Changing jobs to make more money?

[Lyndee]

Just checking to see if this is just common in my geographic area or if this is true everywhere else...

When I moved to the Washington DC area in 1995, my very first manager on my first job advised me to stay with the company for 3 years and then change jobs about 3 more times before I settle into one company (we'll call this the "strategy"). He said that it's easier to get the big raises when you change companies than it is to ask your current company for for a big raise.

So I stayed with my first company for 3 years and 1 month and then made my big jump to my current company. I've been here for over 5 years and I just love it and I don't really want to move anytime soon. Thankfully, my raises have been really good so I feel that I'm not behind in salary.

We followed that "strategy" for DH. He stayed with his first job out of the Navy for exactly 3 years. Then since 2001, he has changed jobs 3 times. The formula works! I was pg in 2001 so his first big raise covered the cost of daycare when our DD arrived. His last job change last January came a few weeks before I found out I was pg with #2 so this raise covers upcoming daycare (and Montessori school for #1) expenses again. Luckily, as new parents, we really haven't had to cut back.

This seems to be the common culture among my peers. If you need more money, go get another job and ask for the moon. Switching has been really easy and we've been blessed that DH gets jobs pretty easily and still gets calls every week for new opportunities. We both work in governnment consulting. I'm a management consultant and he's a network engineer.

Is the economy in our area just unusually good or is the rest of the country doing this also? Give me your thoughts!

[Dennis]

I'm a software developer and it was like that for me before the crash. I doubled my salary from 1997 to 2001 plus I got nice signing bonuses at each job. Since then, I've been laid off twice and I'm happy to be making 20% less than my peak. Denver seems to have been hit harder than most areas because we're so heavy in telecom. Among my peers, we're just happy to have jobs right now.

Dennis

[kim]

dh and i are both in high tech (enterprise data storage). he's a field engineer and i'm at corporate doing web & server maintainance. i've been here 9 yrs :eek: and honestly have no ambition to leave, i make a pretty good salary for what i do and i would make less going elsewhere. considering we've laid off about 5,000 employees in the last few years i'm lucky i still have a job.

dh's skillset is pretty product specific right now so it's not the time for him to move to another company, he needs more training. but, it is time for him to move to another job within this company. he's been here 5 yrs and is in his 3rd position.

we are actually considering moving to another part of the country where the cost of living is cheaper (but staying with our same company, so our salaries won't suffer).

[Karri]

I think it depends on your occupation. I think If I would have followed that strategy with my career, it wouldnt have worked. I would have gotten increases, but nothing much more substantial than what I was making. But its worked with DH. He hasnt held a job for more than 1 year & 9 mos. since he's graduated from undergrad!! He works in the consulting industry and each time he makes a jump, its about a $20,000+ increase. Since he's been at his current place (17 mos), he's gotten several offers to come to other companies for much more than he's at now, but for now, he's got a great work/life balance, so we arent going to screw with it.

[Kasie]

Karri,
I have always wondered what the "consulting industry" is. If you don't mind, what does Chris do? I am researching different career opportunities for my DH, and those pay increses peaked my curiosity.

Thanks

[Karri]

Karri,
I have always wondered what the "consulting industry" is. If you don't mind, what does Chris do? I am researching different career opportunities for my DH, and those pay increses peaked my curiosity.

Thanks
Kasie - he does lots of things, a lot of which I dont understand :lol:
He works for an accounting/audit/consulting firm and specializes in IT consulting. Right now his job is split into 2 areas....right now, for one part, he's at a client and doing a data warehouse project. He basically goes in and figures out what the company needs to what it is they want to do. For the other part, he audits banks to make sure their IT systems are compliant with security and whatnot. It has something to do with Sarbonnes-Oxley...which, if I recall it correctly, is an act that came about after all the Enron/Arthur Anderson hoopla.

He has an undergrad in mechanical engineering and an MBA. He got into consulting right out of college and has worked for 3 of the "big 6" consulting firms in the past. Yeah - they make good money, but its not all fun & games, either. He has had to do a lot of travel to make it where he is. He spent months living away from home and that sucked ass. He works an average of 50 hours a week in the office, which isnt bad in consulting, but he also works a LOT from home. Many of his evenings and early mornings are spent doing work. And when the phone rings & its his manager on family time, he's gotta take it and deal with the call. Sometimes I get impatient, but he's our only breadwinner, so I deal.

Ok.....sorry to take over your thread, Lyndee! Back to the topic at hand!

[Nichole]

I agree with Karri that it definitely depends on your occupation (and where you live to some extent). That strategy would not work for what I do, because it's just about impossible to get a whole lot higher up the ladder in science unless you have a PhD. There are only a few areas in the country with large pockets of biotech companies, and they're areas with a high cost of living (Boston/New England, San Francisco, and San Diego).

Theoretically, the strategy could work for Brendon, but we would probably have to move all over the country to accomplish it. In order to move up in the golf course superintendent world, someone else has to vacate a position (or they have to build a new course). It's like one of those tile puzzles where you have to slide a tile to move another tile.

[Lyndee]

Ok.....sorry to take over your thread, Lyndee! Back to the topic at hand!

No problem, Karri, I'm glad you chimed in since you know some stuff about the consulting industry.

And for Kasie- I'll go ahead and try to answer your question as well because I'm in consulting myself.

It's so hard to describe what I do because I do a lot of different things. I've worked in the consulting industry for 9 years now and I've never had assignments that were exactly the same. Right now, I'm working on biometrics testing. Four years ago, I was working with the team that was internationally deploying border control systems.

Basically, the cycle goes like this:

-The client (in this case, our clients are government agencies) determines that they need to outsource a project. (this could be anywhere from a few hundred K to millions of dollars worth of manpower).
-The client sends out a request for proposal and consulting companies will put their bids in on how they will do the job. It's very competitive. The client will choose what company wins the project. That company then has a contract with the client to finish the work.
-The company who wins project will staff the project with consultants like me.

I've worked on projects ranging from a few weeks to a few years and it never gets monotonous because there is always something new to learn and new people to meet. I do love the lifestyle because I don't really know what I'll be working on a year from now when my contract ends. It gives me so much flexibility to be able to choose where and when I want to work. We still get paid a salary and we don't get overtime (but DH does). I work a lot when we're busy and I take it easy when there is not much going on so it all evens out.

Hope this helps you understand some stuff!

[Lyndee]

I There are only a few areas in the country with large pockets of biotech companies, and they're areas with a high cost of living (Boston/New England, San Francisco, and San Diego).


In the Washington DC area right now, biotech is a growing market of because of all the counter-terrorism work that is being funded by the government. (I know that even my company is trying to start this as a service offering).
We are just in awe of this area where we live because back a few years ago when other areas like silicone valley was enjoying high salaries but outrageous prices in housing, our salaries here were going up but housing was still fairly reasonable. Right now, the salaries continue to rise but housing has gone up a lot- our house has appreciated by 150% in just 6 years. We were lucky that we got settled when we did but I see couples in their mid-late 20's over here buying really expensive houses and driving really nice cars so I guess it's still not that bad compared to other areas.

This area also seems to be protected by the layoffs because the government is here and it just keeps getting bigger. I've had friends who moved into their dot coms back in the late '90s but are now back working for consulting companies making close to what they were making before (minus the stock options of course).

[SarahK]

I think a lot depends on geography and on your occupation.

I worked in higher education prior to being a SAHM...switching jobs too often makes you look lazy and not dedicated in my old field. I changed jobs after a year and included a letter of reference from my boss with all of my job applications--so that I didn't look shiftless! (Brian and I were getting married, so living five hours apart from each other wasn't going to work any more.)

[bunybomb]

I've been in sales for 15 years and that strategy has worked for me. Now it wasn't $20K more each time I went to a new job. Maybe $5K more in salary and commission with each jump. I've had 5 sales jobs in 10 years.

I finally took a leap to Project Management (still in sales at same company) and I got a $15K raise. I'm still on the low end of the salary range for PM, but I'll never get that kind of raise again unless I leave my present company.