Would you leave a job you love for double the salary?

[Hendion]

Hi all, I have been headhunted by a recruiter recently, who reached out to me about a job doing the same kind of thing I’m doing now.

i wasn’t looking for another job, and I actually really love where I work now and the people. I decided to interview wirh this other company, because I was enticed by the doubled salary. They’ve offered me the job.

im torn. Extra money would always be nice, but there’s the risk of leaving my current place and ending up in a job I hate. My current company wouldn’t have the means to offer me anywhere close to that salary, so I can’t really use it to bargain for a pay rise either.

would you leave a job you love for a doubled salary?

It depends. It's the same job, but is it really the same? I left my last job mainly because of micromanagement and excessive on-call. This job is ostensibly the same, but no on-call, 38% higher pay, fewer hours, 10 minute vs 1 hr+ commute - and I've been there less than a year and getting a promotion. In my field (systems administration,) asking about on-call is usually one of my interview questions, because it's often a requirement (this is the first job I've not had to do it,) and it can make a big difference to whether a job is bearable or not.

You need to look at the overall package - it might be double pay, but what about pension, other benefits like private health? What are the hours? What flexibility is there, like WFH, different start or finish times, weekend working... How does the commute compare? Some of these things may be more important to you than money, and they may be different for other people - or at other stages in your life.

It might be worth asking if you can meet some of the people you'd be working with - recruitment is a two-way thing after all. They might want you, but do you want them?

If your current employer needed to make cuts, they would, regardless of your previous loyalty, so don't worry about leaving. I'm still in touch with some people I've worked with in the past - it's much easier to stay in touch with people these days than it was 30 years ago.

Yes, in a shot, there may be nice people in the new place as well……I’m surprised you even have to think about this

What’s the difference in the role at the new job?

I’ve just done sort of similar. I was on 80k 4 days (100k FTE) and got offered a FT role 130k at another firm. It meant I needed to go back to FT and leave a job I really liked. 6 months on I’m so pleased I moved, there’s so much extra going into my pension and I’m using the other cash for holidays. The team is so lovely and the work is so much more varied and interesting than my previous firm.

good luck OP

Yes

Double salary = opportunity to make a life outside work that you love

Life you love = easy to tolerate a job you don't love but don't mind

Think of the long term potential benefit too r.e pension saving

Goal should be a job you like, life you love

Why are you thinking you'll hate it?

You say you love your current job and this job is doing something similar.
So you already know that the work is enjoyable.
The only other variable is the people. You get on really well with the people you currently work with. But these people might be just as nice.
I take PPS points about how soul destroying it is to be in a terrible job. I've been there.
But for double the money I would take the risk. It sounds like you're very much in demand. So you can always leave if you don't like it.

I applied for a job that was 31% better paid than the job I was doing and loved. I was paid £84k and moved up to £110k. I only applied for interview experience, I never expected to get the job, but was pretty sure I could score an interview. They offered me the job. I took it. I bloody love it. It was genuinely the best move I could have made. Yes there are compromises, I now have a long commute twice a week, I have some additional stresses, but I also have more autonomy. A great boss and opportunity.

I use salary sacrifice and pay nearly 14% a month into my pension to offset the personal allowance loss.

If you are so bothered about the additional tax just bung everything over 100k into a pension that could bring forwards your retirement age by 5 or 10 years.

Totally depends. If it was me, right now at this stage of my life, no I wouldn’t. I’m happy where I am, I’m happy with the balance of everything, and we are fortunate in that we don’t need the extra money so there is no reason to.

If we needed the money then in a heartbeat yes I would, because financial security for my family would come above me personally being happy at work.

is your current job underpaid due to public sector or some other reason? Or is the new job overpaid to make up for some serious downsides? If you’re not currently underpaid I’d do some digging about why the pay is so much more at the new place. Lots of out of hours work expected? Horrible bosses? Lots of stress?

ive twice turned down big pay rises after doing some digging. One place basically felt they had bought your soul and expected you to work all evenings and weekends as well as core hours. The other place was just a terrible company. They fund genocide amongst other things and also treat their staff like disposable pawns. Definitely not worth the extra money to sacrifice morals and mental health!

conversely I also halved my salary at one point (pre kids so I had fewer outgoings) as I hated the place I was at and the new place gave me the same job but with nice people, sensible hours and doing worthy work.

I’d consider it but I’d be really wanting to get a feel of other stuff like expected workload, what an average day would look like, commute, hours, culture.

I’m on 50k and turned down a 68k job as my current job is quite self managed and flexible and includes the ability to work from home quite a bit. The new job was going to be 9-5 in the office and even though it was a short commute i didn’t fancy it. I’d also worked for the organisation before and I know what it’s like for micro managing and couldn’t stand the thought of going back to that.

If you have kids it may not be worth going over the £100k as you lose so many benefits. Make sure you work out what your take home will be compared to now as it won't be double