birdski

Account Manager

Is longevity (with a single employer) overrated?

Reflecting on the CURRENT state of talent and opportunities in tech sales..

Growth, stature and 3% salary increase yearly or a new gig with higher base and new product but steep learning curve.

🤔 foodforthought

18 comments

Sort by:

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Too many unknowns to really answer, honestly. Let's start with:
How long is the tenure at the current employer?

How much higher a base is being offered at the new gig?

birdski

Executive

Account Manager

I guess this is just more of a general question, given the market and job opportunities, or lack thereof

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

It's very conditional, though. "It depends" totally applies here.
In general, hiring managers don't like to see a whole lot of short term stints, as that's a red flag. And there are some benefits to being with the same company for a while - familiarity, not having to ramp or scale, established customer base, etc., but there are drawbacks too. It's kind of hard to generalize. Every situation is going to be different.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

There are costs from a company standpoint as well. It’s obviously cheaper to keep someone or promote from within than hire someone from outside and invest in all this training. If I run into a person who has been at a place for a long time, that is a reflection more of the company that they take care of their own and there is a good culture in place.

In the end, if you’re happy, and your bills are getting paid why not stay? The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. It’s easy to be attracted to money being thrown at you and it can blind you from major issues the company has. Don’t be so quick to jump ship!

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Not overrated in general. Stability looks better.

HVACexpert

Politicker

sales engineer

Sometimes it feels better too

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

Aaaaaamen

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Sometimes to move up you gotta move out 🤷‍♀️

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

It’s dependent on the person or the company

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

I have only experienced and learnt that staying with the same employer for over a prolonged time is not something that will bring you growth.
BUt then again, it depends on what you want from your career and life.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

Account Executive

I think it depends on the person and company. There are times where it makes sense to dip after a short period of time for a better opportunity.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

jumping gets a higher compensation but every jump is also a bit of a risk,

SportsSalesGuy

Tycoon

Enterprise Account Executive

3% salary increase yearly? You live in a good world my friend that doesn't exist where i'm at lol

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

It's definitely good to have multi-year stints, but gone are the days of being a lifelong employee.

Beans

Big Shot

Enterprise Account Executive

It shows long-term success - you definitely want a couple 2-4 year stints on the resume. But you're right, real comp increases come with job hopping.

DataCorrupter

Politicker

Account Executive

I'll give you a hot take: Yes, it absolutely is. It's totally overrated and the market conditions are generally against you being at a company for a long time.

Start at VC funding, it's quadrupled over the last decade. What that means is more companies getting funding. More companies means more less-than-qualified people doing things for the first time (new CEO/founder who's never run a company, new sales leaders who lead teams but not global teams, new marketers running marketing org, etc). That means more possible (uninformed) bad decisions, which can make or break a company. That results in salespeople either closing less (and leaving naturally) or getting fired because of company non-performance (with sales as the scapegoat).

More companies means that usually multiple companies are trying to tackle the same exact problem or adjacent problems at the same time. There might be 100 data platforms now where as 5 were on the market a decade ago. One company may solve problems upstream in the data stack, and 5 others solve it downstream. They're all fighting for the same market share, which means overall less revenue for each. Less selling is bad for everyone. Overall, it just means we're going to sell less, which raises the probability that we'll leave or get kicked out of the door. Unless you're at a very large/stable company (SAP, IBM, etc), instability is the norm and that means less tenure for you whether that's deserved or not. It's just logical given the market conditions.

ApocalyBoom

Politicker

Account Executive

Sometimes you have to go out to get up

ZachBlide

Opinionated

I know quite a few people who have made a lot of money by moving quickly from role to role, and negotiating a big base pay bump every time.

Honestly though, most of these people are good at selling only one thing: themselves.

Of course, not saying that applies to everyone. And most of us will have at least one gig on our resume which we bounced off. Just my experience of people who have a track record of job hopping.

Also think you can hit a ceiling with this approach - it’s doesn’t look great on a resume. In addition, my view is that this sort of move is good for increasing your base salary quicker, but not your OTE. Obviously, it takes a while to ramp as an AE in a new job, especially a complex sale. The longer you’re at a job (if you’re good at it) the more historical pipeline you have and your earning potential can really compound.

As most people have said, ultimately this is more of a personal choice and dependant on organisation etc. But in the spirit of offering an opinion that’s my two cents.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

birdski

Is longevity (with a single employer) overrated?

18 comments

Related posts

What was your biggest purchase after a single commission?

Most money you’ve banked in a single year from selling?

If my employer has had lack of inventory for several months due to horrible planning and I haven’t been able to hit sales quota due to lack of inventory. I have about 2 months worth of goals in open POs. Should the company pay me commission?