010: Simple Signs You’re Ready for a New Job
010: Simple Signs You’re Ready for a New Job
===
[00:00:00] Intro
---
Mike Bird: Hey there! Welcome back to Sales Seekers. You're with me, Mike Bird. And today I want to talk about signs that you may be ready for a new job.
As I'm creating this, I'm thinking about people who may be in a situation where they're considering a move into a tech sales career, and they want to move on from wherever they are now.
Or maybe folks who've already landed in sales and they may feel like, "Hey, the job I've got right now isn't actually working out for me. I'm not sure if it makes sense for me to start looking." I want to try and help clarify the situation that you might find yourself in.
Today's episode is based on a long-time friend of mine sharing a piece of information that has stuck with me over the years: his take on how he evaluates jobs and has evaluated the jobs that he's had. And he's had a whole bunch of different ones. I'm going to adapt the conversation that we had once upon a time and share out these ideas with you. And give you a framework to evaluate the role that you have now to help determine whether or not it makes sense to start thinking about moving on, or staying where you're at.
So ideally a job should provide these three things.
[00:01:06] 3 things your work should provide
---
Mike Bird: One, is, we'll call it happiness, or a sense of fulfillment. Positive energy. In other words, you should look forward to going to work each day and not feel like work is leaving you drained day after day.
Number two, it should provide you with growth in your skills and your abilities, and the opportunity for career progression.
So you shouldn't feel like you're not learning things or that you're getting bored. You should feel like you're leveling up your skillset, continuously adding new value to your organization, and possibly earning a promotion or two along the way.
And then lastly, and this one may be obvious, your job should provide you with money. Enough to meet your financial needs, obligations, and help you achieve your goals. It's as simple as that.
Recapping those three, you deserve to be, again in a perfect world: feeling excited to work., learning something while you're doing it, and making enough to pay your bills and live a life that you're truly content with.
[00:02:01] Different scenarios you may find yourself in
---
Mike Bird: Let's look at a few different scenarios that you may find yourself in and examine how they may be impacting your decision as to whether to stay or to move on.
If you have all three of these things, it's highly unlikely you'll be motivated to look for new work. It just won't make sense. You'll feel like you're good to go where you're at. There's no real pain point that's driving you to look for something else. If you've got all three, you feel fulfilled in your work, you feel like you're growing, your career is progressing, and that you are making ends meet and then some in terms of finances. You're most likely to stay where you're at.
If you have two out of these three, let's say that you make what feels like pretty good money, and you're happy doing your job, but you're not really growing. Like you're kind of stagnant right now in your career, then there's a chance you'll be continuing to stick around in that role, but you may start to be thinking about what else is out there.
A lot of the folks that I know feel like they are sort of coasting through these situations. They are okay to keep going. They're not necessarily super excited overall about the work that they're doing. But they're not jumping to leave either.
If you're only experiencing one of these three elements, there's a really strong chance you'll be looking to move on now or very soon. If your skillset is growing rapidly, but you're making almost no money doing it. You're working long hours. You aren't enjoying your work. Then it's really likely you're unhappy and possibly even resentful toward your current employer. And this isn't a very sustainable situation. It won't last long before you decide, "Hey, I'm ready to get out of here."
It might be obvious, but if your job delivers on none of these three things, you're probably looking for a job right now, as you're listening to this episode. You might even be asking yourself how you even ended up in the job that you've got and to you, I want to say, it happens. Trust me. Try and take it easy on yourself, there will be better times ahead.
Everyone is going to evaluate their own job in their own subjective way. For some people even missing one of the three elements is a cause to start looking for something else. Sometimes it's also about how badly one element is missing that will drive or influence your behavior. For example, if you're suddenly on track for a large increase in your household spending, let's say that you and your partner are about to give birth to twins. Then it's possible that the new and very strong need for more money will quickly push you toward a new role.
Or if you're so unhappy- maybe you're anxious, you're really, really stressed with work- that your physical and mental health starts to collapse. Then you may be dealt a strong wake up call in the form of a major illness, or maybe even a hospital visit. And we're not really designed as humans to function very well, obviously if we're chronically stressed. So these kinds of situations may also move someone to get out of a job faster, even if it's just one of the big three needs that's missing.
Now this isn't meant to be a super deep dive into this topic. Just something to introduce to you and give you some food for thought. If you're still listening, then I encourage you to think about to what extent you experience the three elements, happiness, growth, and financial gain, in your current role.
Are one or two of the elements missing? If so it may be time to open yourself up more seriously to a change in your work. Ideally you want to do this before your situation becomes too dire. Before you become too drained, too bored or too broke. None of these situations are great to be in.
Sometimes you don't have to move on to a different employer to change your circumstance and find one or more of the missing elements. Sometimes there are opportunities for a helpful change living right within your organization. And so depending on the relationship you have with your boss, you might be able to explore this. However, it will be harder and maybe even impossible to do this, if you lack trust in your supervisor.
[00:05:44] Reflect on your curent role
---
Mike Bird: Let's pause here and give you some time to reflect. Go ahead, write down each of the three elements. Happiness, fulfillment, energy: calling that number one. Number two: growth and progression. And number three: financial gain. Write these three things down on a piece of paper as headlines and note the ways that your current job delivers on them.
If you've got all three of them and you feel great, that's fantastic. If you're at two of the three, then there may be a feeling that it's time to move on and that you need to pay attention to that. And if you're at zero or one out of the three, then I'd say you're definitely ready to move. And that's totally understandable if you are.
[00:06:22] Need some help?
---
Mike Bird: Lastly, if you need some help with this, go to my website, salesseekers.ca/consultation. I'd love to connect with you and see if this is something that I can actually support you with, if you're looking for a new role. I'm recording this right now in early November, it's going to be going out very soon, and this is a great time of year to be making connections with companies that may be getting ready to ramp up hiring either towards the very end of the year or early on in 2025 in order to meet new goals, especially when it comes to things like sales and revenue and things like that.
All right. That's all for today. Appreciate you tuning in and I will catch you again in a couple of weeks. Bye for now!
