When I am discussing with people about their career aspirations, trying to understand why they may want to leave one job for another, the most common reply that I receive is that they have reached some sort of a glass ceiling in their current post and that they therefore need to move elsewhere, if they are to continue to advance their careers.
My favorite question in cases like these, is: “What do you mean by saying glass ceiling? How would you define it?” The reply that I receive to this question most of the time, is “I don’t see how I can get further promoted in this company.”
Although I am a big proponent of pushing our limits as much as we can in terms of scaling the career ladder, I believe that the aforementioned attitude is more detrimental to one’s development, than it is helpful. And of course, I fully understand that without a promotion, there seldom is a notable salary increase and that at the end of the day, we all work for money, not charity.
That being said, is there perhaps a chance that you are making more every year out of a job, even though you aren’t getting promoted or receive an increase? I believe that this can really happen indeed. This is the case when you keep learning new things in a job. And this can only happen if you are working with someone knowledgeable indeed. (It’s not the same thing when you learn new stuff on your own in a job – guidance is the key factor here.) Hands-on knowledge isn’t always easy to come by, especially in smaller, nepotistic societies (like Cyprus for example) where nearly all companies are family businesses where the power is distributed by… divine right, as opposed to merit. The problem with this of course, is that someone with the said right, isn’t necessarily knowledgeable enough to improve you as a subordinate.
So if there’s one piece of advice I could give you, is to rank first the experience of your superior and then the money.
I’m not going to claim that I have never lost staff – I have and as a matter of fact, more than I would have liked. But if there’s one thing that I am proud of, is that all of them mentioned in their exit interviews (usually without even being asked) that they learned a lot from me.
So even if they left because they were thinking they had reached a glass ceiling, I can at least be proud of the fact that I helped them get there fast.