When you’re young and trying to get into work it can be hard to find a job that you really want to stick with long term, unless you land your dream career first time. Many of us find ourselves working in roles that aren’t what we want to do long term and it can be hard to motivate yourself to continue when you are unhappy with your job. However, there are a few good reasons that you should try and stay in a role for as long as you can. We discuss 3 of them in our article today.
- It looks good on your C.V.
One thing you don’t want to be accused of is ‘job-hopping’, so really it’s also a case of not staying in a role long term actually looking bad on your C.V. ‘Job-hopping’ is when an employee has several jobs within a small space of time, for example 4 or 5 jobs in one year and is therefore considered less employable because they are a ‘liability’. If an employer thinks that you are unlikely to stick around because your track record shows that you are inclined to job-hop, they won’t hire you because they want someone they know won’t leave. This can be explained if you work as a temp or if you go into an interview for a job you actually want to do as a career but it still doesn’t look good. Try and stay in each role for a minimum of 1 year if you can. Sure, you might hate the job and it might be hard to force yourself to do it for a year but it’ll be worth it not to have the hassle of having to explain to interviewers in future why you never stay in a role for very long.
- You will achieve greater career progression.
It makes sense, the longer you stay in a role the more likely you are to progress to a higher position, right? This might not matter much to you if you’re not interested in doing the role as a career but it at least shows commitment to potential employers and can look quite impressive even if you aren’t going into the same industry because you have managed to achieve something. For example, if you work in a call centre you might eventually become a team leader. This won’t mean much to you if you want to work in an art gallery but hey, all of a sudden you have leadership skills that you didn’t have before and now the art galleries you’re applying to have another skill to add to your list of positive attributes. Most skills are transferable so it is always a benefit to you to have more of them. It might mean the difference between being hired as an assistant and a supervisor in that art gallery, so it’s worth having.
- It’s a more stable environment.
There really is nothing worse than feeling unstable and not secure when it comes to your income. If you stay within a role for as long as you can, you’re more likely to A) accumulate savings that you can use if you eventually decide to leave and don’t have another role lined up for when you do and B) make it easier for you to get another job quicker after you leave due to you having a better track record for staying within a role. Stability is important because it makes us feel safe. If you leave your job early and find yourself struggling to get a role within the career you would like, you could find your savings run out and you eventually have to go back into a similar role to your old one just to make ends meet. Try and make sure you always have another job offer before you leave your current one, even if that means staying in the job you don’t like for a longer time.
No one likes staying in a job they don’t enjoy but unfortunately sometimes it is a part of life that we all have to deal with. Remind yourself that nothing is permanent and that you can leave if you really want to and whatever happens one day you will eventually find a job that you do enjoy as long as you are committed to getting on to that career path. If you feel you’ve worked in your job for long enough or you’ve recently left a job you didn’t like, why not use this opportunity to look at a few of the jobs listed on our job boards? As always, good luck!
