Never Burn your Bridges

Never Burn your Bridges. Burning Bridges is getting more common.

How many people leave jobs on bad terms? Not many? But consider how many don’t realize they have left on bad terms?

The reality is people have gotten used to changing jobs far more often than they used to. Gone are the days of a Job for Life because people don’t want that anymore. They want flexibility. People crave development opportunities. Candidates want solid benefits packages. And everyone wants more money.

Candidate led

The 2012 to 2022 market had a theme. It was called: Candidate led. Despite the pandemic toward the end of this period candidates still had the upper hand. Skills shortages were rife. Job vacancies were high. Candidates with even a medium skillset level were being fought over with better and better packages.

However in 2023, that has started to wane. Not dramatically, but it has started to move in the direction of a balance. Candidate and Client led markets are cyclical. Whilst these cycles can be a decade long, your career is often 40+ years and will see likely multiple phases.

Client led

Each phase tends to have a catalyst which reverses the momentum. And to what extent that momentum ends up can depend on an economy, a specific industry and changes of surrounding circumstances.

Importantly, I do not believe that the extent of this reversal will result in a client led market. However, I do believe it will impact certain industries more than others. Industries that have possibly gotten blissfully used to being extremely candidate led.

Wise Behaviors

The point I am making is that at some point most people’s jobs will have threats because their industry has threats. If you are someone who was happy to burn your bridges in the good times, that can come to bite you in the bad times.

Also there is leaving on good terms and then there is actually leaving on good terms. In my experience these are two very different things. For example if you fought out a Dutch auction on your salary, eventually turned down the 3^rd counter off and then did zero work during your notice period then the smiling face from your boss is all for show. It is not leaving on good terms.

Industries are incestuous

Companies talk. Most companies in an industry will have the people who sign things off talking to their equivalents at rival, competing or same industry companies. If you burn a bridge that can easily go around and create barriers of entry to potential new employers.

Whilst companies are desperate for people, you can get away with it. But as soon as the market shifts toward a client led market you may find what goes around comes around.