Build Professional Walk-Away Power

Keep your skills sharp and your network active even when you are happily employed. Update your portfolio quarterly and have 2-3 conversations with recruiters each year — enough to know your market rate, not enough to blow up your current role.

This is not disloyalty; it is professional insurance. When you know you could land a comparable role within 60 days, your confidence in negotiations holds steady, and your manager can hear it in how you phrase the ask. The network that finds your next job is the one you tended while you did not need it.