Here’s the truth: if you tell me you’re happy where you are, fulfilled in your role, and still learning every day, I won’t send your CV to a client.
Why? Because you’re not going to move. And you shouldn’t.
The only time a move makes sense is if it genuinely improves your professional life. Anything else is just noise and a waste of your time, the client’s time, and mine.
Recruitment isn’t about shoving CVs across desks or convincing someone to “just take the role.” It’s about understanding where you are right now, what matters to you, and whether a change would actually solve a problem or create an opportunity worth pursuing.
Over the years, I’ve seen that people only move for three real reasons. Of course, there are softer motivators – but when it comes down to signing an offer, these are the ones that count:
- Function and role change: The chance to take on more responsibility, make decisions, or step deeper into your speciality. It’s about ownership, not just another job title.
- More advanced technical expertise: Gaining access to the tools, tech, or environments that stretch you, accelerate your growth, and move you closer to being the expert you want to be.
- Management and leadership: Whether that’s building and leading your own team, shaping how work gets done, or stepping into a role where you influence direction.
If none of these apply, the advice is simple: stay where you are, double down, and grow. Happiness and fulfillment in your current role is a gift, don’t disrupt it for the sake of change.
But when there is a gap in one of these three areas, that’s when the conversation becomes real. That’s when we stop talking about “just a job” and start talking about building blocks for your career.
And to clients, money matters, yes. But more often than not, it’s just the surface-level excuse for why someone declines an offer. If you dig deeper, you’ll find it’s because the opportunity itself didn’t address what actually matters.
That’s the difference between a job change and a career move.