Is it time to make a new career move? 3 important questions to ask yourself

In my corporate career, I have worked in more than 10 companies across 7 industries. I wouldn’t say I have planned out every move perfectly during that time, but In retrospect, I did learn some effective ways to assess my career options. If you are looking for a career move this year, whether that means finding a new employer or a new role within your current organization, here are 3 important questions that you may want to ask yourself:

“Who do I aspire to become in 10-15 years? Will this move get me closer to that goal?”

It’s just like when we try to solve a maze on paper, you always start with figuring out first where the end-point is. Same for your career planning, where I always adopt what I call “parallel thinking”, which means you want to envision a long-term aspirational goal, but at the same time practically evaluate your short-term options to see what is the best way to get there. We need to consider both perspectives at the same time and make adjustments along the way. What I observe is a lot of people adopt “linear thinking”, where they either miss out the bigger picture by focusing too much on their next move, or their dreams are so far-fetched that they lack the solid steps to get there. So now take a second, close your eyes and take a deep breath – Who do you aspire to become in 10-15 years? What would you be doing that time, and how are you making a difference to the people’s lives around you? Based on that ultimate goal, ask yourself again now: “Is my next planned career move getting me closer to that goal?”. We only know if we are on the right path with a clear goal in mind, and we hope that every step we take can align well with the bigger vision that we have for ourselves. 

“What other opportunities will be created with this new move?”

As much as we want to make sure our every move is contributing to our ultimate goal, it’s not always easy as our goals are either fuzzy or constantly evolving. In order to hedge the risk of making a poor decision, always try to think one step ahead: “If I am going to make this new career move that I’m not 100% sure about, what other opportunities will be created through this move?” Say if you are thinking about changing an employer in the same industry, will that make your CV look better, or benchmark your salary to a higher point? If you are thinking about changing industries, will that open you up to a new range of promising opportunities in that sector or other sectors? If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur one day, will this move help you gain the network and experience contributing to your future success? The only certainty in life is uncertainty, so planning one step ahead is an active way of building your back-up plan, where you can still make progress or get upside gains even if your next move is not as ideal as what you had in mind. 

“If I receive a promotion letter when I get back to office tomorrow, how would I feel?” 

This might be one of the most important tests to me. I use getting promoted as a scenario to make the assessment since usually in a corporate, it might take you on average 2-5 years to get that, and it is also one of the best recognitions that you can get from your employer. Now let me assume you have accelerated the whole process for whatever reason and can take up your supervisor’s role tomorrow, do you feel excited? If the answer is yes, chances are you are still happy with your development and progression there. But if the answer is no, you may want to ask yourself what else do you want to achieve with this employer in the coming few years. Gaining a promotion obviously takes effort and is never guaranteed at work, so if you don’t even feel delighted if you can receive this early, there’s a good chance the longer-term prospects in this organization may not match your career ambitions. In that case, spending those few years in another place might help you generate more momentum. Some people may consider making a career move risky, but sometimes getting yourself stuck in a place where you do not feel the drive and progress can be even riskier when organizational change comes. Think about the term "risk" wisely, and that will give us a very different perspective when it comes to making important career decisions.

In my case, a lot of people were curious when I made the move to leave my big corporate names to join an institution a few years back. I assessed that career move exactly based on these 3 questions, and that turned out to be the best decision I made in order to achieve what I am doing today. Always stay curious, and follow your passions. I hope you would find this sharing helpful, and all the best to your career move coming ahead!