How to know when it's time to quit and move on

Edmond Lau's own experience and advice on how not to sit in one place, but to develop rapidly and effectively in the professional field. On account of his work in companies such as Microsoft and Google, where he was able to take all the most valuable for his future career and move forward. In his blog and in the book Lau is currently working on, he lays out the basic principles of how to accelerate career growth, spend less time on time-consuming tasks and use the skills learned much more effectively. In a blog post on Quora, he shared how easy it is to determine when it’s time to change jobs in order to develop and move on.

5 main factors that indicate when it's time for you to change jobs:

your labor is underpaid;
you are underestimated or not respected;
you do not agree with the main strategy of the company, but are unable to change it;
you don't get along with colleagues or management;
the culture of the company is alien to you.

These factors are very easy to identify, and all you need to do is map out a specific course of action for change. But there are other reasons why you should consider career changes as well.

You have reached a plateau

The moment of a plateau comes when you have already taken everything you can from the company, team, position, and do not learn anything (or almost nothing) on the job. This point is especially important for young professionals who need to rapidly develop their skills, expand knowledge and gain new experience. If you notice that you are just starting to perform your duties mechanically, it's time to move to a new level - to a higher position or to another company.

What you can learn at work

technical skills (depending on the specifics of your position). For example, for programmers it can be learning another language, getting to know new tools, developing skills in designing modern systems. By expanding the range of tools and techniques, you develop as a specialist.

Prioritization … Every day you have a lot of urgent and not so urgent tasks. However, one of the most rewarding skills you can learn at work is prioritization: the ability to highlight exactly those options that require the least amount of time and effort, but still generate the most income.

Implementation of projects … Another useful skill that you can acquire at work is the ability to create a quality product or service and bring it to the end consumer.

Mentoring and management … The faster the company grows, the faster you can move up the career ladder and acquire new skills inherent in a leader: the ability to manage other people, shape the culture of the company and determine the direction of the team. This skill will be useful to you in order to create an effective team that can deliver the best results.

When you first come to work, learning starts quickly and affects different areas. You plunge into a different environment, use unfamiliar technologies, study a previously unknown product and meet a new team. At the same time, you have to learn different aspects at the same time, quickly developing. As you work, you will hone these skills by prioritizing and then apply them in practice elsewhere.

When I came to Google straight from college, I learned a lot in my first six months. He studied programming, leadership style, expanded his knowledge and delved into internal processes. I've learned how to create new products and deliver them to tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who visit google.com.

Why is the plateau coming and how to determine it

The learning rate may decrease over time. For example, due to organizational issues (the emergence of complex bureaucratic schemes) or due to insufficient rapid growth of the team compared to the complexity of the product. As a result, you will start to "slow down" and will not be able to switch to new tasks and projects as quickly as you would like.

On Google, the first warning signs for me appeared when I realized that many projects did not have specific launch schemes or depended on opaque approval procedures that I had no control over. For me, launching new products and getting feedback from users are one of the priority points. When I analyzed how many ideas I could implement in the next year, I was not satisfied with the results. And so I left.

In much the same way, I left Ooyala as soon as I felt my learning rate hit a plateau. I left the company when I realized that I could learn a lot more about product development by joining a small but rapidly growing team.

When I was doing my internship at Microsoft, I got some very good advice from a mentor of my friend:

Analyze and define your place in the professional field at least once every two years.

Even if you are quite happy with your job, this exercise helps you determine if you really enjoy what you are doing and are learning new things, or if you just do not want to leave a comfortable place.