How to Financially Plan a Career Move

For most of us, dreaming of a new job is a weekly (if not daily) occurrence. There are seemingly a million reasons why we think about a different opportunity as much as we do- pay wage, quality of life, commute, and office atmosphere to name a few.

One thing is for sure though; there is a right way and a wrong way to go through the process of looking for a new position away from your current job. Leveraging your steady paychecks for as long as you can while you begin to research, narrow down, and contact potential opportunities is very important.

You’ll also need to take a good look at both your current spending habits, as well as what you can presume they will become with an impending new pay scale, commuter fee, etc. Here are three steps that can significantly increase the likelihood of a smooth transition between jobs for both you and your wallet.

1. Make Yourself More Marketable Now – Don’t be “that person” who blindly takes a leap of faith by not preparing well in advance for a career change; that person is at a disadvantage right from the get-go that ends with them not getting hired. While you don’t necessarily need to know the absolute end goal in the form of an exact position/company, you do need to know enough about the direction you want to take moving forward to make sure you are educated enough to even properly plan for it. For example, don’t just get up and leave the financial market for the acting world unless you’ve actually paid for a few acting classes to test the waters first while you are still currently employed. Best case scenario- you love it and you can continue to use your incoming pay to strengthen your new found passion while planning your eventual departure. The worst case scenario- your current job was never the wiser to you giving something new a shot and you go back to work Monday like nothing ever happened. Additionally, update your resume/LinkedIn profile now, as well as purchase any job finding resources you plan on leveraging before leaving your job. Simply put, don’t start paying for the things that are going to help you after you stop bringing in consistent money.

2. Establish a “New Means” and Live by It- Things are going to be changing and unfortunately, your spending habits are going to have to follow suit; especially if you are entering completely new territory career-wise without an established baseline of salary from previous positions. Trim the fat and focus in on a realistic budget you need to (somewhat comfortably) live on until you not only sign the contract for your next job, but have been there long enough to have a certain amount of security. Experts recommend holding steady with an apprehensive spending habit until you’ve developed a proven level of success within your new role for a full year. We’re not saying you need to start eating canned dinners, but the fact of the matter is that unless things work out perfectly, you’ll have at least a small amount of time in your immediate future without a paycheck coming in. When the time does come to start enjoying the finer things in life on a more regular basis, do it through a gradual pace; it can be easy to accumulate debt when you suddenly have money coming in again, so be careful.

3. Properly Plan Your Departure Date- The old gold standard of proper employer/employee relations was to always provide your boss two full weeks before you planned on departing the company. While you should certainly do your best to assist your company in transitioning away from your employment as to not “burn a bridge” for future opportunities, there ARE certain timing factors that you should certainly weigh into your decision. Do you have any upcoming quarterly or year-end bonus payout dates? Is it close enough to the holidays where it would make sense to hold out for any perks? Have you used all of your vacation or paid PTO time? If you are going to be working until the very end, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be afforded all that comes with still being employed at the company, or fully exhausting all of the benefits you’ve accrued to this point before you go.