Talent Management and Leadership in India: Checklist for Changing Jobs

Last Friday I got a call from one of my old acquaintance who wanted to meet me for a discussion. I make it a point to keep on meeting people almost 3-4 meetings a week whereby it is not about my agenda but their. We planned to meet up on Saturday morning for a coffee. The discussion came around to changing jobs. It struck me that whenever one is at a critical point in one’s life and career most of are seeking advice from people who have been through more and can share their experience with us. I have been doing it for the past 20 years and have always come out richer through these meetings. This blog’s genesis was this discussion.

Most of us change jobs at least 6-8 times in our career of 35 years, though the latest data says that today’s generation will have changed jobs at least 10-14 times by the time they are 38. 1 in 4 people are leaving their current employers in the first year itself. It becomes imperative that we build our skills of looking for the right place to work to lead a happy life. A great “Fit” in the job gives satisfaction to the employee and improved productivity to the employer. Here are the few prioritised checks you need to do before you sign on the dotted line :

Look up your prospective boss on Linked in (that is an easy one but many of us miss it, check for any recommendations from his earlier sub-ordinates)
Look up our prospective colleagues on Linked in (now how many of us do that?)
Pick up the phone and call their salesperson to sell the product to you ( you will know many things about the culture and the product)
Walk into an office of the prospective employer and feel the energy ( Ya! Ya! It matters and also it is more that touchy, feely, it will give you an idea of your fitment into the culture), ask to meet the Branch Incharge
Speak to at least 3 ex employees of the company and listen to their unsaid feelings
Speak to the earlier incumbent , if possible ( he will be easy to track through Linkedin)
Look up the latest news and the latest numbers on internet
Challenge the HR guys to share with you the performance management system, their HR policies
Have lunch in their cafeteria
Pick up the this/last year goals of the erstwhile incumbent (it will give you an idea of how tough/easy the job is, much more than what everyone has been sharing verbally with you)
Ask for every promise being made on the compensation aspect (especially the variable component’s dependency vectors and last year payout methodology and actual monies paid out )
Answer few questions for yourself: