Changing Jobs for More Money: Is it Worth It?
The further you progress up the ladder, money is the reward for proving yourself worthy of the next rung, among other benefits.
And yet as one of the most established IT recruitment agencies in Ireland, itContracting works in a peculiar recruitment market where the demand on IT talent is high and supply is low.
So it’s natural to see IT candidates receive high-income job offers. And we also see IT candidates move freely around the market. Mostly because they can. Yet, there is one key reason why IT professionals move often from organisation to organisation. Because the role wasn’t what they expected.
Here are the five main areas you need to keep in mind when moving roles:
Long-Term Viability
Have you noticed trends within your IT field that are closing certain doors and opening others? Innovation and automation has swept through so many job roles and if this future position involves executing calculative and repetitive tasks, you need to ask if this next step is towards or away from, work evolution. You need to focus on building skills that machines find hard to replicate: creativity, judgment, insight, invention, and trust building.
Company Culture
Money will not buy you interesting work colleagues. What values do the company hold and do you share their views? And you may be the most experienced person on the team, but what if you’re being thrown head-first onto the beanbag of a scrappy start-up that has blown most of its resource budget on you? This leaves you to direct some very hyper IT newbies amidst the unforgiving start-up landscape. Where the odds of a 90% failure rate is not in your favour. Can you imagine the stress?
Counter-Offer Conundrum
You let your current employer know you’re leaving for a better offer and they decide to throw in a counter-offer. A counter-offer can be a comforting and complementary move; one that expresses how much your employer values your time and effort. Or does it? If you’ve received a higher offer, that means you had a reason to cruise the jobs market in the first place. Why were you thinking of leaving? And why did it take the idea of you leaving for your employer to compensate you for your time and expertise? Counter-offering can be confusing. In fact, our senior IT recruiter Tom Leonard will dedicate an entire vlog around the topic next month, so stay tuned!
Does The Technology Excite You?
What if money were no object? What would you do? This is the only indicator to a long and successful career in IT. Are you starting another exciting chapter with exposure to new technologies? Or is it the same old humdrum stuff that drove you to the market to begin with. What is the point in taking a role that won’t challenge you? You’ll only repeat this strenuous process again in six months’ time.
Money > Time
We all have 100 waking hours a week to spend our time. Do the math; what percentage are you willing to devote to your work? Do you have family or a significant other who you need to dedicate your time to? Have you extracurricular activities such as volunteering, coaching or a fitness class you’re committed to? There is no magic formula but remember, with more money comes more responsibility.
Do you want to hear more about navigating your IT job offers? Why not talk to one of our team, who will walk you through the entire process. Ready to hit the market? Check out our IT job openings on the itContracting website.