Move or settle: read your 10-year path before you decide

A good offer can arrive at the wrong time, and a dull job can be exactly where you should stay another year. "Move or not?" should not be answered by the mood of that particular week.

Two layers of timing

HappyJob reads your career timing in two layers.

• The ten-year period, from your 10-year path: the theme of the period you are in now (position, income, learning, output or team) and whether it is supportive, mixed or guarded.
• This year, from the year-by-year timing: open, steady or guarded, with reasons.

When the two line up, the path page sums it up in one word: move, settle or steady.

What "move" means

Not that you must resign. It means that if an offer matches the theme of the period, take it, and if none comes, go and ask: a promotion, a different team, a bigger project. Years like this are rare; a decade usually holds two or three.

What "settle" means

A year that takes more than it gives. Big decisions made in such a year usually need undoing later. What works is banking finished pieces of work, keeping relationships warm, learning the skills the next period will need, and getting the résumé ready for the open year. People who use a settling year well move further in the open year than people who push every year.

Steady

Nothing pushing either way. Move if the offer is genuinely good and there is no hurry. Use ordinary criteria: pay, distance, the boss, the team.

Checklist before accepting a new job

1. Does the theme of your ten-year period match the new job (an "income and deals" period with a sales role, say)?
2. Is this year open? If it is guarded, can the start date move to next year?
3. Does the new location carry the "supportive place" badge?
4. If the company uses Team fit, what is your fit with the seat?

Open your 10-year path, and share it with whoever you ask for advice through a link that carries no birth details.