Do You Really Need To Leave Your Job?

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Tips And Advice

It is a sad fact of life and business that the things that are personally important to you are not high up on your boss and company’s priority list. Every job is a delicate balancing act of mutual benefit. When those scales become unbalanced is when you usually find yourself looking for a new job (whether voluntarily or not).

But do you really need to start looking (assuming that that the scales are not weighing in your favour)? Or is there something you can do to readdress the balance?

Pick out your bugbears below, and read our tips and see if you can salvage your current role. We always think it’s best to leave a role knowing you did your best to stay.

Money - Do You Feel Underpaid?

Well it’s what we go to work for, after all. Do you feel underpaid? Do you know that the guy opposite you takes home 3 grand more for doing a similar job?

There are loads of excellent advice articles online with tips on how to ask for a pay rise, so we won’t go into too much detail here. Often just plucking up the guts to ask can be half the battle, no matter how prepared you are. However, the very fact you’re asking should ring alarm bells in your line manager that they may need to work a little harder to keep you. Getting involved in a bonus scheme also shows that you are committed to working hard for the company, rather than just wanting more money.

Career progression

However, it takes more than money for ambitious, bright people like you to stay motivated. Maybe you’re struggling to see a future at your current company, or maybe someone’s been promoted over you. It can be really disheartening and tempting to leave.

This is the time to make sure you’ve done all you can. Prepare a one, two or three year plan of how you see you and your role growing in the business. Include things you want to achieve as measurable milestones you and the business would hit, and present it to your line manager. If that feels a little presumptuous then give yourself a project. Perhaps you think the CRM function could do with an overhaul. Call a meeting to present your ideas so you start to be taken more seriously.

If you have been overlooked for promotion and are feeling bitter, it’s important to turn this into a business. It’s highly unlikely that your manager snubbed you because they want to push you out. Ask for feedback about why you were overlooked and find ways to remedy it; maybe you could ask for a training budget or shadow a senior manager.

Does your job offer a good work/life balance?

Maybe the money’s great and you’re flying through the ranks, but your commute is a daily ordeal that’s bringing you down. Or maybe the expectations to stay late or entertain clients are impacting too much on your home life.

It’s easy to feel like these are trivial things, but they’re amongst the most common reasons for people leaving their jobs. Because if you’re not happy, what’s the point?

Asking for flexible working is your best bet here. Our hyper connected world means that working from home a couple of days a week is no biggie, or you can start late a few days so you can actually get a seat on the train for once. If working late is your problem, try explaining to your manager that these expectations are starting to impact on your home life, and that finishing a couple of hours earlier on a Friday might help.

Surely as a recruitment company we shouldn’t be telling you to stick at your current job, right? Well, we believe that you should be leaving your job for the right reasons; it’s a big decision and not one to be taken lightly. You certainly wouldn’t leave a marriage without giving it everything you could. It is best to be positive about making the change than enter into a process you’re not fully committed to.