Shadowing Practice: How Long Should You Stay At Your Job? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
C1
95% of American workers said they plan to look for a new job in 2024.
202 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
95% of American workers said they plan to look for a new job in 2024.
2
Money is a big part of this.
3
45% of American workers say they need a higher income.
4
Job switchers increase their salary more quickly on average than those who stay put.
5
In February 2024, people who stayed at their job for more than three months increased their salary by 5.1% year over year,
6
whereas those who switch jobs increased by 5.9%.
7
I ended up almost doubling my salary after a year and a half.
8
And then from there, each year,
9
I probably increase my salary from anywhere to $15,000 to $35,000 or $40,000.
10
But hiring professionals stress that it's important to be strategic about job moves.
11
You don't want to rise up the ranks too quickly
12
and then be this expensive head that's sort of easy to chop in any kind of downturn.
13
I think companies do expect an unrealistic level of loyalty,
14
but unfortunately, we're at their whim a lot of times, right?
15
So we do have to play the game and
16
that game is making it seem like you're going to spend the rest of your life there.
17
They really do want to be lied to.
18
So how long is the optimal amount of time to stay at your job for your career advancement,
19
salary and your well-being?
20
The survey data about why people leave their jobs is pretty consistent across the board.
21
Ranking at the top of the list are wanting a higher salary
22
and not feeling like they have room for growth at their current job.
23
The desire for higher salaries may lead people to job hop,
24
which is when a worker jumps from job to job within a short period of time.
25
Oftentimes switching companies is the fastest way to get to
26
that next level role in terms of seniority and in terms of your income level.
27
And the reality behind that is in your current company for you to get promoted,
28
for you to get to the next level,
29
that position needs to open up in a way
30
that it's either someone leaves or they get promoted or the company is growing.
31
Gen Z is 36 percent more likely than other generations to prioritize advancement opportunities.
32
Even if there are opportunities for promotions within their current workplace,
33
they may still find it easier to leave.
34
A lot of employers are reaching out to people and recruiting them.
35
Workers have more negotiating power that way.
36
You can also find out more easily what wages are available just by going on ZipRecruiter and looking at job postings,
37
whereas perhaps finding out what the opportunities are within your company involves sort of an uncomfortable conversation with your manager.
38
Other common reasons for leaving are to get better benefits,
39
to escape a toxic work environment and for better work-life balance.
40
The ancillary thing is, if I pay people more, would they be happier?
41
If that were true, then investment banks and private equity firms,
42
law firms would be the happiest places in the world to work.
43
They notoriously aren't viewed that way because there's a certain way that you treat people,
44
whether it's benefits or whether it's time off or compensation or quite frankly,
45
just how you treat people on a day in and day out basis with interpersonal skills.
46
Those are the things that end up being more important.
47
Workers also have career aspirations that may not be fulfilled in their early in my career.
48
I alwe the goal of eventually w So I told myself around t try and get enough expere
49
to the things that are re consulting firm.
50
So each I've always left a company I had already obtained the to obtain.
51
And if I wasn't to obtain the skills that I needed,
52
I went to the next place.
53
As humans, we tend to change every two to three years in terms of our goals,
54
our priorities, our stages of life.
55
And now the younger generations ask themselves,
56
well, how does my career serve me?
57
And not the other way around.
58
There's never a wrong reason to want to leave.
59
If you want to leave, you can leave, right?
60
But you have to be smart about leaving.
61
Americans consistently stay at their jobs for a median of three to four years.
62
In 2022, the median tenure was 4.1 years.
63
In 2002, it was 3.7.
64
And back in 1983, it was 3.5 years.
65
But breaking those numbers down by age paints a clearer picture about how long Americans should stay at their jobs.
66
Between 2002 and 2022, workers aged 20 to 24 typically stayed at their jobs for less than one and a half years.
67
As you look at older workers,
68
the median tenure increases with each age group.
69
I think a lot of people think of job hopping as being generational,
70
but it's actually more driven by age than generation.
71
So our parents' generations at the same age as young people today,
72
a lot of the data shows that they quit at very similar rates.
73
A Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that American adults born between 1957
74
and 1964 held an average of 12.7 jobs between the ages of 18 and 56,
75
with nearly half of those jobs held before the age of 25.
76
I think the idea
77
that you have to stay at one company for an extended period of time comes most probably from our families
78
and our parents,
79
because their expectation and their version of success was to stay within one company
80
or at least within one career their entire life.
81
Our parents would get pensions.
82
They would work for a company for a certain amount of time,
83
retire and be paid for the rest of our lives.
84
So the incentives have shrunk.
85
And so the loyalty is just not there.
86
Another thing to consider is a lot of benefits accrue over time.
87
So if you switch companies too quickly,
88
you could be leaving money on the table.
89
For example, some employers won't allow you to keep your 401k match until you've been there for a certain number of years.
90
I see a huge wave of Gen Z and millennial professionals asking themselves,
91
is this job, is this career right for me?
92
And what do I want for my career to look like and to feel like?
93
And where do I find this career versus feeling like,
94
hey, I have to stay doing what I've been doing in my career.
95
Recruiters say there's more leeway for job switching earlier in your career.
96
Gen Z can do that right now because they're in their early 20s.
97
Well, when they get to their late 20s or their early 30s,
98
they can't be moving like that.
99
You're 22 years old.
100
You're not making any career mistakes right now.
101
There are so many places that you could go
102
and none of them would be a mistake because you're
103
so young and you have so many years to figure out what you want to do.
104
When you're 35, not really, right?
105
Ideally, you're in your career and you're making a good salary with great benefits.
106
And once you have that,
107
you need to be more strategic and intentional about those moves
108
that you make because now you can make a really bad career mistake.
109
Instead of asking how long you should stay at your job,
110
career experts suggest shifting your focus to how much you've accomplished.
111
I think the biggest risk with job hopping
112
or leaving your job too early is you not understanding where you are in your development.
113
And that's why I try to tell people,
114
remove your focus on money,
115
especially if you're being compensated okay and you're able to pay your bills and survive.
116
Don't focus on just getting a huge pay bump before you are actually ready,
117
before you have gain the right skills.
118
Don't focus on time.
119
Don't focus on money.
120
Focus on skills.
121
And if you are comfortable in the skills that you are acquiring,
122
then you are ready to move on to the next level.
123
Workers may also want to consider looking at their career as a whole,
124
rather than honing in on only tenure or compensation.
125
I took a $20,000 pay cut when I job topped the first time.
126
And I knew that was okay
127
because it would come back tenfold based on the experience I was going to be getting at the new place of work.
128
So I don't focus on the money.
129
And I know that's a privileged thing to say
130
because my roles compensate me well and at the time
131
when i started in my career i just really shrunk my
132
cost of living i would say i lived in a house with seven other people
133
and my rent was like five hundred dollars
134
so after i took the twenty thousand dollar pay cut i ended up almost doubling my salary after a year
135
and a half
136
and then from there each year i've probably increased my salary from anywhere to fifteen thousand to thirty five
137
or forty thousand and now that i'm an independent consultant,
138
I mean this is the most that I've earned ever.
139
While it could deliver a quicker pay raise to switch jobs,
140
often long-term loyalty and tenure are rewarded in the end.
141
And so if you look at the top five highest paid people within a company,
142
they're often the veterans who were there from the start.
143
The company may only want people in senior leadership positions who have a demonstrated track record of reliability,
144
of sustained performance, and of loyalty to the company.
145
Companies don't do promotions that often.
146
They might do them once a year, twice a year.
147
And so if you have only stuck around two cycles,
148
but the company has a policy of promoting people about once every three years,
149
you may miss out on that big payday.
150
If you are not a self-aware person,
151
and you don't do a lot of introspection for what you are and are not ready for,
152
job hopping is not wise in my opinion.
153
If you're not really able to assess your true skill set,
154
it's going to be hard for you to get the opportunities that you want or reach your end goal.
155
Timing and the broader economy are important factors as well.
156
How difficult would it be to find a new job?
157
In January 2024, the Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index fell to its lowest point since 2016.
158
You need to figure out like the strategy before you give
159
that notice because it is taking people six to 12 months to land a new position.
160
A 2023 survey from Insight Global revealed
161
that 55 percent of unemployed adults said they've been searching for a new job for
162
so long that they are completely burnt out.
163
This trend is hitting Gen Z the hardest,
164
with two thirds of them suffering from application burnout.
165
But 75% of Gen Z workers would quit their jobs without having a new one lined up.
166
I personally would never leave a job if I don't have another opportunity already lined up.
167
Another part of being strategic is thinking about how employers are viewing a candidate's work history.
168
For employers, turnover is challenging and very expensive because hiring realistically takes a lot of time and a lot of resources.
169
90% of organizations are concerned about employee retention.
170
Helping employees upskill is a key component to retaining talent.
171
Companies with strong learning culture see higher rates of retention,
172
more internal mobility and a healthier management pipeline compared to those with smaller levels of commitment.
173
But there's also a Goldilocks dynamic to this.
174
Sometimes companies don't mind turnover.
175
People think that employers don't want any turnover.
176
I disagree with that belief.
177
And I think the companies that don't want turnover are actually creating more problems and mistakes,
178
because that would imply that every person you hire was right.
179
And I have never met anybody who's perfect at anything.
180
There are many industries that don't seem to mind high turnover very much.
181
But some companies may be taking on a more forgiving attitude when viewing work history.
182
I think employers are very,
183
very suspicious of workers who switch jobs for a tiny incremental pay raise
184
but they understand if people are pursuing opportunities to learn more,
185
to sort of advance their careers,
186
to get broader experience with some career goal in mind.
187
I think the people who are in hiring positions now
188
that are millennials 10 to 15 years into their career have just a lot more empathy than older generations
189
and they don't expect the lifelong loyalty that older generations expected.
190
Most people realistically have some sort of a gap on their resume.
191
And the longer you are in the workplace,
192
the higher the chance that you will have a gap
193
or you will have a short term three month experience on your resume because that didn't work out.
194
Employers are human and they know that they understand that
195
and the chance that the hiring manager that you're talking to has gone through that themselves is actually very high.
196
You have to figure out what is the best decision for you and the only person who can do that.
197
is you.
198
And people come to me all the time like,
199
just tell me what to do.
200
And I tell them, I can't tell you what to do.
201
I can tell you like what I would do in this situation,
202
but I can't tell you what to do because this is your career and it's going to affect you.
Download App
AI scoring for every sentence you speak
TRENDING
Popular
Why practice speaking with this video?
This video provides valuable insights into the dynamics of job tenure in today's workplace, making it highly relevant for English learners who wish to engage in discussions about career development. By practicing speaking with this content, you will not only improve your English speaking skills but also learn how to discuss complex topics such as salary negotiations, job satisfaction, and the importance of career advancement.
Additionally, the speaker presents personal anecdotes alongside statistical data, allowing learners to see how these elements interact. Practicing with this video helps you understand the nuances of delivering professional arguments while enhancing your ability to articulate thoughts and opinions in English effectively.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
- Conditional Expressions: The speaker often uses conditionals, such as “if I pay people more, would they be happier?” This structure is crucial for discussing hypothetical situations and weighing outcomes.
- Comparative Structures: Phrases like “36% more likely” help emphasize differences and make arguments more persuasive. Understanding how to use comparatives can enhance your speaking clarity.
- Present Perfect Tense: Expressions like “I have always had the goal” illustrate how to communicate ongoing experiences effectively. This grammatical form is essential for discussing long-term aspirations.
- Modal Verbs: The use of modals like “could be” and “should” provides flexibility in expressing possibilities and recommendations, which are useful in professional conversations.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As you practice speaking along with this video, pay attention to some tricky words and phrases. For example, the terms "salary," "opportunities," and "negotiating" often pose challenges for learners. Enhance your English pronunciation by focusing on the correct enunciation of these words. Additionally, the speaker uses phrases like “play the game,” which can have subtle nuances depending on intonation. Listening closely and shadowing the speaker can help improve your pronunciation and rhythm in English.
This video is an excellent resource for those seeking to learn English with YouTube. By utilizing a shadowing site or practicing shadow speak, you can effectively follow the speaker's pace and intonation, leading to improvements in your overall speaking skills and confidence.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
☕ Buy us a coffee
ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏