Company Loyalty Could Cost You 50% of Your Income

In this blog post, I am going to be talking about switching jobs, specifically I am going to touch on why all of the people who tell you it’s a bad thing are completely wrong and why successful people change jobs more often.

Traditionally, switching jobs or “job hopping” was considered to be a bad idea. Career experts have been telling us for a while now that it may be damaging our career. To admit, I used to tell my customers to stay employed with the same company for a longer time or else they will look bad in the eyes of new employers.

Those days are gone. No one can guarantee you lifelong employment. Your job security and salary is not something your employer controls anymore, you control it! For those who like numbers, the difference between a 4% raise (the average American’s raise) and a 20% raise over time is huge. Studies have shown that if you switch jobs every 2-3 years you could be making nearly 50% more at the end of your career than someone who stays with one company. This is a massive difference and could mean hundreds of thousands of missed income. 

Again, if done correctly, switching jobs could be one of the most efficient ways to accelerate your career and increase your salary in the short term. Most research suggests switching jobs 2-3 years, but I think as long as you stay with a company for 18 months minimum, you should be fine.

When you work at several companies in a short period of time (2-3 years) you:

• Increase your earnings. According to Forbes, employees who stay at companies for longer than 2 years, make up to 50% less over the course of 10 years.

• Gain new skills and work experience to different business practices, allowing you be an expert in various areas and seen as diverse and flexible in the eyes of new employers. Studies show that 46% of people said their jobs did not allow them to gain new skills, and 44% did not feel challenged or felt they were not using their education. You’d be wise to consider a career change, if you are feeling burnt out.

• Develop your network by creating relationships with many different people from all sorts of backgrounds. The more people you know, the more your reputation in your business community can grow.

• Become more comfortable with interviewing and negotiating your salary.

• Build success stories in different environments that you can then use across a wide variety of situations down the road.

Do not worry about the companies who say “they won’t hire people who have short time jobs” on their resume. If you run into a company like that, it’s probably too much fear in that organization that they turn away job seekers who do not stay stuck in their jobs 5 to 10 years. There is no way your brilliance could shine in a place like that!

When you are applying to well known companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, they know they are the top employers and they do not care if you’ve switched jobs multiple times. They are only concerned with hiring the best talent because they know they have the resources to retain those people.

So, do not give your employer the right to limit you, instead take the wheel and drive your own career – wherever it wants to go!

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me on my website or find me on Facebook or Linkedln! I am here to help!