That doesn't change the fact that in the current job market they can trivially find a new job. That may not be true in the future but there's no reason not to take advantage of it now.
You sound like you have no more than a handful of years of professional (i.e., taxed paid FT) work experience (if any).
As you get older, jobs aren’t as interchangeable.
Consider at least:
- compensation
- scope
- niche fields
- culture
- work life balance, family policies
- location
- golden handcuffs
- network
I can (and have) found new high paying (at least they were for me at the time) jobs within 1-2 weeks of deciding to look to jump and signing an offer. But as I’ve grown older, that doesn’t fly anymore. If I’m taking a new role, I require certain compensation levels, and that comes with certain output/WLB expectations, which means I need to find it interesting, and my family needs to be ok with the value proposition.
All of those things narrow the search space down quite a bit. Then as you’re more and more senior, and if you can command a large compensation package, it’s usually no longer a 1-2 week ordeal (after initial phone interviews, I had 10 interview sessions over 3 weeks for my current role).
You’re also no longer being interviewed by random engineers and PMs, but higher ups with busier schedules that means it’s no longer a concise 4-5 hour thing.
You might eventually hit a stage in your career where as a candidate, you get to pick a panel for you to interview for a second on-site. These things take time to coordinate and schedule.
I've got about a decade of experience. I still find it relatively trivial to switch jobs. Maybe that'll change as I get older, but so far it hasn't been an issue even when dealing with FAANG. Maybe I'm just lucky.
