Statistics tell us that on average people change jobs every 4.5-5 years. Which means that in 35 years career people do that 6-7 times. And every time one transforms for quite a while from a “person” to a “candidate”. Here are a few tips how to benefit at most from this challenging status.
Ideally, you should be contacted by headhunter or new potential employer. And not you knocking somebody’s door. This gives you a credit of being a valuable professional who is not looking for a new job, thus, is not desperate. However, I recommend to consider all the opportunities that will be presented to you irrespective to how you feel at the current workplace. The obvious value is to know what market can offer and what is your real “price” and not the one that you can generate yourself in your mind.
Provided you are seriously interested in a new opportunity, get into the recruitment race. Be prepared – in corporate world the process will be quite long. Sometimes it can take a few months. Stay patient and don’t make assumptions – too difficult for you to assess what’s going on. You don’t know whether the decision maker is travelling or busy with other things, or whether the opening is not really in priority or whether you are not a priority candidate.
Same rule is absolutely true for you going through the interviewing process. Interview can be very short or very long, very formal or very informal, in the office or outside of the office and… It doesn’t mean anything. Trust me. You don’t know what’s the reason for any of those listed above. You don’t know the Company culture or the style of the particular interviewer. Also don’t try to guess what’s the right answer to the particular question. Just say what is right to you. You will benefit in any case. If your “right” answer correspond with the one of the interviewer, you will get a higher score and more likely will pass the interview. And if yours doesn’t correspond… you will not end up getting into something that doesn’t match your values or life priorities.
Meanwhile try to behave in a “business as usual” way with your current employer and colleagues. Too often people emotionally jump onto next opportunity and disengage from the existing reality much before any practical decisions have been made. What happens then? If they don’t get what they thought they almost did? Right. They have to restore the trust and commitment with people around… And this is very difficult, if at all possible, provided it has been broken once.
Changing job is a very emotional and time/energy consuming process. Be careful and think twice (or more times) when you assess the opportunity. Focus on important things, those that make the difference for you. Try to avoid jumping to conclusions. But if you decide that the opportunity is great for you – then go for it! And don’t make assumptions during the process