Stay or leave – why constant job hopping won’t aid your career

I’m driven by change – whether that’s transforming a business or my role within that organization. There is no reason for anyone to leave a company in a hurry. But if you want change in your own career, want to move cultures and businesses to greater heights, then take my advice – don’t job hop.

I joined Designit in 2022 and my marketing and advertising career has been shaped by staying in businesses for several years before moving on to the next challenge. I was at AKQA for five years. Four years at Huge. Just over six years at Big Spaceship. In all those roles, I’m above the average employee tenure in the US (3.8 years for women, 4.3 years for men). And there’s a good reason for bucking that trend. Back in 2014 I was weighing up whether to stick with my career and I wrote a note to myself: ‘Quitting should be the last resort.’

Just because you can quit, doesn’t always mean you should. As a rule, I don’t believe in job hopping; the grass isn’t always greener on the other side (unless your job or company is toxic and crosses boundaries – however you define that – in which case, RUN). I’m a loyal – but not passive – person, who rides the rough with the smooth. That’s often the way to create a more robust career and I’ve seen real advantages in that.

In my role at Designit, part of my remit is around designing experiences for employees – creating tools allowing them to communicate effectively and efficiently. We created a portal for Los Angeles Airport (LAX) giving staff the chance to do just that. And while we were developing that tool, it was necessary to take a step back and look at the employee experience from a distance. It’s the same in a career. When taking a step back, I found that there is a lot to gain by staying and working your way up in an organization.

You get to know what good leadership looks like, as well as realizing what bad management can do, to truly shape the role you’re in. You see how the structure of a company operates and how clients go through a lifecycle, how leaders lead, how to shape company culture, understand the business of the business you are in… all of the hard, but good, stuff that shapes your own style. These are the valuable lessons you learn for the next step in your career and shape how you want to be as a leader yourself.

Longevity also leads to being friends with the co-workers who have also grown next to you, which in turn builds a supportive circle of peers who understand the challenges you face because they’re facing them too. Staying put in a job meant I built these close bonds – a trusted inner circle of people I can confide in, learn from and compare experiences.

To stay or leave is not a decision to be made lightly. We don’t have a jobs-for-life culture anymore – we never have in my sector of marketing and advertising. In my experience, job-hopping rarely delivers the richness and depth of experience on which rewarding, long-lasting success is built. There’s so much more to understand after you’ve been at a business at any level for over a few years.

Written by Laura Breines.

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