In "Where do you start when changing jobs?" I laid out a job change as six steps: reasons and priorities, taking stock, learning the market, applying, checking the offer, and resigning.
Books are the same: what you should read depends on which stage you're stuck at. Here I've chosen one book for each stage. None of them hands you an answer; they give you an order to think in.
(Three of these four are Japanese books without English editions; I've translated their titles. The fourth is available in English.)
| Where you're stuck | Book | Related article |
|---|---|---|
| Don't know what you want to do | The World's Gentlest Guide to Finding "What You Want to Do" | "I'm not cut out for this job": how true is it? |
| How to judge a company | How to Think About Changing Jobs | Where do you start when changing jobs? |
| How to think about pay | Job Changes × Side Jobs | Does changing jobs raise your pay? |
| How to build a long life | The 100-Year Life | Will changing jobs make you happy? |
1. When you don't know what you want to do
Sekai-ichi yasashii "yaritai koto" no mitsukekata (The World's Gentlest Guide to Finding "What You Want to Do," by Jinpei Yagi, KADOKAWA) is a self-understanding book in which you write out separately what you like, what you're good at, and what matters to you, and put your own core into words.
If your only reason for changing jobs is "I hate my current company," the same thing is likely to happen at the next one. This book helps you look for a reason to go toward something, beyond your reason to run from something.
2. When you're unsure how to judge a company
Tenshoku no shikōhō (How to Think About Changing Jobs, by Yuiga Kitano, Diamond) is written as a story in which a protagonist struggling with a job change is taught one way of thinking after another. It deals with questions like whether to move to an attractive company even if your pay goes down, and how to tell jobs that will grow from jobs that will disappear.
Because it's a story, it's easy to read, and it can prompt you to see a job change not as "the task of looking for listings" but as "the task of thinking about your value in the market."
3. When you're unsure how to think about pay
Tenshoku to fukugyō no kakezan (Job Changes × Side Jobs, by moto, Fusosha) is the author's account of how he raised his lifetime income by changing jobs several times and combining that with side work.
Note: this book is based on one person's experience. Not everyone will get the same results the same way. In "Does changing jobs raise your pay?" I go through the share of people whose wages rose or fell after changing jobs, using official statistics. Reading both together helps you see the distance between expectation and reality.
4. When you want to think about how to build a long life
The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott) looks at how the way we arrange work, learning, money, and family changes in an age when people live longer.
Its point of view, not thinking of life in the three stages of "education, work, retirement," helps you see the job change in front of you as one move within several decades.
After you read
Books help you put your doubts into words. But you're the one who decides.
When you've finished, write three lines each on "why I want to change jobs" and "what I want to value at my next workplace." Once you can, move on to the next stage in "Where do you start when changing jobs?"