Anyone have advice for a young'un still at their first job (what factors might be worth considering in staying/leaving, possible consequences of leaving current job before contract ends, etc etc etc)?

I started doing interviews at other places just purely out of curiosity and wanting to gain practice, to evaluate how I performed to other companys' standards, but somehow managed to progress to final stages and now I'm really considering leaving but I only just started feeling part of my current company 😥

As I’m sure you know, there’s no right/easy answer to this, so I imagine you’ll get a good range of different perspectives on this.

In my early years I tended to stay put while I was still being stretched and I had somebody I respected to learn off. As soon as one of those disappeared I moved (which was sometimes an internal move).

Besides any legal/monetary consequences of breaking your contract, it would be unprofessional.

Besides that, making a habit of not staying long at a job will look bad later, so I'd be prepared to stay at this new job for a while.

Also, tell your current employer that you have an attractive offer elsewhere; they may offer something to get you to stay.

Especially as a newbie, you live and die by your résumé and your reputation.

Ideally you should stick with your first couple jobs at least a year, ingratiating yourself with bosses and co-workers, and never leave on bad terms (if you can avoid it).

It will help you avoid a lot of difficult questions on future interviews, and you'll never have a lack of references.

@joycestick @spongessuck @bezorp I guess just for context, I have been with my company for over a year now, and as far as being unprofessional goes, I have definitely considered that as a consequence and wondered about the severity. I'm not considering leaving without reason - my company is a consultancy and I've been on client site for majority of my time with my company - initially we had more senior guidance so was able to learn, but they all quit around Feb/March and my company have made little effort to fill that space - they've essentially abandoned us to face clients with our single year of experience. Integrating with more senior sounds really good except my company hasn't even been able to negotiate allowing us to return to our home office on a frequent basis to do so. We are more or less also only contacted when the contact benefits the business, our attempts to get information have more often than not been ignored.