Importance of Job Transition

In this blog, I will share different reasons why job transition is important and when is the right time to apply these guidelines to your career. Let’s say you have worked for 2 years in your first real job as a software developer, it’s time for you to transition to a different company. And I’m going to share four reasons to help you understand why.

Reason 1 – Salary Bump

Reason number one is for a salary bump. When you transition to another company, basically jump ships, then you have a higher chance of making more money in your new job role. You see when you jump on to a new company, they might have assigned a different salary bracket for this new role. It’s like going a level up in your career with a higher salary range. So, you are most likely to obtain a salary bump when you transition to a job at a new company.

Reason 2 – Gain more knowledge

Reason number two is to gain more knowledge. Of course. When you have worked at a company for 2 years, you have enough knowledge of how the company works, the company culture, the software projects, and the tech stack and you might have also contributed quite a lot. Now, you will start to come to a point where the learning is going to be plateauing and become stagnant. Whereas, when you jump to a different company, you will experience a completely different environment with new coworkers, new company culture, new software projects, and even a new tech stack. So, as you can see you will gain a new set of skills and experience.

Reason 3 – Gain the transition experience

Reason number three is to gain the transition experience. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, when you transition to a newer company, you will gain interview experience and job transition experience that go through. So, this transition opportunity will keep you up to date with the interview process and you will always be prepared for any new interviews in your career. Also, it will transform you into a confident person. Because when you already have corporate experience from previous job roles, you know how to work in a company, plus this transition will provide additional ability to jump towards any company of your choice.

Now, this is also a very important point because if you work at the first job you landed out of college for 10 years straight, and then if you think to yourself “Well, things are not working out for me anymore in this company” then it’s going to be quite a learning curve for you to experience the job transition. Because you know only one company, its culture, and how things work over there, and at the same time you are out of touch with the general knowledge of the industry, the interview process, and the current expectations from an experienced employee.

Now, as you can see this will put you in a dangerous position. The interview process keeps evolving for experienced roles, demanding a different set of skills like Data Structures and algorithms, System Design, and so on. You may start to think “Wow, this is very overwhelming. I have to learn the technical fundamentals, again” So, things can get very challenging when you transition after a long time. Hence, it’s important to get that experience early.

Reason 4 – Change your identity

Reason number four is for a change in your identity. What do I mean by that? Well, when you join your first job as a fresher, you have an identity that you have graduated college, you are a junior-level developer and you work with people with so much more experience than you. I mean, think about it. The way you will be looked at is “the new kid on the block” So, even with two years of experience, after contributing a ton of work towards a project, you will find it hard to shake the identity. Just as the saying goes “the first impression is the last impression”.

And when you deserve a raise or a promotion, your higher-ups may think that “Well, he just joined the company two years ago, let’s give him a couple more years before giving him the actual promotion” and this happens a lot because of the experience of your boss or boss’s boss who may have 10 to 30 years of work experience.

Hence, when you make the transition, you change to a new identity, with a new set of responsibilities. Now, your new team will think this way “Okay this person has gained experience in XYZ Company, so he knows what he is doing. Let’s provide the responsibility this person is looking for” And now you can see the benefits of the job transition. Because you are transforming yourself from a junior role into a mid-level role with a fresh environment and more responsibilities.

Not only that, this will provide a real test for you to prove to yourself and your team that “you are not a junior-level person anymore” and you can go on and be like “I’ve got the experience from my previous company. So let’s kick some butt in this new position” and that’s a vital experience that you should be gaining early on in your career if you want a successful future in any career.

Reasons to stay in the same company

Now, what if your first job lets you continuously learn new things, and provide you with more responsibilities? “Then hey, stick around in this job. You don’t have to leave!” Because at the end of the day, you must work at a place where you are constantly growing in your line of work. So, if you find your job doing exactly that, then stick around. If not, you should transition to a new job and just leave the old one.

So, before we wrap up this blog, let’s go over the four reasons. Number one is the salary increase by jumping companies than trying to stick around. Number two is that you’ll gain more experience in the field of your work. It is also important to learn how to transition midway into your career so that you do not experience the painful process that comes with it. Then the fourth reason is the most important one, which is to get an opportunity to assume a new identity and learn more about yourself.

YouTube Video

Resources

• Join Job Ready Programmer Courses and gain mastery in Data Analytics & Software Development.
• Access our free Programming Guide (PDF) to explore our comprehensive Job Ready Curriculum today!