- Janelle Romero quintupled her salary in six years but strategically job-hopping.
- Despite initial skepticism, job-hopping allowed Romero to gain valuable skills and experience.
- Romero’s career strategy emphasizes skill-building and salary growth over job satisfaction.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Janelle Romero, a 30-year-old labor and employment law attorney in New York City. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
As an employment attorney, I advise people to leave their jobs to make more money. Job-hopping also helped me triple my own salary from five figures to six figures in three years.
Job-hopping is the best way to increase your salary no matter the industry, but you must ensure that the skills and experience you gain in each role contribute to the big picture of the professional you want to be.
After job-hopping for the second half of my 20s, I earn more than $200,000 in my current role.
Everyone told me job-hopping was the worst thing I could do
My father strongly opposed job-hopping and felt it might hurt my career trajectory. I also received negative feedback from many recruiters about the number of jobs I’d held in such a short period, but I had a strategy.
When I graduated from law school at the end of 2018, I intentionally job-hopped to advance my career.
I took my first job out of law school in 2019 at age 24 and worked there for a little over one year. I was hired as a law clerk making $40,000 a year, with a guarantee that I'd be given a raise once I was admitted to the Bar.
Once I got admitted, I was given a raise to $60,000, then $65,000
I realized it would not be easy to make real money if I were only given raises in $5,000 increments.
By the one-year mark, I was already knowledgeable in wage theft cases because my firm involved me heavily in our cases. I noticed our clients often had valid discrimination cases, but we didn't practice discrimination at that firm.
I wasn't yet experienced enough to navigate discrimination cases independently, and I wanted to learn how, so I left for a discrimination firm.
That move took my salary to $85,000
I was also given insurance benefits, a matching 401(k), and payment for attorney, Bar association, and course registration fees.
I stayed at that firm for about six months to gain the experience and knowledge I needed to feel confident navigating the process of filing discrimination claims. The more experience you have in the job, the less time you should take to learn the role in your next job.
I said to my first employer, "You already practice employment law, but you don't do discrimination, and I do. Let me do discrimination here." They hired me back, and I started their discrimination department.
That move increased my salary again to $110,000, plus commission
They were willing to pay me that much more because I returned with specific experience and knowledge to expand the firm's services.
Trying to market and attract discrimination clients led me to TikTok. I made videos explaining the sexual harassment allegations against Andrew Cuomo on my own TikTok account so I could take it with me when I left.
The videos did fairly well. I took those videos to my boss and showed him I could reach thousands of people in just three videos. I even received a few inquiry emails from potential clients.
He agreed and allowed me to market on the app to bring in clients. As my page grew, the number of cases I could bring to the firm grew, and my value increased. I used this to negotiate my commission deal.
Then, I became curious about how businesses handle HR complaints and got a job as the head of labor law at an international startup. I oversaw their HR department, which had over 700 employees and contractors.
The switch to the startup bumped me up to a $130,000 salary
Things moved quickly, and I learned a lot. I helped expand the company to about 27 additional countries in my four months there.
The startup hit some funding roadblocks and had a large round of layoffs, which I was part of in early summer 2022.
I was let go a couple of months before my destination wedding, so in hindsight, the layoff was a blessing in disguise.
In December 2022, I decided to incorporate my own firm
Starting my own firm set me back in salary for my first year — I reinvested profits into my work. Toward the end of 2023, I'd built up a steady enough stream of cases to allow me to expand.
I started exploring the possibility of merging my firm with another and returning to the position of a salaried employee.
In March 2024, I accepted a full-time position as managing associate attorney at Consumer Justice Law Firm. I brought all my retained cases to the new firm for an increased commission rate once they were resolved.
In my current role, I make $225,000 in base salary plus commission and bonuses. At 30, I've more than quintupled my salary by job-hopping.
I'd never have been able to learn and accomplish so much in such a short time without job-hopping
It benefits your career when you job-hop to gain new skills instead of randomly. If I'd job-hopped from a criminal law firm to a personal injury firm to an intellectual property firm, it wouldn't have been effective because that experience wouldn't have compounded on itself.
You don't leave a job just because you don't like it or you're bored, frustrated, or annoyed. You leave a job once you've hit your salary ceiling at the company and gained the experience that the role is supposed to provide you with.
I think it's great for people to enjoy what they do, but I don't think it's important for your job to be your passion. Your life should be your passion — your job should be the thing you do so that you can afford your passions.
Want to share your salary growth story? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].