The 5 most common career mistakes

To shed light on individual behavior during job changes, we conducted a survey of over 400 search consultants from more than 50 industries in mid-2008. The respondents, 67 percent of whom had more than 10 years of experience and 70 percent of whom recruited stars at the senior-executive level or higher, were asked to specify the most common mistakes individuals make when contemplating a job change and the reasons for such mistakes. Also, over 500 C-level executives were interviewed from more than 40 countries in late 2008 about their experiences managing their own human capital. Finally, we posed similar questions to the heads of human resources at 15 multinational companies in mid-2009. [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

Job seekers often fail to "sufficiently [research] the field to know where they might make a good fit," one recruiter said. "They haven't taken stock of their strengths and weaknesses." …Recruiters repeatedly observed that people fail to request specific performance metrics, assuming that the job title sufficiently describes the job. Companies sometimes sweeten job titles to attract top talent — and new recruits at badly managed companies could find themselves in ill-defined jobs whose formal titles are meaningless. [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

Money is a scorecard, and people who lack awareness of their true priorities and success factors can be blinded by it. "[ Job seekers] get consumed by compensation and not by fit, so they keep moving, mistaking compensation for recognition, personal satisfaction, et cetera," one recruiter pointed out. "They don't take any time for introspection to understand why they are unhappy where they are." [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

The third mistake identified by recruiters is allowing discontent in one's present position to build to the point that, as one recruiter put it, "instead of planning their career moves, they lurch from one crisis to the next." [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

They are "looking at the current company as being the problem and not acknowledging that they themselves may be a part of the problem," one recruiter said… An inflated self-image also leads job seekers to overestimate their capacity to cope in the new position. [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

Our finding that stars move to competitors less frequently than do non-stars (though they probably receive more overtures) suggests that those who have a record of performance to protect may be more cautious, at least in this respect, than those who are still on the ascent and possibly impatient to prove themselves. [Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]

For ambitious professionals it clearly makes sense to affiliate with, and stick with, the highest-quality organizations. That it is far easier to achieve stardom in the first place at certain employers is an important observation with obvious applicability to individual careers. We also found that though longevity at an employer promotes better performance, the quality of the employer is very important when it comes to fostering first-rate performance. Furthermore, those who moved from lesser firms to superior firms were able to maintain their performance without penalty, while those who left the best firms suffered the greatest declines. Taken together, these findings strongly suggest that choosing an organization that offers high-quality colleagues and first-rate technical and supportive resources is of decisive importance in achieving and maintaining outstanding performance.[Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance]