Why You Should Think of Your Next Career Move Like A Chess Player and Not An Olympic Sprinter
This one is for job hoppers, on the market candidates and growth junkies.
It’s inevitable that I’ll have a conversation with someone where it seems like they are thinking about their next company/role/career switch in terms of a short-term goal — for example, I want X title or X raise. Now, I won’t argue that this is bad, but I will say that in the long-term, it isn’t a great strategy. Like chess, you don’t win a game by winning or advancing on every single move. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice a pawn (base salary, location, team) here or there in order to make a longer-term play for a rook (gaining skills where you have gaps, working in a challenging instead of comfortable environment, doing something boring because it will lead you to the fun stuff down the way).
The Psychology
Human beings genuinely suck at thinking and planning for the long-term.
No, really. I’m not being mean. It’s actually what makes it hard for us to do things like long-term financial planning (boo, social security taxes!) and fixing global climate change. We think in terms of short-term pain vs. long-term gain.
I argue that this also makes us really bad at picking our next job or role because we are often hyper-focused on making sure our next job doesn’t have X thing that’s been very painful for us in our current job. This means we tend to 1) overcompensate for the pain point and 2) ignore the other things that could be non-ideal.
It’s like when you date the non-emotionally aware motorcycle guy and then go and date the really free-spirited artist after (#sorrynotsorry, dating analogies and recruiting just really go hand-in-hand because you know what I’m talking about).
It’s also harder for people to think about the intangibles but it’s really easy to see making less money as a step back. When you’re staring at a hard number and equating this to your value/progress, it’s hard to not think of $175,000 as intrinsically better than $150,000.
The problem becomes when we only think about short-term gain and hard numbers instead of the bigger picture.
Let’s look at a real-world example.
I spoke to an engineer working at a big hedge fund company. ICYMI, hedge funds tend to pay even more than what the big FAANG type companies pay. (I know, it’s insane. I’ve seen million dollar annual salaries for people with 10 years of experience.) Unfortunately, said engineer actually was missing some key skill gaps and we weren’t able to hire them at the level they were expecting. They could definitely get that missing skill while working at our company, but they weren’t willing to take a seemingly “lower” title and pay than where they were currently at.
This is fair in some regards. People have bills to pay and they have families and I commend people for putting those things at the forefront of their priorities. But, is the 10–20% delta on your pay worth gaining the skill sets you need to get further in the long-term in your career? Often the answer is a resounding YES.
In this engineer’s case, they’ll probably stay at said hedge fund for a while, but the more years of experience they gain, the more painful their gaps will be because (this might shock some of you) the world expects you to have a skill set commensurate with your number of years of experience.
Guess what, that big paycheck and constant career “progression,” it comes at a price.
Another example is a friend who for a while was chasing title and money. There was a certain amount of dollars they wanted to make so they left their FAANG job for another FAANG job where they could get the title and pay bump they were looking for. Great!
However, there were actual clear reasons for why this person wasn’t getting to that next level at their first FAANG company. And it’s easier for your current team to see where your skill gaps are than it is for a new company. Which is why, it’s easier for people to get promoted when switching companies than staying at the same place.
This can become a vicious circle — kind of like sprinting quickly down a track. You’ll get to the end of a sprint race quickly, but you’re not going to get very far in terms of mileage if you’re constantly running in short bursts towards short goals. It also means, you may not be getting the feedback or opportunities you need to work on your skill gaps.
Life is more a marathon than a 200 yard dash.
CAVEAT: I don’t think this is ALL cases, because I have seen incredible women/minorities get passed up for promotions for dumb reasons when they’re clearly amazing, but I definitely see this with a lot of candidates I speak to (there’s a reason they’re talking with me and it’s not usually because they love their current job/workplace).
The thing about skill gaps is they will catch up with you. I’m sure we’ve all worked with a manager that you questioned how they got to where they are in their careers with the glaringly bad ability to give feedback or are really aggressive micro-managers. (Chances are they had a manager who wasn’t great at giving them feedback 😂). These people will probably still keep getting hired places and get ridiculous salaries because the market is hot right now, but what are they getting in the long-term?
This is where I implore people to think a bit more long-term in their career moves.
If you want to get checkmate the King, you sometimes need to sacrifice your Knight. It’s going to suck but you win big in the end. So don’t think in terms of “I’m at a small company and I don’t like the lack of resources so I should go work at a big company!” Think more in terms of, “I’m at a small company and I think I will be missing the opportunity of learning how a larger organization functions and operates, which will eventually allow me to open up my own business one day.” The first is a short-term way of thinking that fixes an immediate pain point. The second is longer-term thinking that gets you to an end goal.
So next time you’re having a bad day at work, don’t just think about moving because of a single pain point. Think instead about your longer-term strategy and what you’d be willing to sacrifice to get to the big picture end goal. While it feels great to get to the end of a 400 meter sprint in 80 seconds (and if that’s your end goal, then sprint away!), it doesn’t mean you’re going to run 26.2 miles anytime soon.
