Currently, I am in the middle of interviews to fill several positions at Artha and one of the first questions I ask candidates is why they are changing jobs? The common answer I receive is that they are looking for growth.  Most of these people have been at their current jobs for less than 24 months, so it makes me wonder whether the growth they seek is truly in terms of experience or in the size of their pay-check. Usually, it is the latter and their feeble attempt at answering this truly important question hurts their prospects with us as it does with most employers. Allow me to explain.

I have been a part of the workforce since I was 16 years old and the first job I got paid for was in my first year of college at the age of 18. In the next 4 years of college, I went through 4 jobs and ran 2 businesses from my room. One of those jobs was selling retail jewellery which I did throughout my 4 years. In that, I found my calling i.e. sales. My next job was door to door sales, a position I held for 5 years before becoming an entrepreneur within the same organisation. When I came back to India, I went through 3-4 jobs in a (relatively) short span of time before deciding to dive full-time into setting up Artha.

Having cycled through almost 10 jobs I amin no way advocating that a person should not change jobs or look for better salary packages. In a free marketing and capitalist economy this is exactly the type of behaviour that is expected and encouraged. However, I could, as I expect anyone should be able to decide whether they love a company/opportunity/job within the first 6-12 months. Therefore, if I was investing any time beyond that in the company, it meant that I was certain I would make a future for myself there.

It’s not that I didn’t feel like quitting my jobs several, several times. For example, there were times when I felt that I was going to be stuck in my position for ever or that I was getting looked over for promotions or that I was getting jaded, but I stuck it through those times. Then seemingly out of nowhere a new opportunity, office or position would open up and due to the fact that I was there at the right time, as the right person, just like that the juggernaut was rolling again.

So I feel that if temporary situations would have affected my decision to stay with the company, then that should have happened in the first 6-12 months, because in my opinion, that is usually the timeframe when a person should have decided whether they like the job role, the boss and can live with the hygiene factors at their workplace. However, if it takes over 24 months for someone to decide whether their current job will excite them or not, that doesn’t build my confidence in your assessment abilities or more likely questions them.

There could be several situations that could have forced you to change your job (location change, family obligation, bankruptcy) and these might give you a good story to tell that is both convincing and genuine. However, if you are changing jobs for “growth” related issues but it took you more than 24 months to realise it, then you need to have a bloody good story for me to believe you (and my standards are high).

30/2019