When we think of career moves, often the only acceptable path is upwards, with a lateral career move at best viewed as a somewhat pointless endeavor.  Research from Cornell finds, however, that this should not always be the case, and that lateral moves can improve our career prospects just as much as vertical ones.

Indeed, the study finds that people who make lateral career moves are more likely to gain promotions and more significant wage growth in the future than peers who did not make such lateral moves.

Moving up

The authors argued that more senior positions typically require a range of task-specific proficiencies that lateral career moves can help to develop and therefore help to prepare people for moves up the ladder later on in their career.  Indeed, so effective are lateral career moves at diversifying the skillset of people, the authors argue that promotions should not be considered unless people have experienced lateral moves during their careers.

“The benefit of lateral moves therefore lies in the idea that upper level jobs use a wide but not necessarily deep set of skills, so a lateral move today will make the worker more productive in the future if the worker is promoted,” they say.

This rise in productivity is then, understandably, linked to higher wage growth as one’s career progresses, so what might appear like a retrograde step is actually hugely valuable.

“The logic here is that there is an immediate cost associated with the move, so it is only beneficial when it contributes substantially to future productivity growth which translates into high future compensation growth,” the researchers say.

Interestingly, the researchers found that lateral career moves were least likely among those with the highest education levels.  The researchers believe this is likely to be because the cost of education makes lateral career moves costly in the short term, and therefore the highly educated are less likely to want to make such a move.

“Overall, our empirical investigation supports the idea that lateral moves are important for diversifying a worker’s stock of task-specific human capital which, in turn, serves to increase the worker’s productivity after the worker is subsequently promoted,” the researchers conclude.