A matter of risk...

[Labswine]

In this economy, a job in hand is worth two in the paper...stability is a good thing.

This coming from someone who just started a new job a month ago, after 18 months of unemployment...and this job is a 2 year contract at only 56% of what I was making at my last job...

[the chi]

Im a big proponent of quality of life tho stability is good. If you can do this and are pretty sure you can get back into the same type thing you do now without a problem, Id say take a few years to have a better quality of life. The time and energy you are losing to your job instead of giving it to loved ones, etc you can never get back.

[OneSickPsycho]

Ok... Interesting development.

I talked to the contact I have for the job - a former coworker. She put me in touch with her boss, the guy actually doing the hiring. He said it's more of a technical position, but he's really looking for someone with the call center background. I inform him that my background is somewhat technical (I have two tech degrees, but barely any tech experience) and he said someone with a tech background could learn on the job.

Soooo...

This could, in the least, be an opportunity for me to expand on my resume. I have 10 years of sales and operations management experience... this could open the door to more technical stuff, which is always good to have. Plus, from what he described it could be much more money than I originally thought. He also mentioned that they had plans to continue expanding because their department was bringing in considerable revenue which somewhat validated what I was originally thinking.

Now I'm off to put together my resume and gear it more towards the tech side. Worst case scenario - I get to practice my interviewing skills once again...

[Adeptus_Minor]

Originally Posted by Fleck750

OK, real question.

Why is OK for IT to change jobs every few years, but any other field you look like a loser who can't/won't keep a job?

It has a lot to do with the rapid change of technology and the fact that an IT person's skill set (if they're ambitious and upwardly mobile, not a chairfiller like me ) is constantly growing and going different directions.
You can choose to just take root in a position, but then your skill set gets either too specialized or outdated, and you run the risk of being replaced or shuffled off into a middle management position when your company migrates to newer hardware or software.

[CasterTroy]

Originally Posted by Trip

I agree, that's too dangerous of an industry to get into, I would keep looking.

Saw this pic and thought of this thread

A section of the Rocky Mountain News newsroom sits empty on February 27, 2009 in Denver, Colorado. The edition on Friday the 27th was the last one for the nearly 150-year-old daily, Colorado's oldest newspaper. The owner E.W. Scripps Co. announced the day before that the paper was closing down after efforts to sell the money-losing newspaper failed. (John Moore/Getty Images) #

[pdog]

Well, in my profession (software development), 5 years is ancient history. I've seen people go from junior developer to lead developer in less time. Technologies change all the time and you must constantly be learning and trying new things. Staying at the same job for 5+ years can mean your skill set is out of date. Working at a new job every 2 years means you are learning a new set of things every 2 years. You do that 4-5 times and you likely have a lot of experience in a lot of technologies and are considered a seasoned software/IT guy. Generally you can get a 20% pay raise with every jump too, up to a certain ceiling.

Originally Posted by Fleck750

Why is OK for IT to change jobs every few years, but any other field you look like a loser who can't/won't keep a job?