We’re guessing you already know exactly how good you are at what you do. But what’s that getting you? Search "how do I know it's time to leave my job" and you'll find thousands of answers from Sunday scaries to stagnation. 

If your pro-con list is still deadlocked, consider adding these poker terms to the equation. “Implied odds” prices the payoff you're staying for like a raise or promotion. “Table selection” weighs other opportunities outside your current role. Applying both may tell you whether that company loyalty is helping or hindering your career. 

What to Weigh If You Stay 

Poker has a term for the value you expect to collect later, even though it isn't in the pot yet: “Implied odds”. You're pricing what you stand to gain beyond what’s currently in the pot once the winning card comes.

Staying loyal to a job runs the same math. Your salary covers today. The bigger title down the line is the implied odds, a payoff you're pricing for tomorrow.

At the table, calculating those odds requires a real read from watching for patterns: how this player bets, and whether they've kept putting money in even after someone else already had them beat.

Picture an employee who's been promised training for her next promotion, more than once, over the past two years. Nobody she knows has ever gotten that training, and nobody's been promoted because of it either.

She's been pricing in an implied payoff with no pattern behind it, and calling it company loyalty.

The Sponsor Shortcut

If staying is where you're leaning, there's a specific move that improves those odds: find a sponsor. Women with a sponsor get promoted at 1.7 times the rate of women without one, according to McKinsey and LeanIn.org's 2025 Women in the Workplace report. A sponsor does more than a mentor. While mentors give advice, sponsors actively pitch you for the promotion in rooms you're not yet in, attaching their own credibility behind you as a candidate.  

No sponsor available? Start with one direct question to whoever's making the decision. Something like, "I want to make sure I'm planning correctly — what would the timeline and the range for that [promotion, training, new hire] look like?"

That's it. A specific request for a prospective number and a date. The answer you want addresses both.

Leaving to Scout a New Table

On the other side of the table, some poker players are allowed to pick where they sit and play during certain cash games. It’s called “table selection”, a move where you observe and get a read before you sit down, noting how people are playing, what the buy-in looks like, maybe how big the pot has grown. A strategic player skips a table that's a bad match and finds a better one. 

Leaving a job works similarly. The unknown you've built up in your head is a table you can scout before you decide whether to take a new seat.

The read can go either way, and that's expected. Sometimes scouting confirms the table you're already sitting at is the better hand. Either answer counts as a win with confirmed, usable information.

Information to Gather Before Making a Job Switch

The scouting move can be as simple as sending a few emails to recruiter contacts and reviewing current postings. The idea is to get an honest look at what's out there now, which is sharper than the story you've been telling yourself about it.

For example, check how long a posting's been up, and how many times it's been reposted. A role that keeps reopening is a table that keeps losing players. Look at how often the same title turns over on the company's LinkedIn. That kind of churn is a signal too.

You may also set up informational conversations with people doing the job you've got your eye on. Ask anyone who's worked in the role or company you’re considering what the first six months looked like to get a sense of the learning curve or company culture. 

How High Performers Decide

Running both calculations doesn't always end at stay or leave. Sometimes it leads to a third option you hadn’t originally considered. (Think: an internal, lateral move that continues to build your skills.)

That's the real payoff of pricing both sides. You stop guessing your way through the decision and choose more strategically. It’s how you'll know which hand you're really holding… and which table to play it.