If I had a $1 for every time I heard “going from job to job is going to ruin your career”, I would realistically have somewhere around $500 dollars. I’ve written about this before and it is still something I continue to hear and get annoyed by. For one, it could not be any further from the truth and two we no longer live in a generation where people complete 60-year stints at one company. What I have learned is that people say this because by you leaving a company prematurely, it costs them a great deal of money. You are essentially a threat to their capitalistic ideals.
This year, 2020, I turned 26. Just before my 25th birthday, I quit my job to transition into a higher-paying managerial position. I was there for 1 year and 4 months. In all honesty, I may not have quit the other job if they spent even 1 minute to discuss career growth. Especially after completing my masters. They didn’t, so I left. My newest employer didn’t care that I had worked for many companies. All they cared about was whether or not I would be up for the task of completing the listed job responsibilities. Actually, they were enticed to hire me because I had worked for so many companies in the industry. I brought a different perspective by knowing how other competing organizations operate.
The big issue here is that some organizations place their own interests ahead of yours. They want you to devote your entire career to working within their organization and fail to work on actually keeping you interested in staying. Raises, bonuses, career growth, tuition reimbursement, and good management are all reasons to stay in a job for a reasonable amount of time but without those why would you want to stay? Every job I ever quit had a solid reason behind me leaving. I have no regrets and you shouldn’t either.
“Job hopping” as they say, will not ruin your career. Sometimes it can enhance it. You gain an abundant amount of experience. We, younger people, are also in a place of discovering what we like to do. If it takes a couple, 4, 5, or 6 jobs to get there, that’s okay. Don’t let corporations, recruiters, or anyone for that matter bully you into staying somewhere you don’t enjoy.
If you are interested in hearing more about my 6 jobs before 26, watch the YouTube video below.
Until next post, stay savage.
Kyyah Abdul
CEO