When “Connie,” 26, landed her first job out of college in 2020, she knew she wanted a raise. She was earning $60,000 in New York City as a consultant. Her first raise got her to $67,000, but she knew she’d have to switch jobs to get a substantial raise.
“Everyone tells you you have to switch jobs if you want more than $10,000. There’s no way around it,” she tells Fast Company, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about the sensitive topic. “A lot of my friends act like they are on a two-year timeline even if they aren’t, because no one is interested in giving you a significant raise if you stay.”
In 2022, Connie started searching for a job and got two offers: one for $85,000 and one for $90,000.
Connie’s story isn’t an anomaly. According to a new study of 1,000 Gen Zers and millennials from ResumeBuilder, job hopping is the way to high salary gains. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they left their jobs because they wanted a higher salary, and 80% of people who left said they got a salary increase. About a fifth of these job hoppers received an increase of $50,000 or more.
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