How to Know When Its Time to Make a Job or Career Change - Sterling Career Concepts

How to Know When It’s Time to Make a Job or Career Change How to Know When It’s Time to Make a Job or Career Change There’s a saying in the careers industry that you’ll know it’s time to make a job or career change when you start asking yourself if it’s time to make a change. While there is truth to that, there’s more to making your decision. Over the next few weeks, we’ll help you identify reasons for making a job or career change and offer practical strategies and tips to help make your decision. The first step is to assess the reason or reasons why you may want to make a change. Change can often be difficult so you want to make sure that the reason you’re considering a switch isn’t something temporary that could fix itself over time. Some reasons why you may be considering a job or career change are internal and include how you feel about your job, colleagues, or boss or the level of advancement or salary increase afforded to you. External factors â€" that you have no control over â€" can also impact your decision to make a job or career change. These can include a change in corporate leadership, a merger or acquisition, or the direction of the industry. The key is to assess whether these internal or external factors prompting you to consider the change are temporary or permanent. You should also assess the “temperature” of these factors and how they affect you. Some of them may be more of a minor “inconvenience,” while others may feel unbearable. For example, while you may be working in a dying industry, as long as you have a job, you may not be interested in switching jobs or changing careers. But you’re a frog in a pot of water that is slowly heating up. The question isn’t “if” you will eventually be affected by changes in the industry, but “when.” If you take charge of managing your career with this type of assessment, you’ll be better equipped to handle career change, not just react to it. This is the first article of a four-part series. In the next and second post, we’ll talk about whether you should change jobs or your career path.