For help with the answer, check out eParachute and our new career planning course.

Although “Should I stay or should I go?” is a classic 1981 rock song by the Clash, it’s also a highly-relevant question in the era of the Great Reset of Work, the Great Resignation, or whatever Great trend is influencing your thinking about work. If you’re currently in a job, and you see frequent headlines and hear regular discussion by friends and co-workers about the record 11.5 million job openings, it’s perfectly understandable you’d start wondering about other work opportunities.

If the most interesting option to you is simply getting better pay, you may not have to do much homework outside of checking job listings. But even if all you’re thinking of doing is changing jobs because of compensation, just remember the common human bias known as “the grass is always greener on the other side.” We often envision the perfect new job, forgetting the alternative adage, “The devil you know is better than the one you don’t.” If you like a variety of aspects of your current work, and all you’re looking for is a slightly better paycheck and a new work environment, consider simply negotiating with your current employer for more pay and a change of work scenery.

In fact, whether you’re thinking about making a minor change in your work, or you’re tempted by the historical number of open jobs in the U.S., I’d always suggest you take the time to do a little homework on yourself. As you know from our prior posts, we call that process “self-inventory.” And you can do that process quickly, or take more time and do it thoroughly. (For fans of Dan Kahneman, that’s thinking fast and slow.)

The quick version uses something like our eParachute card sort, taking just a few minutes to check out your latest thinking on your skills and interests, and seeing if any interesting options for jobs and fields might warrant some further research on your part.

The slow version gives you the opportunity to take more time, immersing yourself in learning about your skills and other attributes, and constructing a variety of scenarios for the kind of work you might like to do. That process is best followed using our new career planning course, which covers the full set of Flower exercises from What Coior Is Your Parachute?

Having these additional insights about yourself provides you with critical information about whether it makes the most sense to stay with your current work, or to make a change that could include taking the leap to go to a new job. And while you’re doing it, you might even hum the tune to the Clash song.