How can you tell when it is time for a career change?
Did you know that most professionals are not lured to a company by salary alone? Given that, salary is unlikely to keep them there. There is an old sales adage, "People buy things emotionally, then justify their purchase logically." That same adage applies to jobs, both in accepting them and leaving them.
Exit interviews document the most frequent reasons for leaving as, "a lack of challenge" or that the former employee "just needed something more." Seldom was the reason" an offer I couldn't refuse." Imagine if you were a manager and heard this. You may have been able to do something to save the employee early on.
If you wake up one morning with the thought "I'm just not happy with the work I'm doing" you are ready for a change. You are experiencing job satisfaction problems that could be fixed, but require some cooperation from your employer.
We all know that the days of lifelong employment with one employer (other than the public schools or government) are unlikely to return. Actually, staying happy with one employer is a difficult task. It is a lot easier when both employee and employer recognize the symptoms of dissatisfaction. This means that both sides "gotta wanna." You gotta wanna stay and make it work. Your boss has gotta wanna to keep you. You both gotta wanna make it work. If either side does not, you could be looking for work every couple of years.
One sure thing in the lives of the scientist or engineer is the desire for interesting projects. We got into this field because the work was cool. Our expectations are that the money be enough to take care of our families, but the work has to be fascinating at best and interesting at worst. Experiential learning is a driving force for our profession. Without it we get "plateauing" and "burnout." It is actually a creative thing.
Creative industry motivators seem to differ dramatically from those of workers in older, less innovative industries. Although it may be hard for you to imagine, some employee producing widgets all day can be productive and happy (yes, I said happy) for years while doing a repetitive daily task. But a chemist who is told to run the same analysis for more than a week will be screaming for a technician! Therefore the definition of job satisfaction will differ from one person to the next. Indeed some people's motivation to work lie completely outside of their work environment.
But what if you have devoted your life so far to becoming an expert at something and you don't much like it any longer? Could it be true that you wasted your life and graduate school mastering something that you really did not care much about?
A little bit about post-secondary education
According to the Council on Higher Education, less than 20% of college graduates are working in their field of study only five years after graduation. Does this mean that 80% of college graduates wasted four or more years of their lives in university? I believe it kind of does. Think about it, if you are one of the 80%, knowing what you know now, would you have taken different courses in school? Of course you would. Therefore, some of your precious unrecoverable time on this planet was wasted doing something other than you wanted to do. Now perhaps this leads to a discussion on life priorities and such, but for purposes of career development, let's just keep the perspective that had you chosen more correctly your course of study in school, your odds of longer-term employment in your field of study would have increased. Would that have made a difference? Maybe, a definite maybe. But if you are not happy with the thought of going to work in the morning, it is still time to change.
I do not think that the 20% are all that happy most of the time either.
If you are not happy, change
Am I recommending that you just give notice, pack your things and go? If you do not think it is worth salvaging, then yes. You will get a higher payback on lifetime happiness the sooner you stop the old stuff and start the new. What if you cannot financially afford to just quit and start over? Well, I'm not going to brow beat anyone about fiscal responsibility in these days of high school students with credit cards, but has it ever really been about the money? Do what you love, the money will follow.
It's about learning
Products and services are becoming commodities. So no matter what you make or do, eventually it will become cheaper and there will become more of it. What you know, however, will never become a commodity.
Companies do not hesitate to protect their investment in capital equipment and instruments. Think of how much is spent on a preventative maintenance support contract for a $60,000 gas chromatograph for instance. A typical chemist would cost them that much. Wouldn't you like to have that much money spent on you to keep you updated on new software, new hardware and general obsolescence? And yet these same companies ignore the preventive maintenance required so that their single greatest investment, their people, grow and remain healthy and happy in the organization for years.
People—and their ability to learn and apply their learning—may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.
About the author: Norm Fraley is distance learning manager for Kelly Scientific Resources. He can be contacted at FRALENE@kellyservices.com.