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Comment by gnoway | Hacker News Reader

It comes down to how you present it. If you tell a high level manager that you're shopping around for a better gig, you're basically waving a big flag that says "don't invest in me." You can have a conversation about your career direction without including the part where you've sent your resume out everywhere already.

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>you're basically waving a big flag that says "don't invest in me."

If you're shopping around this can mean your employer has already refused to invest in you, no?

The point is not "don't shop around," the point is "don't broadcast to management that you're shopping around."

I understand this is the current and prevalent mindset I just think it's wrong. If you are told or find out someone is looking for another job, and that person is a good and important resource to your organization, why not take every reasonable action to try to retain them? Instead people have his knee-jerk response of, "Oh you're thinking about leaving? Well NOW I'm never going to consider promoting you because you aren't loyal."

>employer has already refused to invest in you, no?

Obviously you are omitting the myriad of cases that an employer would like to invest in you but can't (yet) from your statement. Plenty of things like a lack of funding, individual ability, market timing, etc. prevents them from investing in you.

If I was waiting for the cash flow to move someone from A to B, and was working diligently to do so, to then have them state they are looking elsewhere for the B position, I would clearly re-evaluate my candidate selection as they may be gone by the time I get the opportunity to promote.

Or you could have an honest discussion with them and tell them you're working diligently towards putting them in the B position, and try to figure out whether there's an overlap between the timeframe you can get them there and the timeframe they would be willing to wait for. Just because someone has floated their resume out there doesn't necessarily mean they're looking to leave ASAP.

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