Is it time to hand in your notice? 5 questions to help you decide

In my previous blog (Your skills are your greatest asset – are you looking after them?) I suggested that to the best way to manage your skills and therefore career is to move jobs regularly.  I have an obvious interest in encouraging this line of thought, but I also happen to believe that regular moves keep your CV fresh and your skills up to date, increasing your chances of remaining in employment as the ever changing world of IT continues to advance and that is one of the reasons I am still in this business after so many years.

There are 5 key qualifying questions that you can use to help you decide whether to move on, they are:

• Would the company/department performance be negatively affected without me?
• Is this role helping me towards my ultimate career goal through skills development?
• Would my skills be difficult to replace?
• Am I worth my salary?
• Am I being contacted about or seeing roles advertised that I could go for now?

If you answered “No” to any of those questions above you should be thinking hard about your marketability as the chances are it could be on the slide.  I waited until I answered “No” to 3 of the questions before leaving my employer of 10 years to establish Bristow Holland and even then it was still difficult thing to do.

This is why I understand fully how hard it is to leave a stable job, it’s tough to argue that you should leave a role that is comfortable, relatively well paid and fits in with your lifestyle, particularly in the years when people tend to settle down into long term relationships, buy a house and start a family. This is the time when stability at work seems so important but this is exactly the time where career lethargy can be most damaging especially for an IT specialist.

The reason it’s necessary to make this argument is that in the modern IT employment market it has never been more important to be in control of your own destiny and be the one making decisions for your career rather than having them made for you by someone else.  I’ve seen countless loyal employees who have worked diligently and honestly for a business for years being made redundant and coming to the market with an obsolete or dated skill set.   This isn’t the employers fault; they will have provided a stable working environment, holiday, benefits and salary for that person but things changed, as they always do, and their need changed with very challenging, yet completely avoidable, consequences for the individual.

There is a wide world of possibilities out there and keeping an eye on the market through either job board alerts or a relationship with a trusted recruiter should be the minimum action to keep on top of your skills.

To book an appointment with one of the Bristow Holland experts please call 01473 722944 or email [email protected]