Last week I wrote a post about trusting your gut when it comes to making career decisions to avoid making a bad decision that might cause you grief. Sometimes though, you’re already in a bad situation and wonder if it’s time to cut bait and move on.

In my own career – both in jobs I’ve held personally and also specifically working as a recruiter where I’ve got to meet hundreds of job searchers – I’ve noticed that people tend to feel that they’re in need of a new job (or a new career) when:

1. They hate going to work each day: Hate is a strong word but if you really hate your job, company, boss and/or the work itself, it’s probably time to move on. As I mentioned in the post noted above, I had one job that I truly hated that I ended up quitting for the reasons mentioned in the post. Certainly, you can’t just up and quit every time you face some adversity, get bored or dislike your boss but at some point you’re probably going to get to the point where you can no longer see yourself working in the job and simply realize it’s time to move on. Hopefully you don’t let it get to the point where you’re desperate to take a job – any job – to escape.

2. They don’t see a future: Many people want to progress in their career and move up the corporate ladder. I say “many” because not everyone wants this. Some people want a comfortable job that makes them happy and pays them well and that’s enough for them. If you are looking to work you way up in a company but simply don’t see the potential or simply don’t believe you’ll reach the level you wish, this is another legitimate reason for wanting to move elsewhere. Some companies are too small to offer upward mobility while others appear to offer promotions based on who you know rather than what you know.

3. They feel that they’re underpaid: Recruiters always say that telling an interviewer that you’re looking for a new job because you want more money is the worst reason that you can give. The belief is that hiring managers don’t want money motivated individuals (unless you’re in sales of course!) and fear that if you take a new job largely based on money, you’ll probably leave for another job when someone else offers you more money. Having that said, we don’t work for free and money is an important aspect of any job. Sometimes, companies are either constrained by what they can pay you – they’re small, they’re a start up, business is slow – and in other cases they might simply be cheap. Certain companies and industries gain reputations for paying less than others and in some cases switching jobs can significantly increase your income. You just have to be careful about how you answer the interview question “why are you looking for a new job?”

4. They feel that they’re underemployed: Which can also result in a person being underpaid. Being underemployed usually means that the person is in a position that doesn’t fully utilize their skills and experience and can also limit your future job prospects since hiring managers tend to look at what you’ve done most recently to determine whether or not you suit the role they’re hiring for. If you’re underemployed they’re going to wonder why this is the case.

If you don’t have a “typical” work history where each job progresses and you gain more experience and move up the corporate ladder, you might have an unresume resume. This is where your resume doesn’t necessarily progress in terms of more senior positions and where the logic of each job change doesn’t always appear to the reader. This can make it difficult for a person reading your resume – like a hiring manager for example – to see the progression of your career.

As you get older, what school you graduated from and what degree you have typically becomes less of an issue – good or bad – and it’s more an issue of what you’ve done and who you’ve done it for. In other words, what have you accomplished and what companies did you accomplish it for? If you’re climbing the corporate ladder or hope to progress to some sort of position of status, it tends to be incumbent upon you to have a resume that actually does show progression of positions and responsibilities.

As you get older, you might instead realize that you’re ready for some sort of drastic career change and decide to go off in a different direction, perhaps a direction you had no interest in following earlier in life. I’ve heard of plenty of people that begin as a stockbroker and end up as a musician or who start law school and then end up becoming a chef so this sort of thing does happen and the people I’m referencing often end up doing what they really wanted to do all along, perhaps a little later than perhaps they would have liked.

The point is that career management does involved some actual management from your perspective. As you get older it can become more difficult to convince a potential employer of things if you’ve showed little to no evidence of it up until now. While everyone is entitled to a career mistake or two – accepting a job and then realizing it was a mistake and then quitting weeks or months later – building up a track record of these errors tends to cost you in more ways than one if you’re planning on moving up the same corporate ladder that others are climbing.

Imagine you could choose between a job that you’d really like where you’d make so-so money, and a job that you’d hate but where you’d earn more money.

Although it’s easy to say, there is more to a career than the amount of money you’ll earn.

When you help people find new jobs as recruiters do, you end up meeting people across the spectrum who each have different motivations and personalities. In that regard, it’s interesting how over time you will meet with people who strictly want jobs that will earn them more money while other people will take the same money (or even less) to take a job that they feel will benefit them long term.

Ideally of course you’d probably like an opportunity that not only pays you more but also offers you a better long-term opportunity than what you have now.

I feel that people should plan for the long term when making career decisions. It’s hard to plan for the long term when you are talking about taking a job that you feel you’re going to hate. After awhile, I’ve seen people who pretty much give up and decide that they hate the job too much and that no amount of money is worth staying there.

You might not last long enough in that job to even worry about the long term if you hate it as much as you think you will and end up quitting to look for a job you’ll enjoy. You might find that earning the amount of money you’re expecting just isn’t worth it.

Will earning more money in this job be worth the fact that you’ll hate it?

Is there any chance that the job you’d like (but pays less) might end up being more lucrative than you expect?

At the end of the day, you’ll need to make the choice yourself but when making career decisions it’s usually best to look beyond just the money that’s involved.

You never know when the job (or the money) will run out or when its importance will suddenly not be worth the hassle.