Interesting dilemma hooya; it very much depends on what you are prepared to do/can do in your current firm.Best way forward would be to assist the business winners in your current firm to identify and secure new business. Are you doing all you can to look for opportunties to cross sell or up sell work with clients you are working with now? You should be, and feeding it back to your principals to follow up. If several strong team members have left recently, this is an opening for you to show your strengths and take their place. As is often the case, you need to be doing the more senior role before you get promoted to it. Also, if other firms are recruiting in your specialism, then there is obviously reason for that - someone out there is winning work your firm could be winning! Get involved!Making the move carries no more or less risk than staying put; yes you could be more at risk of redundancy, but frankly no one is fireproof at the moment, and companies will select on VR and/or profitability, cost to replicate etc. The biggest danger would be the lead time it takes you to make your mark - usually I would allow 3 months for a junior to mid level hire to get past the new blood watershed, but reduce this in times of trouble. Having said that, they are hiring in a flattening market, so they know there is demand, and smaller firms can and do utilise this opportunity to acquire talent they could not otherwise attract. Yes you could target promotion, and this might be easier in a new firm than where you currently are - in fact it often is after a point - but I would generally say most people have about 2 - 3 promotions in a role before it slows down and they NEED to move.Look at what you can do where you are first. If that looks to be little, or you are confident it will simply meet resistance, then commit to moving.My 2 pence.
