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Soft Skills
Right time for a job change
Is it the right time to change jobs? Most professionals are
not able to analyse the situation effectively and often make mistakes. Gautam
Sinha explains why career planning is an art
 Ramesh was
working as a sales manager in a Rs 200 crore-company. He did not have any problems
with his boss and had a peer group with whom he got along well. Things were
going great for him—good salary, great boss, good peers and so the thought
of analysing his job never crossed his mind. Suddenly things changed in his
career, his boss quit and the new one who came in wanted to get his own person
(from his previous company) into this position. Ramesh then started looking
out for opportunities and what awaited him was the realisation that he had not
asked himself the two fundamental questions when things were going well for
him. He was now in a position where, with each passing day, things were becoming
more difficult and he was not able to carve out a way forward.
If this begins to sound familiar then let me elaborate on what I mean by the
two fundamental questions that you need to ask yourself.
1. Is my company growing?
This is a must ask whenever the thought of changing your job crosses your mind.
No matter how mundane or boring your present job, if your company is growing
at rates of more than 30-40 percent a year, hang on! When companies grow the
first beneficiaries are the employees as new opportunities are created and most
companies always prefer insiders to outside hires. It is worthwhile remembering
that your present job will also grow in ambit and size if your company is growing
and that in itself will offer new learning and, in most cases, higher pay.
2. Does the job that I do offer me scope to learn complex skills?
Asking how long a new person will take to perform at the level that I am presently
in can rephrase this question. Let us examine this in some detail. Please remember
that when you are interviewing for a job there are some selling points that
a resume has which distinguishes one from the other. Branded education is one
but then not all of us have it. Companies that you have worked in previously
is another (here again branded companies provide that edge). Finally it is the
complexity of skills that you bring in that give you the edge. The question
to be asked: Is there anything, which I know or have done which separates me
from the crowd? The complexity of skills that you have is not dependent on the
function that you are in, but the role that you perform.
If the answer to both these questions is “yes,” but you still want
to change your job then you fall in the category of people who are switching
because of “boss problems”. This is not unusual as a recent study
that I read said that more than 70 percent of the people quit their jobs because
they don’t get along with their boss. While I appreciate the fact that
we do need stress-free environments to function properly, however one must remember
the proverb of the known and the unknown devil.
There is one other factor that I would like to mention here and that is “boredom”.
This needs to be examined in more detail, as it is an all-pervasive term. Most
often what it means is that one has reached a dead-end in the present company
and there is no space above you (your boss is not likely to quit soon!) and
you don’t see much happening in your current role for some time. I would
still urge you to ask yourself the first two questions. If the answer to either
of them is in the affirmative then it may not be a good idea to change at the
moment.
Let us now look at how to analyse the new job that one is getting into. Two
questions again surface. “Is the company that I am joining on the growth
path?” and “Will my new job teach me any new skills”? I agree
that there is an issue here as information available (on growth aspects) may
not be correct. If one were to look at the thousands who quit their jobs to
join dotcoms, the answer to the first question in all the cases was a big yes
and that was proved wrong. All I can say is that there will be some element
of risk here and one can only minimise it by:
- Analysing the financials (easier said than done!).
- Getting feedback from personal networks to check out the
credibility of the company.
- Analysing track records of the top management or promoter
team.
- Talking to employees of that company (the best method,
talk to as many as you can to cancel out biases).
- The interview process is a good opportunity to probe and
form an opinion.
Let me again reiterate career planning is an art and the sooner one masters
it the lesser mistakes one is likely to make.
Gautam Sinha is CEO, TVA Infotech. He can be reached at
gautam@tvainfotech.com
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