Should I change my job during the economic recession?

Question

First, let's me explain my situation. I am 25 years old. I have been a junior programmer for two years and this is my first job. I am an active person and I like the challenge and the satisfaction of solving problems. Although my responsibility is to develop software, I have done many things beyond my job description: increase team collaboration, improve the software process and propose many positive changes to my manager.

But since the economic recession, my department was downsized. Many people were painfully cut in downsizing. There is no bonus, raise or promotion. I am quite disappointed but I can understand the company's situation. But the lack of recognition and the fact that there is nothing left but support and maintenance tasks to do made me wonder what is to motivate me to continue doing my best when it doesn't really matter to anyone. At this point, I start to lose energy and motivation, and then I am less productive.

I have try new things like starting my own software project, study new programming language. But I found that my day job really slows me down.

Is there a way for me to fix this problem or is it time for me to move on during this economic recession?

Answer 1

Getting a job is going to be harder than normal for a while, particularly if you're wanting to go into an area where you don't have much experience. It's not like it's just your particular company that's going through an economic crisis - it's the whole economy. Changing career paths is likely to result in less money while you get your skills up, so if your main area of concern at the moment is bonuses/promotions, I can't see how changing job is likely to help.

If you're enjoying your actual job, I'd stick at it and wait for sunnier times.

Answer 2

Career no (you like programming, programming is awesome), job yes ( a struggling company is one thing, but being sidelined into support is another) - if you can.

Answer 3

What is a junior programmer?

Unless you were horrible programmer I wouldn't care. Some companies are growing and hiring programmers even now. Also, I don't think a job that is able to obsolete other jobs could drop suddenly in interest.

Answer 4

If I were you, I couldn't care less about recession, because I really love what I do. Whether or not I get appropriate remuneration or recognition for that, only remains a secondary consideration.

If your passion for the technology or the profession is undiminished, it shouldn't dampen your enthusiasm, even in the face of supposedly dire circumstances.

Even at this time, good companies have not stopped hiring, although they may not be offering hefty packages anymore. You could use this time productively to develop and hone your skills to the extent that any prospective company would find you to be an asset.

Answer 5

Below are the few points on which you can count and move:

• Check for the next companies business, if it is strong and has good reputation. Ask the employees working there if they are happy.

• If you are getting good recognition and work

• Salary, bonus, location of job

• If possible, Talk with someone in that team and check how happy they are.

• Manager is very important, so while interview check how cool the Manager is?

If you are happy with the above points "move on" because even your present company in bad situation (as you say).

Answer 6

You said your company is cutting down people and your are sitll there which means company knows losing you will be a loss. But they also dont have option to give you interesting work. In this situation and considering the current economic situation I would stick with the company. These bad times will change soon. But it is important to keep ourselves motivated.

Try to learn new stuff and start your pet projects. Dont mix your profession work with your hobby projects. Dont take ur office work personal so that it does not demotivate you.

Even thought there are companies which hire even now but I would not suggest you to jump becuase if the condition becomes worse in the new company. Last in will be First out ;-)

Dont lose your interested in programming it a wonderful thing.

Answer 7

There are 2 things why someone changes job.

1) when person doesn't like the job itself. 'this is not what i want to do' stuff..

2) i could get a better pay if i am somewhere else

Now, your situation if a strong mix of 1) and 2).

As it is recession time, you should look at some things before changing job reasons being

1) Your current employer won't fire you unless something very bad is happening in the organisation. He will try to protect you to the maximum i) for your experience in the project and ii) for better reputation of his company in the market. So, the current place is the safest place to be in this recession period.

2) If you switch job and join some other company, remember that your job won't be safe there if something bad happens in that organisation. Thats because you won't have much experience in that project.

So, in your case, I suggest you to switch job, only if,

i) You can get work, what you dream about doing and would like to do.

ii) You can get a pay hike, even if it is a smaller hike like say 10% to 15%

iii) Most, importantly, even if you were to get fired from the new place, you should be confident about your expertise that you could get a job elsewhere within a short time.

If your answer to any of the above three points is 'No', then think twice before changing the job.

Good Luck.

Answer 8

Have you tried talking to your current company/boss.

If you are feeling this way and it is affecting your performance then it's in everyone's best interest to help you get more from your current role.

By not "cutting" you in the latest round of cuts they are showing some level of faith in you and your value to the company.

But perhaps they don't know that the tasks you are doing leave you unfulfilled and you have bigger plans/dreams.

They as a company "should" be able to find a way forward with you. It's what I would do with people who work for/with me. Perhaps if things are light they can give you some time to explore an open source project which may be beneficially to the company or develop some new software or component that could help them out of the mire!

I guess the overall advice is to not get down and look for positives where you are and try and find a way forward with your current employers. If that can't be found then you'll know where you truly stand and in that instance moving on is a good option.

Answer 9

Changing employer during the recession has it's advantages. Of course you have to look lot harder to find decent offer. But if the company hires new developers now, it means that it grows now, despite of recession. That's a very good indicator, it'll probably grow even faster when economy comes out of recession, and you might get opportunity to "grow" with the company.

Answer 10

You're basically looking at a risk situation, unless you have mortgage, children or other family to support you have to look at your life and think how much money is worth spending time doing stuff I don't want to do. If your need for income is low, as a I expect based on your age, you'd be a fool to keep in a job/situation that isn't working for you. You know how good you are, unfortunately you can't expect others to notice, you have to take the risk, to get the big reward. What the reward is of course, is upto you, but it won't come without the risk.

Answer 11

I don't recommend changing jobs just for the sake of it. Your company had lay-offs to hopefully stay afloat. If you like your job and the financial prospects of the company look good then stick at it. They obviously realise you're a good talent to keep you on. Companies don't drop good staff first. I know of some employers who would drop a lot of juniors just to keep on a very expensive but brilliant senior.

A good way to judge the future prospects of a company is by watching upper management. If they're gently optimistic and driving forward then it's good. If they're full of buzzwords and talk of everyone getting rich very soon now then it's a bad sign that the company is struggling or they are incompetent (if they actually believe their get rich quick banter they deserve to go broke).

That said, the economy will get worse before it gets better, so you might get caught up on another round of lay-offs or worse; the company folds. It doesn't hurt to keep up your following of the job market in these times and see what comes of it. It's good to know how much work there is, where it is and what salaries are like so you can plan for the worst; ie. can the job market still keep up your lifestyle or will you need to cut back.

Companies that are hiring now are usually in a good place to support you, but often they're looking to get staff now at low rates. You have to be really careful. Don't hop out for lower salary unless the prospects where you are look really grim.

If you're bored at work look at making your time more efficient there so you have some "downtime" to investigate other things or learn new skills. The process of making your workflow more efficient can be quite interesting; and the spare time you get can be used to brush up on new skills.

Answer 12

Am in a similar situation, but with a slight difference. The new company is not so new, I've worked for them as contractor before, and had really enjoyed the work and share a good rapport there.

The new offer does not have the same profile but there are a few other things that it has.

Current profile is anyways not better than the profile offered

The new company has more flexible options for people who have contributed well. So in the long term atleast, I 'might' get to do some core programming

Pay is much better

Hope this helps!

Answer 13

There is no point in speculation on the possibility of changing a job unless you already have a concrete offer, then the decision-making becomes rather straightforward.

The problem is never deciding whether you should change your job during the recession (or any other part of the economic cycle); the actual basic underlying issue you need to act on is getting a job offer that might be more worthwhile in comparison to your current situation. Get the offer first, leave the decision for later.

As I understand you don’t feel particularly well about you current work situation, and feelings, in fact, drive motivation. Adjust your expectations, as the expectations often serve as a foundation for your feelings:

• Expect your company to react to the tough economy by reducing costs. Expect them to leave only essential staff for supporting company functions. If you’ve been considered essential so far, then well done!

• Expect the company to try pro-long the life of existing assets instead of investing into new ones. Hence the increase in maintenance. Development-wise maintenance and re-architecture of an established system done properly is much tougher task than building a new application from scratch. It is hard work and there is lot of detail one needs to take into account, certainly a lot to learn, not that much from the existing code which is not necessarily perfect, but from morphing the code into robust solution helping business to start growing again without much investment.

• Expect people leaving and everyone being nervous about their career prospects and talking a lot on the subject of “thinking about changing a job”. Everyone is likely to feel a little disorientated, underappreciated and generally professionally worth a bit less than a year ago. You don’t need to feel this way, remember if you were not downsized you’re considered essential for the business.

Notwithstanding of the above there is nothing wrong about keeping your options open by applying for other jobs and going for interviews. Once you get an offer you’ll have time to sit down and think hard about accepting it.

Answer 14

Here's my situation:

A year or so ago I was "promoted" to Senior level. I am now the lead developer on the company's flagship product. I was promised a "substantial" increase in salary. This still hasn't happened, despite much chasing. This largely comes down to the fact that a) Money is tight (actually, we make plenty of money, but the CEO is notoriously tight - his own bonuses nonwithstanding of course), and b) They would maybe like me to relocate (I'd like to but financially don't know if I can).

The situation has obviously made me quite angry as I work a lot harder with a lot more responsibility for no extra money.

The way I see it is at the moment I am known and respected. Also I know the product better than anyone and have already proven myself. When or if the axe swings (and it has to a degree already, but not the dev team - in fact we're hiring) I know I'll be fairly safe. And as I've been here several years, the payoff would be acceptable (not great, but acceptable).

If I was to move to a new place, I'd be the new guy. The guy with the least experience on the product, the cheaper guy to get rid of (less years of service), and the guy with no friends in the business. I'd be the first to get the chop.

Therefore, despite not liking the situation (the work is interesting though), I'm staying put for now. I have a family and responsibilities to look out for. If you don't have a house or kids then maybe it'd be different for you.

Answer 15

I think my suggestion would be to polish up your resume and possibly test the waters out there to see if there is a better position out there. This isn't to say you'd quit right away, but you should have a good idea of what you'd like to do in a new position somewhere and have both good answers for the "Why do you want to leave your current position?" and "Who could act as a professional reference?" as these questions are likely to be asked.

Answer 16

I think it's important to understand that a recession really only means one thing, we all have to work harder and focus on what's important.

If you can be of more use at a different company, go for it. That's the daring spirit that on a macro scale will bring us out of the recession.

I do agree with Jon Skeet on the point that if you'r looking for better compensation this may not be the best time to look.

But from reading your post I don't think your main priority is money, that's just a way of you expressing your true problem, which is feeling under appreciated and disatisfied with the level of interest and responsibility of the tasks you're being given. I think this is a business-culture-wide problem and unrelated to the recession.

I left corporate america to start my own business when I was told things like, "we see so much promise in you, so we're giving you a junior assistant position and will see what happens in the future".

If you feel you can make splashes in a bigger pond get out your goggles and go diving.

Answer 17

What makes you think that you deserve a bonus? Do you think they pay you less than you deserve? If so, continue working at your present place but try to hit the job market and see if someone is willing to pay you more. You may be surprised...

Who's going to put bread on your table if you just quit? Mom and pop?

Answer 18

If you're really unhappy at your job you should talk to your boss or bosses and try to make things better for yourself. If you give this a good try and it fails then I say quit if you're truly unhappy.

I've learned the hard way that being truly unhappy at your job is a waste of time and not fair to yourself.

One more deciding factor: how motivated are you outside of work? When I quit my job I was loving a bunch of side projects... all programming. So during my 1/2 year off I put a lot of time into these projects and turned them into profitable side businesses. I also gained some insight into the working world (I'm about your same age btw).

So if you're really motivated then by all means just quit. The world is changing quickly now-a-days and the opportunities for start-ups and creative small businesses are numerous (despite what most people say).

Answer 19

In case this helps you: I just quit my job. At a time when unemployment was at an all time high. With no new job in sight.

That is how much I hated my old gig.

Also, the amount of time and energy the old job was sucking up was actively preventing me from finding a new and better job. (and they ARE out there - just a little harder to find at the moment.) Stupid? Possibly, but sometimes you just have to roll the hard six.

So, don't let the harsh economic times scare you. Or at least, don't let them scare you from moving on. I'm not suggesting you quit, but if you're thinking about it enough to ask the question on SO, it's time to start sending out resumes.