In over 15 years of my career as a Software Development Manager and IT Consultant, I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews, ranging from freshers to several years experienced professionals.
With the IT industry booming in India, employee attrition rates are very high and people keep on switching jobs; some for a reason and others for simply a change. Through this article, I want to share my opinions while trying to explore some key Reasons to Switch Jobs.
#1- I’m switching my Job for Growth/ Exposure
This is the main reason (read excuse) most of the people quote, be it a fresher or an experienced professional.
When encountered with a cross-question; “Can you please define growth?” they nearly come up with same replies of likes “Ummm, I want to learn new technologies”,
“gain exposure to different processes”,
“I want to learn something new”, etc.
and surprisingly, I get similar replies from 4- 5 years of experienced professionals as well. This sounds fake and rather disappointing in all contexts.
So when I ask, “Why can’t you learn new technologies, processes and techniques in your current job?” then they can’t look into my eyes.
So what does that mean?
Do they really want to learn something new or challenging?
No, instead they just want to get out of their job for a salary hike.
So what does Growth actually means?
It’s learning, developing, and then fine-tuning the skills (or maybe technologies) you have acquired while working on XYZ projects. One must develop the capability to accept new challenges or changes (often painful) positively and treat them as opportunities to develop new skills to help yourself grow.
You can adapt to new technologies by learning from Google/ Coursera/ Youtube/ Udemy tutorials and more but you can ONLY adopt new skills by practicing them on Job. Try to be more creative at your workplace.
#2- I deserve a better salary or increment
When candidates tell me this as one of the Reasons to Switch Jobs then I ask them “What skills you have developed which entitles you to a better increment?” and “What were your achievements in your current company?”
They come back with a stereotyped reply “I’ve worked on PHP, ASP.NET, JAVA, XML, etc., etc.”.
I can clearly see that they are confusing skills with technology stack and achievements with job responsibility.
Just learning new technologies does not entitle you to a better raise. It might be shocking to some but its true.
In all these years, I’ve been regularly mentoring my employees as a Project Manager earlier and now as a CEO in Prologic Technologies. I’ve always insisted on acquiring skills such as
Effective Troubleshooting,
Time-Saving strategies,
Deliver Quality under pressure,
Detail Oriented,
Positive Approach and
Team Work
Therefore, along with focusing on learning new technologies, you should also practice these soft- skills, which will last forever and are always in demand.
#3- Late sittings and work-life balance issues
Candidates often complain that they are working late hours in routine and their work-life balance goes for a toss. I see multiple reasons to this problem and hence their solutions.
In one case, it could be due to bad work culture or seniors who have set up a tradition of late sitting. So they make others also sit late for no reason.
In another case, the employees could be overloaded with work either due to a shortage of staff or due to improper workflow.
In both these cases, frustration is obvious and one may be right in quitting the organization if its requests are being ignored by the management.
On the other hand, an employee might not be skilled/ capable/ experienced enough to complete their tasks on time. This can be resolved by enhancing one’s skills. Therefore, adapting time-saving strategies for routine work and being more focused on priority tasks in hand, can help resolve this.
Facing the situation and giving your best shot is the ONLY solution and NOT running away from problems by quitting your job.
#4- Frequent Salary Delays
This is unfortunately an obvious reason to quit the job. Its the prime duty of employer to provide a healthy work environment and salary on time, failing which may earn him a bad reputation.
But have we ever thought about what leads to salary delays?
Who wants to earn a bad reputation i.e. why would a good employer delay the salaries?
Let’s do a bit of reverse engineering;
Salary delays are primarily due to payment delays from clients. One of the major reasons for delay in payments is that the work did not get delivered on time.
Now delivering work on time is one of the prime responsibilities of an employee.
So the table can turn 360 degrees if the employees join hands and commit to delivering in time resulting in less probability of salary delays.
Conclusion
All the above Reasons to switch jobs might look employer centric but actually, they are not. I emphasize a healthy relationship where employer focuses on skill-building/ growth of employees than merely extracting maximum work out of them.
On the other hand, employees should work like they own the organization, take ownership of tasks & participate in the growth of the organization as well as their own career growth.
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