those faced by my friends/co-workers. Here are few “Things to consider” from my side which might help you.

“What was the trigger to your decision? Why are you moving?” is the question you will be asked by many people when you quit. You may tell stories to others but answer this honestly to yourself. First, look at the reasons for your change and see if you can work around your issues ..

Bad management

This is one of the main reason why employees quit. A bad manager/mangement can irritate and make even the best employees to leave. Sometimes it’s a change in the manager or change in the overall management strategies that motivates the associate to leave.

If your problem is with your manager and nothing else, try to see if you can find another role within the organization. If you are working in an organization for few years, it will not be that difficult for you to find a position in the team of a more trusted manager.

The so called bad manager can ruin this attempt too. In such cases, there is no option though.

Once you have decided to quit for this reason, remember that there is no guarantee of a good manager in the next team (unless you know someone already present there).

CTC

Money is one key thing which plays it’s role in the personal life and impacts the professional life. All looks well and suddenly a change in personal life can make things financially challenging. This can be marriage (:P), buying property or even a change in the lifestyle. In such cases, see if the situation can be handled for couple of years until the salary increases.

More than the financial problem itself, it’s the comparison that triggers the decision to quit. Sharing is not always caring. Sharing your salary with your co-worker with same experience level is very dangerous. One of you is going to get hurt. In this new corporate world, there is a good 5 - 30% difference in the pay between the associates with same skill set and experience level. Better don’t share as the policy says :-)

Onsite Chance

There are many guys in today’s world who are on the hunt for a onsite chance. But unfortunately there are not as many onsite chances as there are people asking for it. So, employees look outside the company for these chances.

If you are one of them chasing dollar dreams, then go on.

Delayed promotion

We all work hard to have some work satisfaction and at the same time, grow in our roles. It’s not sometimes but it often happens that we do not get promotions on-time. Try to understand why you were not promoted. Before anyone else, you need to convince yourself that you have the required skills for that role and you deserve it.

Sometimes it’s the limited number of allowed promotions that stop you and push someone else through. If that’s the case, just wait for the next round.

If nothing works out and if you have completely lost hope in it, then move on. But make sure you are being offered the role you want in the next one. It shouldn’t be a promise again. If it’s just a promise saying “We will give you that role next year”, then it’s a strict No-No. You will probably end up with broken promises.

Lack of work satisfaction

You might have a cool stress-free workplace, good enough salary in the location of your interest. But you might not be interested in the work. Not all roles impress everyone. Not much can be done about this. You need to find out a better place.

Location Change

Location change can be a trigger if you have left your home town some years ago and now want to come back. It can also be that you are married recently and your partner works in another place.

In these cases, I think it’s a valid reason. But if you are looking for a change in location just because you are bored of the current place, then I suggest you to go out on frequent holidays to other places instead of changing the job.

Note: Some employees leave for higher studies and some start their own business. That’s not a hop and I have not considered it here.

PS: I wrote this in Oct 2010.

About the author

Vishnu Vardhan Chikoti is a co-author for the book "Hands-on Site Reliability Engineering". He is a technology leader with diverse experience in the areas of Application and Database design and development, Micro-services & Micro-frontends, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering and Machine Learning.