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The Quitting Economy (aeon.co)
From an essay on Aeon magazing: [...] The CEO of Me, Inc is a job-quitter for a good reason -- the business world has come to realize that market value is the best measure of value. As a consequence, a career means a string of jobs at different companies. So workers respond in kind, thinking about how to shape their career in a world where you can expect so little from employers. In a society where market rules rule, the only way for an employee to know her value is to look for another job and, if she finds one, usually to quit. If you are a white-collar worker, it is simply rational to view yourself first and foremost as a job quitter -- someone who takes a job for a certain amount of time when the best outcome is that you quit for another job (and the worst is that you get laid off). So how does work change when everyone is trying to become a quitter? First of all, in the society of perpetual job searches, different criteria make a job good or not. Good jobs used to be ones with a good salary, benefits, location, hours, boss, co-workers, and a clear path towards promotion. Now, a good job is one that prepares you for your next job, almost always with another company. Your job might be a space to learn skills that you can use in the future. Or, it might be a job with a company that has a good-enough reputation that other companies are keen to hire away its employees. On the other hand, it isn't as good a job if everything you learn there is too specific to that company, if you aren't learning easily transferrable skills. It isn't a good job if it enmeshes you in local regulatory schemes and keeps you tied to a particular location. And it isn't a good job if you have to work such long hours that you never have time to look for the next job. In short, a job becomes a good job if it will lead to another job, likely with another company or organisation. You start choosing a job for how good it will be for you to quit it.
Good jobs used to be ones with a good salary, benefits, location, hours, boss, co-workers, and a clear path towards promotion.
Now, a good job is one that prepares you for your next job, almost always with another company
So what your saying is: Good jobs are now ones with a good salary, benefits, location, hours, boss,co-workers, and that prepares you for your next job either at your current employer or future employer.
This doesn't seem much different to me. Workers are simply taking more responsibility for their career development instead of just taking for granted that their company is doing it for them. Sounds like an all together better situation to me.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
is when you already have one
It's probably how it works in trendy places like the Bay Area, where tech salaries have been astronomical in recent years because of crazy VC money and the occasional unicorn, and where half the 25-year-olds earning those salaries don't even realise that almost nowhere else in the world pays at anywhere near that level or costs anywhere near that much to live.
Here in the UK, for example, if you're working as a tech employee and outside of a few quite specific niches or commission-based roles, you'll probably reach a salary ceiling within the first 5-10 years of your career, and you'll need a bigger shift than just finding a new job to get much of a raise after that.
You also have to be careful because while your 25-year-old self might think job-hopping is great for your career, your 45-year-old self is one day going to be looking at CVs and put the job-hoppers straight to the bottom of the pile. People say this doesn't happen as much as it used to, and with more job-hopping and short-term positions I'm sure that's true, but it's definitely still a factor, particularly for the kinds of employers who actually do try to take care of their staff and support long-term careers.
With that VC-driven boom looking more shaky by the day, if I were a younger programmer or online marketer or whatever today, I'd be a bit careful about job-hopping too much. You can afford to be picky in boom times, and at that age you might never have experienced anything else, but ask anyone who was around in the dot-bomb era how fast that can change.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
One thing that has accelerated this trend is the lack of upward mobility many workers find within their company. There is no bonus for being an internal candidate, and in some cases it seems to be a stigma (In one case I know of, a state agency requires extra paperwork if an internal candidate is selected for an open position, to prove they were better qualified). In these cases it's risky to wait years for a possible opening for advancement, better to search around as soon as you feel you are qualified.
The difference between today and 30/40 years ago is that companies are no longer loyal to employees. Hence, the logical step of employees no longer being loyal to companies.
Where I disagree with TFA is in the suggestion that you don't want certain types of experience, and he rattles off quite a bit. Much of which I would say is good experience and can look good on a resume as long as you were successful in that job.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.