Summary: You will have 3-5x more jobs than you might guess you’ll have. This note suggests a longer term view on career so that you view each job as a stepping stone for the next.
Thanks Nikhyl - this is extremely helpful. I am a new grad PM at Salesforce and one of my mentors gave me a very similar advice - "Tread your job as a university where you get paid to learn."
Great article! Looking forward for more! Also, how to measure our growth in current job - learning, earning and designation wise? What is the benchmark?
That's a good question. Growth is the simple answer, and I'm writing about this next. But a more detailed answer is probably warranted, let me put it into a future note. Appreciate your question.
Wow... I can't believe I just discovered this. And I wish I had come across this sooner! This is super interesting, and I cannot wait to learn more and see how I can apply this type of thinking to my career.
Should each new job decision have 1 reason to do it (ie. great network OR great industry OR great boss) instead of hitting on all cylinders? Meaning, is 1 great thing about a job enough to do it?
I don't think one is enough. I don't think they should check all of the boxes either. With just one, you might find too many downsides to make it worth your time.
My preference is to have one or two thing spike that really matter to you. Could be a a great manager, compensation, brand, learning, peers, etc. But a bunch of stuff that's pretty good. All jobs have some hair on them, but the majority should be good or great else you should keep looking.
So, with all these jobs ... how do we decide when to start think about looking for new opportunities, versus investing in our current situation? In some ways, sticking around and investing in a given role might be underrated nowadays :)
It's on my topic list. Short answer is you need to match growth curves. By default, I suggest staying as long as possible provided you are growing at the same rate as the company. If you are growing faster than the environment you are in, you should look for a change. That might mean changing teams or it might be a new company. You don't want your career to slow down because your product isn't growing fast enough.
The flip side applies too. Companies find themselves looking to add new experts because it's growing too fast to teach and have its existing team figure things out. So that's another reason to leave - if you find yourself just falling behind. Better to go somewhere a bit slower where you can gain your footing.
Thanks for sharing the perspective Nikhyl. Curious about the estimates that people earn ~ 5% of their total net worth by the age of 40. Can you point to the source?
It's a great question. Candidly, I read it in an article on Quora many years ago and have unsuccessfully found it again thought I've hunted for it for years. It was a question on things we take for granted now but shouldn't (in this case retirement). As fuzzy and soft as that answer is, I ended up asking dozens of people I know in their 40s and 50s and surprisingly, they confirmed that answer. And it applies to me as well. So ask around and see for yourself.
The rationale is quite sound. If you just look at salary ladders, it grows exponentially at the highest of levels. So perhaps it best applied to those on the executive track. But most people see themselves that way in their 20s.
I do have several elements to this framework, stay tuned. It's a large part of this newsletter. The main one has to do with matching stage of company - which is my next note.
Thanks Nikhyl - this is extremely helpful. I am a new grad PM at Salesforce and one of my mentors gave me a very similar advice - "Tread your job as a university where you get paid to learn."
But ensure you graduate and then start over! :). Congrats on your new role.
Thank you Nikhyl. I'm enjoying reading your content. Looking forward to the next one!
A great piece!
While people think alot on time value of money, they tend to miss the same concept of time value of efforts (skills, knowledge, impact)
Looking forward to reading more from you! It gets the grey cells going!
Great article! Looking forward for more! Also, how to measure our growth in current job - learning, earning and designation wise? What is the benchmark?
That's a good question. Growth is the simple answer, and I'm writing about this next. But a more detailed answer is probably warranted, let me put it into a future note. Appreciate your question.
Wow... I can't believe I just discovered this. And I wish I had come across this sooner! This is super interesting, and I cannot wait to learn more and see how I can apply this type of thinking to my career.
Should each new job decision have 1 reason to do it (ie. great network OR great industry OR great boss) instead of hitting on all cylinders? Meaning, is 1 great thing about a job enough to do it?
I don't think one is enough. I don't think they should check all of the boxes either. With just one, you might find too many downsides to make it worth your time.
My preference is to have one or two thing spike that really matter to you. Could be a a great manager, compensation, brand, learning, peers, etc. But a bunch of stuff that's pretty good. All jobs have some hair on them, but the majority should be good or great else you should keep looking.
Agreed!
So, with all these jobs ... how do we decide when to start think about looking for new opportunities, versus investing in our current situation? In some ways, sticking around and investing in a given role might be underrated nowadays :)
It's on my topic list. Short answer is you need to match growth curves. By default, I suggest staying as long as possible provided you are growing at the same rate as the company. If you are growing faster than the environment you are in, you should look for a change. That might mean changing teams or it might be a new company. You don't want your career to slow down because your product isn't growing fast enough.
The flip side applies too. Companies find themselves looking to add new experts because it's growing too fast to teach and have its existing team figure things out. So that's another reason to leave - if you find yourself just falling behind. Better to go somewhere a bit slower where you can gain your footing.
Thanks for sharing the perspective Nikhyl. Curious about the estimates that people earn ~ 5% of their total net worth by the age of 40. Can you point to the source?
It's a great question. Candidly, I read it in an article on Quora many years ago and have unsuccessfully found it again thought I've hunted for it for years. It was a question on things we take for granted now but shouldn't (in this case retirement). As fuzzy and soft as that answer is, I ended up asking dozens of people I know in their 40s and 50s and surprisingly, they confirmed that answer. And it applies to me as well. So ask around and see for yourself.
The rationale is quite sound. If you just look at salary ladders, it grows exponentially at the highest of levels. So perhaps it best applied to those on the executive track. But most people see themselves that way in their 20s.
Intuitively, this sounds about right, just wanted to back it up with any scientific research. Thank you for caring to respond.
thanks :)
this helps. do you have frameworks to evaluate next opp
I do have several elements to this framework, stay tuned. It's a large part of this newsletter. The main one has to do with matching stage of company - which is my next note.