Should you quit your job or stay put?

Experience is something that cannot be given as a capsule. A one-year experience is worth one year, and a five-year experience is worth five years.

You cannot get five years experience in one year! It is also essential that five years of experience shouldn’t be one year’s experience five times over.

This is what critically plagues the Indian industry. The government is our largest employer; but take the case of, say, a Railways clerk.

While his designation changes from that of a junior to a senior to a head clerk and so on, even after 10 years, the content of his job remains the same. That’s one year’s experience 10 times over.

What is critical is to build expertise as part of experience. There are progressive organisations that identify the potential of its employees and provide them with multiple facets of experience.

At mega-corporations such as GE or Citibank, employees job-hop within the organisation to gain expertise in different domains. What is essential is that as the employee gains experience in different areas, his thinking, his personality and his management skills are honed.

It is this learning that is critical as you grow. One must understand that working life is not about designations but about learning and expertise.

WHERE DO YOU STand?