Due to the rise of corporates buying up practices nationwide, the career goal of becoming practice partner after years of working your way up through a clinic is becoming less and less likely. I feel like there is less incentive these days to stay in one job for lengthy periods of time unless you feel truly settled and happy in the job and location.
In addition, the increasing awareness of choosing a career path that suits you and being happy with your work-place culture and colleagues, as opposed to sucking it up and pushing through, can lead to employees looking elsewhere. Especially when they don’t feel completely fulfilled in their job. On top of some seriously high salaries and benefits on offer at the moment with the huge demand for vets… Is it wrong to move around, or does staying in a practice for longer ‘look better’ on your CV and to future employers?
I’ve certainly found conflicting advice from my parents’ generation to what I’ve read online, and where traditionally an employee would look to staying in one job and certainly one career for most of their working life, nowadays millennials have already had more jobs than most people in their 50’s have had in their entire career. According to a recent study, those over 55 years old tend to stay in their job for at least 7 years, whereas millennials are more likely to switch after less than 4.5 years.
And as part of that next generation, I feel like we come under a lot of slack for being ‘restless’ or ‘lacking commitment’ but is it such a bad thing? That stigma is misplaced and changing jobs as often as every three to five years is definitely an accepted pace in today’s marketplace
Choosing to change job or career might be down to a number of reasons but increase in pay is one of the biggest reasons according to this survey. It can also be due to change in location, a chance to advance your career, to receive better training opportunities, to tackle a new challenge or to have a less stressful role.
So what are the pros of switching jobs regularly?
- A new job can energise you if you were becoming stagnant in your last one. If tasks and day-to-day life were becoming mechanical, then a fresh start can re-ignite creativity and drive with new challenges to test you.
2. An increase in salary. Veterinary surgeons and nurses are in strong positions to negotiate great salaries and benefits for themselves in the current labour market and veterinary shortage. Those professionals who change jobs every three to five years often earn more compensation and benefits than people who stay with the same employer for 10 to 15 years.
3. Asking for reduced hours (maybe you’ve been wanting to go down to a 4 day week for a while) is notoriously easier when negotiating a new job, rather than trying to persuade your boss in your current job.
4. Your professional network expands more rapidly, and with that it can open doors to opportunities you wouldn’t have had access to if you’d stayed put with the same colleagues for a long time.
5. Changing jobs forces you to level-up and learn a lot quickly which can be fantastic for developing new clinical skills and knowledge. According to Forbes, we have to work much harder to learn as much as fast in a company we are familiar with, than as we will learn by entering new organisations frequently.
6. Highly valued ‘soft skills‘ (like communication and conflict management) are often improved more rapidly when people job-hop as we have to build relationships with new teams and adapt to different working and leadership styles swiftly in new roles.
7. It gives you the opportunity to ‘re-value’ yourself and move up the career ladder if you feel that your current management won’t be able to offer you the same speed of progression.
8. You can try out living in new locations! If you go where the work takes you, you can end up travelling nationwide and worldwide for your career if you switch jobs more regularly.
So what are the cons?
- When you job-hop because you don’t like your current roles and you keep thinking the next one will be better without any kind of strategy, this does not look good on your CV or help you progress in your career. Maybe you dislike the actual work rather than each company you work for?
2. Some employers may still look down on job-hopping and may be less likely to hire you if they see it on your CV. If they think you’re going to leave in a couple of year’s time and they’ve just spent a lot of time and money on hiring someone new, it might not be worth the punt for them. Remember the total re-hiring process for a company can sometimes cost in the region of £15,000 in advertising, time spent searching, interviewing etc.
3. Relocating for jobs frequently can put stress on personal and family life, which in turn could put more stress on you.
4. Benefits may be reduced if you’re not working for a company or business for a certain amount of time. It could also affect how much is being put into your pension as well, which has knock-on affects for your retirement.
5. Have you been working in your current job long enough to have risen to a level of competence that will get you a reference from your employer that you deserve and need for your potential next job? It can sometimes take a while to feel fully settled in a job and longer still to gain a great skill level and respect amongst your colleagues and employer. Maybe think twice about switching jobs if you feel like you’re still on the up in your current role.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the current job market seems to treat job-hoppers well, although the key seems to be staying in each job for a minimum of 2 years and moving with intention. And if you really dislike a job after a short period of time, and want to move on, there is nothing wrong with this as long as you can explain it at interview at your next job. I certainly feel more confident to move more regularly if I wanted to! In the end, if we spend most of our life at work – prioritising happiness and job satisfaction should be number one!
ThisVetCan 