Money and career intersect in more ways than you know. While money isn’t everything, we take a job based on income and money, a very important factor for consideration. In general, the money is more important than the title or career, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most important.
People do not leave bad jobs, people leave bad bosses. An $80k 9-5 with a good boss is better than a $90k 9-5 with a bad boss. Your mental health is worth way more than any amount of money. It’s invaluable. Therefore, while money is important, money isn’t everything when deciding a career.
However, when two jobs are equally bad, then it’s just a better idea to take the money. If you’re going to be miserable both ways anyway then it’s better to be paid more for your work. I’ve talked to my employees who were at the top before but they fell from grace.
One former coworker was getting paid $400k per year only to get laid off. He went back to making $200k for a good while before returning to the $400k income level six months later. Career progression can be a straight line up. However, that doesn’t always happen.
Success is not a straight line.
There will be many ups and downs with your career. One of my prior people who I worked for became the head of the entire office by 36. Then he got laid off and had to go 4 levels down. Money and career will always be in the mix when you go throughout your life.
What is More Important: Money or Career?
It completely depends on which cycle of your life you’re in. In the beginning, building your salary is more important. Whether we like it or not, even professional level jobs are almost paycheck to paycheck these days for entry level roles. Not only because of inflation but with depressed wages for the young.
You can afford to sacrifice nights and weekends in order to build up your salary base because you don’t have family or kids who depend on you. Or you may have a family, but you still have much more energy and hunger in you than someone who’s been working in the industry 30+ years.
As you build up your career, career becomes more important in the money and career debate. As the year passes, your leverage against another isn’t with how much you currently get paid. Your leverage is on which problems that you can solve for a potential employer.
Once you get to a certain income level with desirable skills, your skills matter more.
Once you get to a $200k income, you can easily turn down offers for $220k income. An extra $20k is not going to make any more meaningful difference to your life. However, an $80k income versus a $100k income is very meaningful enough to make a career change decision.
Between money and career, money is generally more important than career. After all, it’s what puts food on the table. It’s what helps you build wealth faster to take care of your family. You should always strive to move to higher income because comfort is the enemy of progress.
Why Money is Important in a Career
I’ve seen people’s LinkedIn profiles go from Managing Director in investment banking to Analyst. All because the great financial crisis happened. Had the person been disciplined enough to save up during his high income years, he could’ve said no to offers that weren’t right for him.
Had he had 3 – 4 years worth of financial leeway to wait out the recession, that could have happened. Then he could have found the right opportunity. However, that didn’t happen. That’s why money is important in a career. United States’ employees enjoy some of the highest salaries around the world.
However, we can get laid off and fired at the drop of a hat for any reason at all whatsoever. What’s why in the money and career debate, money is far more important. Being financially sound and solvent is better than focusing so much on moving up in title and power.
I’ve also seen titles from “Principal” in investment banking to “Senior Vice President”. The economy can change at the drop of a hat and therefore, companies can change at the drop of a hat as well. It’s important to build up and save during the certain times.
So that you can prepare for the uncertain times. Whether we like it or not, uncertain times WILL come to us. There were 11 bear markets in the past 72 years. Boom and bust cycles are inevitable. They will happen whether we like it or want it to or not.
Don’t Follow Your Passion
Don’t follow your passion. If the career happens to be something you enjoy and something you like doing, then that’s amazing. However, the number one goal of a career is for you to earn money and provide financial security for your family. Of course, you should not pick a miserable career.
However, you should not pick a career based on passion. If I chose a career based on my passion, I would be a struggling tennis player, unable to feed food for myself. Passion is overrated when it comes to a job. I got lucky because finance happened to be my passion and my passion pays well.
However, when it comes down to it, I just knew following the money was more important than following my passion. There are poor people who followed their passion only to be miserable by the end because they can’t put food on their table. When it comes to money and career, money wins over passion.
Wanting to be rich and wealthy is not greedy nor is it a “bad” thing. There are many people who will think that. Those are the kinds of people who are very poor. I’ve been poor to the point where I would have to look for ways to save 50 cents. I was a desperate person.
You don’t want to do that. It was almost like I suffered from the frugality disease. Now that I have somewhat of a financial footing, I’m feeling much better about my life. I’m feeling much more stability in my life and therefore I can afford to take more risks.
When it comes to money and career, passion doesn’t mix.
The Money and Career Split Can Never be 100% One Way
Money is NEVER 100% more important than career and career is NEVER 100% more important than money. Both have to coexist and both are equally important in considering your decision. Now that I’ve reached a good income level, I am more interested in a better work life balance than anything else.
I don’t want to move to another company for a 20% raise. That wouldn’t make sense for me at my level now. I’m more interested in working for a great boss working on challenging projects and with a good job security. Money and career can never be split 100% one way, though.
When starting out, I was not interested in work life balance. I was more interested in increasing my income because living paycheck to paycheck just does not feel good. Throughout your life, you will change your priorities as time passes. We do start families and we grow in ways our friends don’t.
It’s not only about your wants and needs as well. It’s also about the general economic conditions. Workers had absolutely zero power during the financial crisis. It was either take their offer or they’ll find someone who will gladly take the offer. Then you had no choice but to choose career even for low pay.
Employees with 10 years worth of experience were filling entry level roles back then. While there are no set rules that will perfectly work for every situation throughout your entire life, there are general rules when it comes to money and career. While money isn’t everything, it’s something.
The Upside is What Matters Between Money and Career
The exception to choosing career over money is when the career provides upside. If one career simply has more upside, then it’s not bad to go for a career. Some jobs are pigeonhole jobs where you don’t have opportunities to move up. Some interviewers will be very open and honest about that.
Therefore, if the money is good but the career is stagnating and if the money is OK but the career has a ton of upside, then the upside is what matters. One of my friends went through an interview who flat out told him that he would be eligible for a promotion at the 18 month mark, based on performance.
That’s where the long term viewpoint of your career kicks in and it starts to matter. You don’t want to move to a career where you feel stuck. You want to move to a career where you feel like you are moving up and making progress. Progress provides the most happiness.
Even backward moves don’t make you miserable. It’s staying still that frustrates us the most because even as time passes, we are not leveling up or leveling down. You’re stuck. Sometimes companies will not flat out tell you about the upside opportunities with a job.
So then it will be dependent on a leap of faith on making the best career decision for you. There’s a delicate balance between money and career you will have to balance throughout your career. You think it’s not an important topic until it happens to you.
Living Paycheck to Paycheck Doesn’t Feel Good
I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck before. It felt horrible. I felt like I was giving everything away to someone else for free. I didn’t want to do something like that and told myself that I want to get out of this cycle as soon as I can. Paycheck to paycheck really takes a toll on your psyche.
If someone chose career in the money and career debate, more power to them. However, a good career that doesn’t pay well may not make you the happiest as well. You just know it in your inside that you are worth more than what they are paying you. There’s a reason why we have a teacher shortage.
Yet you know if you try to do something drastic about it, it may even backfire. You just have no power. Not having power doesn’t feel that great. It’s not even about money at that point, it’s about your ability to stand up to someone else. Other people are dictating your life and you just have to take it.
If you try to push back, they’ll just get rid of you and you even have less power than you had before. You are more likely to get abused if this is the case. I’ve been there, I know exactly what it feels. You have no choice but to thank the other for the oppression.
Whether we like it or not, money and career plays a large part of our lives. We spend 1/3 of our life working. Therefore, it’s time to get serious about it because we don’t want to be miserable for a majority of our lives.
We want to come out the victor whenever we can. When there’s a will, there’s always a way.
Money and Career are Inevitably Linked
You can’t ignore or escape the truth that money and career will always be linked together in your life. You don’t sacrifice one over the other because it’s never a one way decision. The decision will inevitably change throughout many times in your life. That’s completely OK.
When there’s an economic meltdown, having money gives you the freedom and power to walk away from job offers that are purely to pay for your living expenses. Having that leeway is more important than ever because many people took jobs that wasn’t right for them in the financial crisis.
Money and career will be present in your life more times than you would like. However, that is the reality of it. If it’s the reality, then it’s a good idea to take care of it so that you level up your life as time progresses. Slow progress is still progress.
Stories of people going from the top level to the bottom level may be more common during bad economic times but it isn’t impossible during good economic times either. You just never know when someone higher up is in a bad mood and projects that bad mood onto you.
Money and career are inescapable. Even if you are financially independent, you will always be at the mercy of these two ideas. Executing on your ideas so that you always come out on top is necessary. It’s time to prepare for the worst and be surprised on the upside than the other way around.
