Maybe your current managerial job isn’t challenging enough. Maybe there are personal difficulties in the workplace. Or maybe you feel it is time for a pay raise. Your reason is not important. What is most important is knowing when moving manager jobs –
It is more important when you change manager jobs than why.
#1. How long have you been at your current job?
Staying too long at a job is almost as bad as staying too soon. Flipping a job in less than 2 years is a major red flag. Flipping more than one job in less than 2 years can make you a high risk for any future hospitality job.
#2. Have you prepared for your move?
Hospitality jobs evolve as the industry seeks out new opportunities and fights to stay competitive.
Hospitality recruiters are looking for managers who are ‘responding’ to the hospitality industry, not ‘reacting’ to their current situation.
A manager who has responded to the industry is taking courses and preparing. An optimum candidate has been preparing for 1 – 2 years before making the leap to a new job.
#3. Is Your restaurant in Trouble or Making Big Changes?
This can work in your favor, or against. You do not want to appear like you are jumping ship instead of buckling under and helping steer your current employer to bigger and better things.
There are many things in your current position that can position you to appear more favorable in your next job interview:
a) Take part. Show that you have a good rapport with your current employer. Show that you are able to make plans and execute them successfully. The most important part is to journal everything. Keep communications. Prepare a ‘plan’ of action complete with problems solved and opportunities accepted.
b) Your plan of action is an opportunity. Take it to the job interview with you. It shows that you can make plans, are organized, and can use the past to improve your future performance.
c) Work out the figures. Show any profit, loss, expenses that benefited the company. Take the initiative and show that you can give ‘before’ you are asked.
#4. Can you afford to switch jobs?
It takes money to market yourself. This can be measured in actual expenses, loss of revenue, and cost of starting a new job.
It is easy to measure the tangible. It is more difficult to measure the intangible. These include relationships, family, social circles, educational and volunteer opportunities. Even more complex things to consider include: quality of housing, suitable neighborhoods, short commutes, schools, hospitals, and local vacation and recreational. One of the most difficult to measure can be the potential opportunities in the area. You do not want to move to a new job and then in 2 years uproot your life and remove.
Once you’ve determined that you can move, it is necessary to identify the locations that you can move too.
#5. Why are you switching jobs?
Sometimes it is easy to run from your problems. The problem arises when you run from one set of problems into another set. How in-depth is your Career Development and Transition plan? Have you thought everything out well?
Conclusion
The most important question you need to ask is ‘can I turn down the first, second, and third good job that I am offered? If you can say yes to this then you are probably in a good position to make the move to a new job.
