It's Not Always About Money

 

During the late 1990s, I was the consummate job changer. I moved between three employers during the span of two years. Heck, it was normal to do that as Generation-Xers swapped jobs as much as five times during a five-year span. My salary doubled and I was riding the high life. I wanted the challenge and the more opportunity I could get, the more I took. I loved the action and the edge that those days provided me.

The 2000s provided a rude awakening to those mercenary job changers of the late '90s. The well of headhunter calls ran dry and those who did not have a chair to sit on after the last round of hiring were forced to realize that those days of the '90s were just too good to be true. The pundits who had always preached corporate stability and being a company man or woman smiled as many of those perennial job changers were forced to take less desirable jobs.

It is now 2004, and the job market has started to pick up once again. The primary indicators: GDP, unemployment and salary growth are all trending positively and the number of jobs being advertised has grown significantly. Closer to home, I have seen more of my colleagues depart for higher pay and more responsibilities. While I don't anticipate the mid-2000s to be anything like the crazy late '90s, people who want something better are certainly starting to dabble their feet in the marketplace.…

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