Advice on leaving a job after only about 5 months?

[Flying Dutchman]

Shrugged -- I agree with the advice about laying your cards on the table and having a heart-to-heart talk with your boss. You owe him/her that much. But I would think twice about making a jump so quickly. It says something about you to future employers about your loyalty and integrity. Not to say that there can't be good reasons for such a premature jump, but it should really be an incredible, rare opportunity to make you do it. Don't do it just for more money.

One thing to avoid is creating a trend of jumping ship on your CV. If you've stayed at one company for 5 yrs+, and then stayed a very short time at the next company, then you can be forgiven for burning one bridge. You can explain that to a future employer and it likely won't be held against you. But if you've had many successive short jobs, it shows that you can't make up your mind, have little loyalty, and are always looking for the next great offer. Who wants to hire someone like that?

FD

 

[Anynym]

What sort of job security guarantees are being offered by the new company? What's going to prevent them from turning around two, three, fifteen months from now and saying "sorry, we don't need you anymore".

And if they do, then what do you do, having burned your bridges at your former company, and perhaps gained a poor reputation with other firms too (after all, other people at your current firm will hear stories about what you did, and when they move to other companies they aren't likely to give glowing recommendations about you to their new companies).

I've always encouraged people to understand what their options are, and to choose what's best for them. But what's best is rarely a short-term question.