Considering a Risky Career Move

The main reason why people regret taking a new job is that they were rash; they did not think through all the benefits and drawbacks of their new job. It is impossible to consider everything, but there are some considerations that you must not overlook. A sound decision about taking a new job starts with your probability for success: Can you do the work that will be asked of you? Yet there are many other considerations, such as chance for promotion, salary increases, whom you will be working for and with—even the time it takes to travel to the new job location—that have a bearing on how you'll feel after you've decided to take a risky move. Thus, perhaps the most important question for you to address in thinking about a career move is this: Are you willing to take the new job and, if you don't like it, also willing to consider it a good learning experience? If you can honestly answer that question affirmatively, you have given yourself a substantial leeway in making the move. People who deep down believe "nothing ventured, nothing gained" are more inclined to benefit from a risky career move—no matter the outcome. People who deep down fear "something ventured, everything lost" are less inclined to benefit.

No. If you scan any source of business news, you will quickly see that people and companies are taking risks today at a level never before seen. In fact, one of the wisest words of counsel came from whoever first said that, sometimes, the greatest risk is doing nothing. That is especially the case today. If you intend to grow in your career, you will have to move into new jobs from time to time.

If you are young and single (with no obligations other than to yourself), you can probably afford to make career moves with greater risks. Such high-profile chance taking can give you early boosts that could position you for more momentum-driven rewards later.

If you are older, perhaps with a family, you may not be quite as willing to try your luck with a high-risk/high-reward venture, such as a start-up enterprise.

Your capacity to accept risk is entirely a personal one; but you should keep in mind that, if you make a career move that pays off, everyone with whom you share your life will benefit as well.

This is a paramount question for anyone considering a career move. Just because you've heard of a new job opening—or been asked to consider one—it doesn't mean that taking that job makes sense for you. What do you really want from your career?

Make a list of your short- and long-term objectives. Is your current position more or less likely to help you achieve them? If your position is less likely to help you achieve your goals, can you make slight adjustments to your present job in order to better position yourself to achieve your dreams? Or will it be necessary to depart from your position entirely, regardless of what you are heading for?

It's a little like taking a long journey on the interstate. There are vast differences between staying on the same highway, changing to another highway that heads where you want to go, taking a detour, or moving to a road that leads to dead end. If your goal is to drive to Seattle, the best road to Florida won't help you get there.

What's important to you? We call the things in life that we treasure most our values. If you list these values, then consider the job you have versus the job you could have, you can start to address these questions: Which opportunity is most likely to help you manifest your values, your current job or your new possibility? Might the new opportunity position you to behave in ways that are contrary to those values? If so, it's quite possible that this is a risk you don't want to take.

If you can clearly assess the risks versus the benefits of taking a new job, the process will help you determine whether the potential rewards outweigh any potential pain. There are several methods for analyzing your potential costs, but the easiest is simply to create two columns. List the potential pain in one column and the potential reward in the other. The column that has the longer list is the one that should receive serious consideration, but be sure you are being both honest and thorough in your evaluation. A variation of this method is to assign points (or anticipated dollar values) to each item. You can then either compare the grand totals or assess each pain/reward item on its own merit. To be sure, it's not a tidy process, mainly because you have to be subjective in listing most of the points. In its simplest form, the exercise is all about ascertaining whether taking the new job will put you ahead of where you are now. Don't lose sight of that objective.

Another good way to determine whether this is the right career move for you is to think about the company you now work for compared to the company you might work for. Consider the companies as an investor might. As an employee—even though you may not actually own stock—you are still an investor. You are putting in valuable time and talent in the hope of both short-term return and long-term gain. Is one organization receiving bad press attention which could erode investor confidence? Is one organization so heavily in debt that it threatens to collapse under the weight of this burden? Which organization is led by the most visionary person? Which company has the kind of leadership that inspires confidence from employees, customers, and investors? Which organization creates the product that most directly and indispensably benefits the consumer? Which organization has the business model that you could most easily explain to a member of your family? By addressing questions such as these, you can start to place one company over the other; and, by that comparison, you can start to detect where you feel best about investing your work life.

Almost all of us feel as though we carry an untapped treasure of talents, energies, and abilities. We are always looking for ways to express our work genius, our native capabilities to do certain things well. So, which job opportunity is more likely to give you the chance to develop in ways that will become, in time, a much-improved résumé?

Whether you keep the job you have or accept a new career opportunity, there are no guarantees; there is always a chance that you will make the wrong choice—or at least the choice that feels wrong to you as you begin to experience "buyer's remorse." Have faith in your risk assessment strategy, and carefully watch how that risk plays out. There is always something positive to be gained from every adventure. More than that, you must keep in mind that this is but one decision in your life. Unless you have decided to stay in the job you're in until you retire, there will be other opportunities that arise. In fact, as already noted, choosing to stay with the job you have may not be something you can do. In short, change is part of everyone's career. Learn as much as you can from each decision you are able to make.

There are many career decision-making traps. One of the worst is becoming paralyzed by the need to make a decision. Sometimes a prospective employer will look unfavorably on someone who takes too long to decide whether to accept a job opportunity. There really is such a thing as "Hamlet Syndrome," overthinking what you want to do versus what you should do, could do, might do. Should you be stung by having an employment offer withdrawn, you should still follow all the steps listed above when the next opportunity comes along, only with greater dispatch. Just don't be rash.

Dowd, Karen. The Ultimate Guide to Getting The Career You Want (And What to Do Once You Have It) . McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Snodgrass, S. Gary. Stepping Up: 12 Ways to Rev Up, Revitalize, or Renew Your Career. Greenleaf, 2007.

About career planning: http://careerplanning.about.com