Will A Lateral Job Move Always Make You More Valuable?

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Often, when we think of careers, we don’t think of a lateral job move. Instead, we think of our careers as a ladder. You start at the bottom of the ladder, and with enough experience and skills, you climb up the rungs. Some people climb up the corporate ladder faster than others. Some will peak at the manager level, and others will rise to the CEO level. How quickly you climb that ladder is a combination of skill, a little bit of luck, and determination.

Thinking of career progression in this lens is a little bit shortsighted, however. Careers are seldom this “clean.” The path to achieving your dreams isn’t always a hop from one rung to another, sometimes it’s more like a maze. Different ways lead you to where you want to go, you just need to figure out which one is right. You’ll have to backtrack occasionally and go sideways before you can move forward. A ladder implies you know exactly where to go and how to get there, which is seldom the case for career ambitions.

In your career, you might have the opportunity to make a lateral job move. Even though, intuitively, that job might feel “right,” you may be reluctant to take it because it’s merely a lateral move and not a progression. Before making a lateral job move, it’s essential to weigh the pros and cons carefully. A lateral movement can boost your career dramatically, or it could cause you significant headaches.

Pro: A Lateral Job Move Means You’ll Learn More

Sometimes the most significant benefit of making a lateral job move is that you will be able to learn more. Consider the case of a hairstylist that has worked for one shop her whole life. Representatives for another shop come to her and offer a job to her for the same wage. Initially, you might think, “what’s the point?” If she’s content where she is, why mix things up?

The answer is learning potential. Being a stylist at one shop your whole life doesn’t necessarily make you as attractive to employers as having multiple different people that know and love your work. The stylist would have the opportunity to learn not only how their first shop works, but how other shops work as well.

Sometimes lateral job moves are the best educational opportunities we can ever receive. If you feel that you can learn a lot from this new opportunity, then that is a compelling reason to take it.

Con: You’ll Have To Explain Why You Made The Move

Nobody doubts why people take jobs for more money or a better title. If you say that you left Company A to go to Company B for a 20% raise, everyone will pat you on the back and think that’s awesome. Similarly, if you leave Company A as a junior employee and go to Company B as a senior one, again, nobody would question it.

However, going from A to B for a negligible salary bump (or, worse, for less money) and not gaining a better title, will make people question why you left. It’s hard to explain why you gave up a seemingly stable job and elected to gamble on something new. If you’re moving to another province or region, then this tends to be understandable. But if you’re making the jump within the same city or company, people tend to assume maybe you were having problems at your previous job. While you may know that’s an incorrect assumption, others don’t have all the facts.

A lateral move may carry with it some explaining. You can say you wanted to learn something new or you’ve always wanted to work for Company B. There are valid reasons for making the lateral jump. You might have to explain those reasons, though.

Related: What is Career Burnout?

Pro: It Might Be Lateral For Now, But Not or Long

Consider two work environments. One is a small company with a core team of people that have been there forever, have no plans for significant growth, and have no plans on retiring. Another is a large multi-national firm, with lots of senior spaces to fill. You get an offer from the large multi-national firm for roughly the same pay and title.

Should you take this new position? The answer is yes, probably. The first job has no future in it. You can exist in that company and keep doing what you’re doing for the foreseeable future. Or, you can leave and go to a place that might provide you with a well-deserved promotion. The latter choice seems like the smarter one to take.

Con: You Can’t Carry Your Reputation With You

This con applies for non-lateral moves, as well. You can’t carry your work history and reputation across companies (or, at some companies, you can’t even take it across teams). For job moves that result in a more substantial salary or have an increase in the title, losing the work history is more palatable. You’re taking a risk by switching companies or teams, and they reward that risk by providing an increase in pay. You both benefit in this transaction.

However, for a lateral move, you assume much of the risk if things don’t work out, but you also don’t have the title bump or significant compensation increase to coincide with it. As such, you need to have confidence that this move will benefit you in the long run, since in the short term, it may not have tangible perks.

Pro: Your New Boss Might Be Better, Or You Might Have A Better Work-life Balance

Presumably, if you’re looking to make a lateral move, there’s something that you’ve begun to dislike about your current position. A study in 2015 showed that 50% of people in the UK don’t like their current job and career. If you are one of those, your reason might be your current boss or the work-life balance you have. If you like the work you do, but find yourself continually butting heads with your boss, or you find that you are working late on weekends and nights, then a lateral move might work for you.

In this case, the move is lateral because it doesn’t result in a title bump, but it’s a step up. If you can get rid of long work hours or a bad boss, you can reclaim that time for family, friends, and enjoyable activities. That alone might be enough to help you mentally and physically so you can achieve your career goals faster.

Related: What To Do When You Hate Your Job

Con: A Lateral Move “Wastes” A Job Hop

We’ve all known coworkers and friends like this. They work at Company A. In a year, they don’t want to work there, and they go work for Company B. Then, in another year, they’re at Company C. Job hopping is rampant, and people do it to build their careers as fast as possible.

However, employees job hop in search of better opportunities. They’re looking to grow their careers. A lateral move still counts as a new job in the eyes of many employers. Even if you remained with company A for five years, if you worked in a different department every six months, would your new employer have confidence that you would stay with them if they were to hire you?

For this reason, typically, lateral moves should not be made more than one or two times every five years or so. You don’t want employers to think that you won’t stay with them if they go to the trouble of hiring you!

How To Successfully Execute A Lateral Job Move?

If, after carefully weighing the pros and cons, you’re interested in making a lateral job move, the next step is to execute it successfully.

First, a lateral move involves all the steps that you would typically expect. Even if you’re transferring internally, you’ll often need a resume and some form of interview or questioning with your new manager. If you’re going externally, then you’ll, of course, have to follow the same process as any other applicant. As such, the first step is to prepare. Make sure your resume is up to date and make applications.

If you’re looking to transfer inside of the company, check to see if there are internal job listings. Some companies have a list of jobs internally that people to which people within the company can apply. That can make your process much more comfortable.

Second, you should prepare a good reason why you want the job. With lateral moves, this answer is critical. You can say that you want to learn new things or you can say that the new company interested you. The key is that you need to have a reason that is strong enough to warrant making the job change. Do not say anything negative about your previous team or boss in this explanation.

Finally, think about your career and how this new position will fit into your longer-term goals. Don’t change for the sake of change. Ensure that this new position will genuinely benefit you in the long run.