The 3 Best Tips For Changing Jobs

Over the past few months there has been a lot of turbulence in the workforce with people leaving their organizations both voluntarily and involuntarily.

Now could be an opportune time to consider reinventing yourself and exploring other opportunities. In fact, I’ve received countless emails and comments about this which is why my wife and I started our Be Your Own Boss Podcast!

Let’s say you decided it’s time for a change and are ready to switch jobs. What should you do now?

Switching jobs isn’t something that should be taken lightly, but if for example you find yourself in a toxic work environment where you can’t advance, it may be time to move on.

After you’ve made the decision to look for a new job, here are three things to consider:

Understand why you want to leave
People leave their jobs for a variety of reasons. Before you leave your job, make sure you’re leaving for the right reason(s), not for something superficial. Good reasons to leave include things like no prospect of growth or advancement, a toxic workplace culture, a poor relationship with a leader, or conflict with personal and professional values.

Bad reasons to leave include things like not enjoying the free food your company provides, being unsatisfied with the extra perks, being bored, or being challenged too much.

As you go through your mental checklist ask yourself questions like:

• Does this really matter that much?
• Is this something I can fix or change?
• Can I do something else that augments how I feel?
• Changing jobs is exhausting and time consuming so before you get in too deep, make sure you are leaving for the right reasons.

Some organizations actually have a high number of what are called “boomerang employees.” These are people who left the company to find greener pastures only to return upon realizing how good things really were.

Develop yourself
In today’s world of work your mindsets and skillsets are more important than your resume and your job title.

Organizations value employees who can learn how to learn. You can’t just rely on educational institutions or on organizations to teach everything you need to know to be successful. Sometimes you will need to leverage your own time and resources for growth and development.

However, chances are that your company does have some resources that you can take advantage of before moving on. Find out what training and development opportunities exist and how you might be able to leverage them for a future role. For example, if you want to transition from marketing to web development, perhaps your company has related training programs and courses you can sign up for which are at no cost to you.

If you have downtime at the company (like I did in my first job) don’t squander it playing on Facebook, use that as an opportunity to continue your learning journey. In my case, 15 years ago when I knew I wanted to leave my employer, I used all of my downtime to learn about online marketing.

I put together a video which talks about this in more detail. Please check it out below and if you want more content like this you can subscribe to my Youtube channel. 

Leave on good terms

No matter how rocky the time at your current job has been, don’t burn any bridges on your way out. You aren’t Georga Costanza from Seinfeld so take it easy!

References and relationships still matter, so try to make things right before you leave. The last thing you want is a disgruntled former boss or co-worker making it difficult for you to move on to a new opportunity with a bad reference. There’s nothing worse than working at a well-known company on a big project, only to not be able to use it in your resume, it’s a huge wasted opportunity.

It’s also a great idea to stay connected to your co-workers and your leaders, assuming you have a good relationship with them. Having a network always helps, this was a big mistake I made when I left my last full-time job. I didn’t bother to try to keep any of my relationships and ended up having to start all over again from scratch!

We don’t always leave a company because of a bad relationship or a negative experience, sometimes it’s just time to move on. I’ve interviewed many business leaders who speak quite highly of their former employees.

Remember, you are in control of your career path. If you’re in a situation where you don’t feel like you are getting what you need or deserve, then it could be time to switch jobs or even careers.

Don’t take the decision lightly, and once you’ve decided to go, follow these three tips to ensure your job search and transition goes as smoothly as possible.

Have another tip to share? Have you switched jobs? Leave a comment below, I read all of them!

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If you enjoyed the article and want more content like this here’s what you can do:

1. Subscribe to The Future of Work Podcast where I interview business leaders around the world each week.
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