By and large, I mostly like what I do as a management consultant (such that I can really explain what I actually do in any meaningful way). Ostensibly, I lead a team of people to go work at some big client corporation and we help them fix some big complex business problem (or at the very least make a lot of money prolonging it).
I don’t know how good at it I am. Over the past 30 years I’ve worked for 10 different firms (plus a few startups and a few stints in “industry” at tradition big companies). In theory I should be a “partner” or equivalent senior-level executive after that much time, which I am not. But I’m senior enough and get compensated enough that I do ok. Which brings me to me next point.
What to do next.
So if I were to stay at my company or really at any professional services firm, the next step of my career would be more sales-oriented. And that’s the part I haven’t quite figured out. It’s sort of like a law or accounting firm. Like how do they get their clients?
I don’t think I’d like a conventional corporate job in “industry” like at the big banks we work for. I’ve always found those very rigid and tedious.
I don’t particularly dislike my company, but the facts are my compensation has been pretty flat since I’ve been there and I’m not seeing a lot of growth. So I think it’s time to move on. Just not sure to what yet.
Maybe it’s just because we are in very different industries, but I’ve been at my job for almost 30 years and I would hate the idea of job hopping every few years like you do.
Besides better compensation, what exactly are you looking for?
I agree with this. I have been at my job for 17 years and before that 12 years.
I knew some people who job hopped looking for something better but it was mostly the same bullshit, just somewhere else.
Of course, the OP needs to do whatever seems right for them. A career change is a big deal but again…whatever the OP feels is best. Not for me to guess for them. But the grass is rarely greener on the other side. Same shit, different bosses.
Being very blunt, and I don’t know what yo do exactly, but expect artificial intelligence (AI) may replace you. I say that for two reasons:
AI is showing up everywhere.
You posted links going back years that show indecision on your part. As a management consultant, isn’t it your job in the first place to make recommendations to clients? Why have you not applied your business accumen to your own career?
I am not saying this directly relates to the OP but know it is a continuing trend and many companies are looking for ways to replace their workers if they can. Find something to do that AI cannot do.
I’m wrong more like @engineer_comp_geek and @Whack-a-Mole . I’m now retired but was at my main job for 20 years. But there are many people who move every few years. In my line of work I didn’t hire them, but it works for many people.
Really what I actually do is project management. Company has a big project they are trying to run. They need someone or a team of someones to lead the project or a big piece of it. They call a firm like ours. There are aspects of AI I imagine might make my job easier, but I don’t see AI completely replacing project mangers any time soon. At least not any more or less than they would replace any other corporate job.
I suppose the answer to your second question is because my business acumen is not particularly good. More specifically, I look at the people at my firm (or other places I’ve worked) who are in senior leadership roles and I just don’t really understand how they got to where they are. Not that I think they do or don’t deserve their positions. I just don’t get it.
When AI can make Gantt charts, I suspect companies will hire them instead of people without thinking if human project managers bring more to the table.
My question for people in the same job for 15-20-30 years, were you in the same actual job or did did grow a career in the same company?
What sort of company was it?
Did you stay so long because it was such a great place to work?
Did your role change over time? What kinds of promotions did you receive?
At any time over your decades at your company, did you ever think there was a better opportunity out there?
Personally I hate changing jobs. Usually it’s not by choice. Every time you change jobs you need to build new relationships, learn how everything works, establish a new track record for success. And there’s no guarantee (in my experience) that the next job won’t be even worse.
I’m a reasonably bright, ambitious, and hardworking guy who gets along well with his coworkers, managers, and clients. But after 30 years I have yet to figure out whatever personal or professional flaw is preventing me from getting to the next level of my career.
I’ve taught elementary school for 18 years, so it’s a very different field from yours. Here are my answers anyway.
I’ve taught at two schools and have taught second, third, and fourth grade, and now I work in gifted education. I plan to retire as a teacher: my only career change will be what precisely I’m doing within the field of elementary education.
It’s because I love the work and am pretty good at it. I’m not ambitious in the sense of wanting to climb any sort of ladder; my only ambition is to make my lessons better and more meaningful, and to influence my school and district’s culture and policies to make it a better place for kids and adults alike.
I’ve had terrible bosses, mediocre bosses, and a couple that were pretty decent. They matter less than the work.
If I switched locations, though, it’d be because of a familiar decision to move. Certainly there are better places to teach than the one I’m in–better pay, more rights, less inequity. But as long as I’m here, I may as well make the work meaningful.
Emphasis mine. It’s a little late now, and maybe this was obvious, but that was a typo meant to read, I’m wired more like @engineer_comp_geek and @Whack-a-Mole .
I am an actuary. At some point, i decided that i preferred the work that was more actuarial and less manage-y, and that the people above me on the totem pole worked many more hours than i wanted to work. And that i made enough money. I lived in a nice house, which i was on track to pay off (and I’m now living mortgage-free). I could afford whatever food i wanted to eat. My medical benefits were good. I could afford some travel, in fact, i was limited more by time then money.
After that, i mostly avoided moving up. (I once moved down, which lost me some benefits, and i did seek to recover my previous level.) But i changed jobs internally every few years. I worked for a huge company, so these were internal transfers, and i didn’t lose seniority (mattered for vacation time) and my benefits and such were unaffected.
I didn’t get any promotions after that. And all my internal transfers were jobs that i sought out and applied for. Except my job changed a bit with some corporate reorgs. (That company had excessive reorgs.)
I stayed at the same company for more than 25 years. It was a good place to work, with good and bad aspects, like any other company. I found that my direct manager was one of the more important determinants of how much i liked any particular role. But i did like to have new challenges and do new things. I had a couple of positions that i could probably have stayed in indefinitely, but i would have been bored.
I retired there. And after a year, i find myself having accepted a new job, in a temporary, part-time way. I’m enjoying working again, in a role i held 25 years ago. So i guess recycling roles, after a pause, works for me, too.
When i was happy with my work and position, i didn’t seek better opportunities. A bad job is so toxic. Why risk it when the current job is still good. (And i vetted my boss-to-be pretty carefully when i applied internally.)
That doesn’t bother me. Or rather, I don’t really think of it like that. Maybe because in my job I’m constantly interviewing or trying to sell the client on why they should bring in more consultants. I think of it more like “you have a problem, here’s how I/we can fix it, and here’s how much it costs and why.” I actually kind of like it.
What causes me distress is that feeling of being adrift that comes from being unemployed or even “on the bench” too long or being trapped in a toxic work environment with a abusive or fickle boss with constant “Kobayashi Maru-like” tasks. Like there’s mathematically no possible outcome that’s going to make this manager/client happy. So at what point does that manager’s unhappiness impact my career?
Technically, I’ve had to change “jobs” every few months as projects come and go. I guess think of it like a lawyer working on different cases every few months,
Yeah, I guess I’m not wired that way. I wouldn’t mind staying at my current firm or maybe a few other places I’ve worked in the past and just make a career there. But from my perspective, it seems like the jobs people stay at for 20 years are the ones companies look to get rid of. They don’t want to keep paying someone more money every year. They want to replace them with some junior person for half the cost and a third the productivity (such that anyone “produces” anything), or consultants like me, or offshore resources or AI or whatever they think will save them money.
If they kept the person for 20 years why would you think they would want to get rid of that person?
And salaries do not rise indefinitely. Maybe there is a cost of living adjustment made but that is true for everyone. The receptionist who has been there 20 years is not making $150,000 because they get a raise every year. They still get the $35,000/year they started which is maybe bumped up for inflation every few years (which is effectively no more money in their pocket…it just counteracts rising prices).
ETA: I think there are some EEOC protections after 40 too so…if you are under 40 they might think you are easier to be rid of.
My daughter does product/project mgmt. She seems to have changed employers every 3 years or so. I think the last 2 were because the employer was experiencing some difficulties and RIFfing a lot of folk - she jumped ship before being RIFfed, and because a remote employer was ending remote work. Each time she has moved up or at least laterally. She is paid quite well and some time ago she decided she does not want to make the sacrifices to try to move up to C-suite. Right now she is in a job she likes, with a seemingly stable employer, with several days work at home and a physical location <30 mins from her home.
But she is in her mid-30s. If you are in your 50s, maybe you just don’t have whatever it takes to move “to the next level.”
About 15 years ago, I was pretty much directly told that no matter what I did, “unless lightning struck” I would pretty much remain in the position I had maxed out at until I retired. So I figured I’d give up trying for advancement, reduce my effort to the office average, and just enjoy the life that income supported. Soon after, I just threw out an application on a flier, and got a new job with a significant pay bump (tho no more job satisfaction.) (I’ve been with the same employer for 38.5 years - 25 years in one job, 13 in my current one. I could not find a job with better pay for equal/less effort elsewhere.)
I would wager that many/most firms, if they are looking for folk to occupy that “next level”, they aren’t looking for guys in their 50s who have frequently hopped among mid-level jobs. Sorry if that is a downer. But maybe focus on just being happy with those aspect of life outside of your job, and enjoy what your current pay affords you. Work to live, not the other way around.
I think it depends. People get to a certain level in their 40s and 50s after 20 years and most stay there. Everyone can’t be C-level or head of a division and many don’t want to. I think a lot of companies tend to look at these expensive mid-senior level people and think about how to save money or make room for others whose career is on an upward trajectory.
Yeah, I can relate. I’ve been as high up on the org chart as I am ever going to get for many years now. I’m at the top of the engineering scale and I refuse to move into management. Sure, I could make more money as a manager, but that’s not how I want to spend my life. Trade in my engineer skills to work on schedules and budgets and deal with headaches all day long? No thank you.
Our R&D manager is retiring soon. A few months ago he asked me if I was interested in his job. I very quickly told him no.
I’m basically in the same job, but we have different “levels” of engineers, and I reached the top level many years ago. I’m basically at the “guru” level for my company. For the parts of our systems that I work on, I am the most experienced and most knowledgeable person in our company.
We make industrial control systems.
It’s highly skilled engineering. If you don’t do things right in a chemical plant things tend to get all explodey, which is never a good thing. This is why our company values knowledge and experience and isn’t so likely to boot someone out the door so that they can hire someone younger and cheaper.
Good people, interesting work.
Like I said, we have different levels of engineering. I started out at mid-level (I wasn’t a newbie out of college when I started with this company) and I’ve gone up as high as I can and still remain an engineer. At my level I have sometimes had to supervise other engineers, but (aside from a period of time after some layoffs where I ended up running the R&D department) I have mostly been able to avoid management stuff. If we hire an outside engineer as a contractor for a project I often end up supervising them as well.
I’m another one that stays at a job forever. The job before the one I have now was my first full-time job. I started in 1980 and was there for 7 years. I had no choice the company closed down. It was that terrible time in the 80s where manufacturing/factory type companies were going down the drain. I worked in the cost accounting and then parts pricing departments at a crane manufacturing company. I took a few months off and then started in the job I’m still at, office manager at a commercial cleaning company. My job is easy, I like the people I work with, the pay is fine and at this point I can come and go as I please. I don’t work Fridays anymore and am rarely in the office later than 2:00. I’m salary, so I get paid the same regardless of the hours I put in. I’m 63, and plan on working until I can’t. I would never find another job like this. I would hate to start over somewhere.