Moving jobs with no financial gain

alidai

You’ll find that a lot will disagree you haven’t got very far if you’ve moved from 17k to 65k so far.  You seem to be permanently unhappy with every decision, be it taking a new job that might not be right, staying in one that might not be right.

It doesn’t sound like this is all about the job.

Fuzzy_Lookup

It's one job I was picky about moving on from. Like I said there were enjoyable aspects to it in the early days and I would only consider leaving for something with a substantial pay rise. As time went on I became sick of it, pay rises became more slight and in the end I was almost willing to do anything to get me out of there.

What I'm being picky about now is finding a job I actually want to do now rather than one that'll do until I find something better. What I don't want though is to be picky to the point I end up staying where I am for too long. Like I said I've never found any joy in it from day 1.

I know £65k isn't a bad salary but if you take salary out of the equation and look at my companies organisation chart where I'm down the bottom with 15 years experience under my belt and then you have people with less than 5 years experience near the top it's clear to see somethings gone wrong. 

alidai

Why has something gone wrong if you’re near the bottom with more experience than people up the top. That isn’t how every company works surely you should know this?

it sounds like you’re not bothered about salary, but more about seniority and job title ‘ being seen to be the person at the top of the tree?

if so then your better option is to move somewhere where you’ll be higher up, it’s much easier to move companies and advance than do it in the same place based on “15 years experience”

Fuzzy_Lookup

Salary is important and I wouldn't have chosen this career path if it wasn't. After being told how much potential I had early on in my career only to find myself down the bottom of the ladder 15 years later does raise the question why.

It's clear that I do need to move on.

Marcon

Fuzzy_Lookup said:

Salary is important and I wouldn't have chosen this career path if it wasn't. After being told how much potential I had early on in my career only to find myself down the bottom of the ladder 15 years later does raise the question why.

It's clear that I do need to move on.

...and you're the one who needs to answer that question. History has a way of repeating itself, so simply moving on may not be the answer if you take your problems with you. Those problems could be your behaviour and attitude, so there's every chance you will.

Fuzzy_Lookup said:

Like I said I've never found any joy in it from day 1.

I know £65k isn't a bad salary but if you take salary out of the equation and look at my companies organisation chart where I'm down the bottom with 15 years experience under my belt and then you have people with less than 5 years experience near the top it's clear to see somethings gone wrong. 

Facing reality is often unpleasant, particularly if you are told some unwelcome home truths, but sooner or later you need to do that. 'Sooner' could mean a happier future in exchange for some uncomfortable remarks now from your current employer in terms of honest feedback on why someone who was told at the start of their career that they had lots of potential is still, from what you say, a bottom feeder who has yet to rise to the surface of the pond.

There are plenty of clues in your posts - in particular,  your sweeping dismissal of what the companies actually do. Saying you have 'no interest' could mean you've made no effort to understand; that may or may not be true, but what is certainly likely to come over to your colleagues and management alike is your apparently scornful disdain of what they're doing.

Instead of looking harder at what a potential employer could offer you, maybe looking at what you offer them might produce a more constructive outcome?

Fuzzy_Lookup

At a previous company I had a colleague who had been there for something like 12 years and never got very far. When he finally left he said he was planning on going in a completely different direction. He said what he thought held him back was that he had zero interest in the subject matter.

The difference was his job was specific to that industry but mine wasn't. I had no interest in the subject matter either but as a Data Analyst I didn't think that mattered too much. SQL is SQL whatever industry you're in for example.

Now I'm thinking my lack of interest in the subject matter is holding me back too. Wherever I've worked a lot of people picked the industry first and specific job second whereas I've done the opposite. I think this is especially true where I am now, I've never worked in this industry before but everyone else I know of have spent their entire careers in it. 

I'm therefore just applying for jobs where I have at least some interest in what the company does.

robatwork

You will find most industries, and the jobs within, aren't "stimulating".

For every "space travel" there's are thousands of packaging manufacturers, retailers, food wholesalers, logistics, and countless other seemingly boring employers. 

Do you find healthcare interesting? Enormous amounts of data is handled/analysed in the NHS (albeit not very well). 

The truth you need to come to terms with is that every job is, or becomes, repetitive and boring to some extent. 

Fuzzy_Lookup

Those industries you mention are ones I've never worked in but sound more interesting. They serve a purpose and I can see how analysing data can be beneficial to them e.g. ensuring a retailer has the right level of stock.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the industry I'm in because it's small and everyone knows everyone. The question is always how do we get these businesses to spend more money with us. In my opinion though it's a waste of money, it reminds me of when Coca-Cola tried to sell people water from the tap.

I get that work often isn't enjoyable and that's why I'm thinking find something more interesting but don't compromise on salary as it's unlikely to be that interesting.