The End of the Dead-End Job

Sometimes, it feels like there’s no future in our jobs. We go in day after day and all we can see is the hard stop we’ll eventually hit, before we quit and move on to something else, hopeful that the next position we take will be one that doesn’t have a dead end waiting down the path.

That’s especially true for workers in the post-pandemic world. People, thinking they have nowhere else to go internally, are quitting their jobs and looking for greener pastures, often with a bad taste in their mouth. A new study from McKinsey & Company, though, offers a different point of view about those sorts of positions, which is bound to spark some controversy among the working class.

The report, titled  Human Capital at Work: The Value of Experience, argues that there’s no such thing as a dead-end job. While there might be no upward mobility options and it might be necessary to leave, those jobs still let workers develop skills that lead to better positions in the future, the group argues.

“Every job is an opportunity to develop skills that can lead to a better position,” McKinsey writes. “A waitress manages people while multi-tasking, fitting experience for customer service. An inventory clerk observes first-hand the complexities of juggling logistics in a warehouse. An IT person on the help desk masters the basics of managing a network.”

To fully take advantage of the opportunities these less-than-satisfying positions create, though, workers will need to show a willingness to try new jobs and make bold moves early on. Staying at a job where you’re not advancing could, in fact, make it a dead end. But by switching roles every two to four years, worker skillsets improve by about 25% per move.

Put another way: Moving pays off, if you avoid just getting onto the same treadmill at a different company. Instead, find a new job that stretches your capabilities or better utilizes the skills you’ve developed.

“You have to try something new that stretches you,” says Bill Schaninger, a McKinsey senior partner in its People & Organizational Performance Practice. “You don’t know if it’s going to work. You build on that stretch. Repeat. And that’s the essence of it really. You have to say, ‘Surely, there’s more than this’—and even be willing to fail miserably.”

Researchers looked at 700 jobs as part of the study, finding that the skills those impart accounted for 40%-43% of average lifetime earnings in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.

The trick is to build on what you learn. And that’s not always easy as you move from field to field. But the right employer can be an ally in taking the disparate parts of a resume and reading the potential in the skills and attributes you’ve gathered over time (Fast food workers, for example, learn how to handle difficult customers. That’s a skill that could come in handy at an IT department or a help desk).

You might, for example, become proficient with a type of software or equipment that can be utilized in another capacity at a different firm. And you’ll learn as much from watching how colleagues handle a situation (adroitly or disastrously) as you will from being in it yourself.

There’s no precise formula. A lot will come down to the job and the individual’s willingness to look for ways to learn from it. But by building those skills, it opens the doors for a more fulfilling career with vastly more upward mobility potential in the future.

“Experience seekers start with lower-than-average wages but propel themselves upward by moving roles more frequently than their peers and stretching their capabilities substantially each time,” the report found. “The cumulative effect gives them stronger wage growth than any other archetype.”

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