Job Hunting For Life

Allow me to correct something I mentioned to a manager several months ago.

Earlier this year, I misquoted something from Richard Bolles' book What Color Is Your Parachute? During my exit interview, I had told her  that an average professional will change jobs at least eight times in his career (I can't recall why I included this in our conversation but I think it was related to her being connected with just one company during her entire career to date). 

The right answer is three to five times. Here's the entire passage from the book:

Here is the overwhelming, overarching truth: you 

Are going to have to go job-hunting

Many times in your life.

Lucky you, if that is not the case!

But the odds are overwhelming that it will be.

According to experts,

The average worker, under 35 years of age,

Will go job-hunting every one to three years,

And the average worker over 35 will go

Job-hunting every five to eight years!

And, in this process, so the experts say,

We will each of us probably change careers

Three to five times, as we go.

My superior must be very lucky indeed. She's with the same company since her early twenties. As for me, I've just been through my second job hunt and I don't know if there are more to come. 

Still, even if I have to live those moments again, I'll still do the same things. I'll take that job in Taguig City. I'll leave it to go back to Davao. I'll take my second job and leave it again like I did. 

Each resignation was a leap of faith, a flight to uncertainty, and every job hunt built my character.

The hair-splitting anxiety of not knowing where to go and the excitement of the hunt are things I cannot regret. The life lessons from those times are indispensable.  

Still, some are lucky enough to be already content with their first company. 

Some of us, though, want to grow some more.