how do I know if a job I’m interviewing for is a lateral move or a step up?

by Alison Green on August 8, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m in early stages of interviewing for a new position. This would be a change of sector for me, and at a much smaller organization, so I honestly can’t tell from the job description if I should think of this as a lateral move or more of a step-up. What kinds of questions would you ask interviewers to figure that out?

More details: it would be a moderate pay increase (15%). At my last organization, I felt I was operating at a senior director level but had been denied a promotion, so I was always wishing I was “in the room” for decisions I had a lot at stake in. Since the new organization is small, there doesn’t seem to be room for growth unless an executive leaves.

It’s definitely true that some types of positions, particularly management ones, can be vastly different from large organizations to smaller ones, even when they have the same title … and sometimes even when they have the same job description.

Some things things that can help you figure out whether to look at this as a lateral move or a step up:

  • How many people would you be managing?
  • How many levels of management would be above you? How many layers would be below you?
  • What breadth of work would you be responsible for, compared to your current job? Even if you’re the person calling the shots on a whole area of work, that can look very different from organization to organization depending on the budget, scope, platform, high profile versus lower profile, etc.
  • What sorts of things has the team you’d be joining achieved in, say, the last year? How does that align with the kind of impact you want to have, compared to what you have in your current job?

If being in the room when decisions are made is important to you, you’re much more likely to get that in small organizations than in large ones. You’re also more likely to be able to have a larger impact on a larger portion of the organization’s work.

The flip side of that is that the scale of smaller organization can mean that even with a title at the same level or higher, you can end up with less access to resources, training, and development, as well as less visibility in your field.

You also mentioned having less room for growth in the smaller org. Keep in mind that that’s really only about internal room to move up; if the new job gives you achievements that you can parlay into a new job somewhere else in a few years, that’s a form of moving up too.

Also, while all of the above is important, make sure you’re considering the day-to-day experience of working in a large organization versus a small one. If you’re used to working in large orgs, moving to a small one can be a culture shock. (That said, there’s small and then there’s small. Very tiny orgs can be especially tricky, partly because any problems that exist there will loom much larger than they would somewhere else. There’s nothing to dilute them, and far fewer checks and balances.)

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{ 55 comments }

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  1. DannyG*

    I’m thinking that you might ask to see an org. Chart so as to better understand the company and your potential position in it.

    1. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Good idea. Being an senior director at a large corporation can be very different than a senior director at a small business.

    3. Disappointed Australien*

      A lot of small organisations don’t have org charts. You’re more likely to get a description of each person and what they do. It’s entirely possible that what in a bigger organisation would be a manager role is split across three non-managers who each “know how this part works” or “does this part”. That can be an opportunity for you to become that manager, or the lack of that manager can be because no-one wants that manager position to exist and will fight you. You might not be told any of this before you start.

  2. Nicosloanica*

    My career has been spent bouncing back and forth between large and small nonprofits, trying to move up each time. For more money and the chance to be “in the room” I would switch to a smaller, flatter org. That will give you experience of leadership you can then leverage back to a larger org for even more money and that higher title down the line. Note, I would never accept less money to go to a smaller org, even for a great title, as in my experience these roles “wear a lot of hats” with no ability to push back (for example I’m our sole fundraiser, it’s also my job to check the mail box and pay the software invoices).

    1. Transitory Property*

      This has been my experience as well and I find the question kind of odd to be focused on levels when small companies are (usually) pretty flat with much less hierarchy. If anything, I am concerned that someone who is primarily focused on only moving “up” may not be a good fit in that kind of environment.

      At my small company, we have had some new hires come in and dismiss Manager-level people’s inputs because they are VPs and when they leave (or are pushed out) they are frustrated and confused at how “backwards” everything is.

  3. iglwif*

    Can I ask, LW, why this specific question matters? You already know you’d be getting a HUGE pay rise, so it can’t be because of the salary.

    Is the job something you would enjoy and find pleasantly challenging? Do the people you’d be working with seem like they’d be good to work with? Do you find the organization’s values consonant with yours? All these seem like more important questions than “is this job ‘higher’ than my current one or the same?”

    (Full disclosure: I recently accepted a job that pays significantly less than the one I was laid off from a few months ago, with a job title that definitely sounds ‘lower’ than the previous one, because (1) it’s a job, and I need a job, (2) it doesn’t involve managing people, and (3) the work and the people seem interesting, fun, and not toxic, and I am very happy with this decision. So you could definitely say I have a certain bias.)

    1. Katie*

      It’s interesting that you think 15% is huge. I saw that and thought that was small, especially with the question looming at what the increase in responsibilities. If it’s truly a lateral move, the 15% is only okay in my mind as there is so much risk in moving companies. If it’s 15% for more responsibilities and the risk of moving companies than to me it’s not worth it.

      Full disclosure I am risk adverse. While I have changed roles many times within my own company including promotions, I have never willingly changed companies since I got my first ‘real’ job out of college.

      1. Argiope Aurantia*

        I also thought 15% is on the small side. At my old company, it’s what people could expect when moving up from one IC level to another.

        My most recent job change came with a 35% increase in pay.

        1. Lemon Lyman*

          My old org where I was for 12 years never gave more than 10% raise even if the position the person was moving to started higher than that for externals. So for me, a 15% increase in salary is huge!

      2. A Simple Narwhal*

        Agreed, that doesn’t seem like a huge jump on its own. It’s not terrible for a lateral move or even bad on its own but it isn’t all-caps huge.

      3. OP*

        I was underpaid in my previous position (I feel I should have been promoted), so for me a 15% increase would catch me up to where I think I should be. It’s the minimum salary I would accept.

        1. DJ Hymnotic*

          FWIW OP, my sister is also in the process of changing employers after being underpaid relative to her field. I think the raise she ended up negotiating is in the 20-25% neighborhood, which she seems happy about. Obviously there are varying degrees to being underpaid (and as I noted below our perceptions of raises can be impacted by where we already are on the payscale), but after watching my sister, I think “catching me up to what the market says I should be paid” feels like a solid “this is a moderate raise” benchmark, regardless of whether that’s 10%, 15%, or 20%.

    2. Midwest Manager too!*

      It is interesting the different perspectives in the perception of the increase %. My org typically does 10% for internal position changes. When LW said “moderate” at 15% I was surprised. I think scale of salary also matters when considering

      If the current salary is $65k, a 15% increase means a new salary of about $75k. That’s moderate. If the current salary is $200k, the new salary is $230k and much more significant to the bottom line. At $40k, that 15% is only $46k and pitiful.

      1. Not Saying It Makes Sense*

        A 15% increase in compensation made a much bigger difference to me when I made less money, even though it’s fewer actual dollars. A senior director in certain roles can make well upwards of $3 million/year.

        (That’s a “can”, to be clear. It depends wildly on field, market sector, and company)

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Yeah, I’m betting that $6k matters a lot more for someone who’s making $40k than the $30k matters for someone making $200k. According to studies, money does buy happiness, but the returns diminish greatly after you reach what you need to live comfortably.

      2. DJ Hymnotic*

        For internal position transfers in particular, I think another factor is where your current salary fits on the payscale. I’ve spent much of this week negotiating an internal transfer with my employer, and it’s a promotion in that it comes with a title bump and new opportunities for advancement, but it can also be considered a lateral move in that many of my day-to-day responsibilities will remain the same. My raise will be 9% which I feel is fair given that I was already on the high end of my soon-to-be-previous payscale and didn’t need to make up as much ground to be paid equitably relative to my peers. But if that weren’t the case (or if I were having to relocate or change employers) I think I would have pushed harder for a bigger raise.

      3. iglwif*

        I would actually say the opposite! If I were making $200K (which will obviously never happen), that would be so much money that I’m not sure I would even notice an extra $30K, whereas the last raise I got at Old!Job, from $88K to $92K, was pretty significant despite being <5%.

        Going from $65K to $75K? That's really significant! Sure, more income tax is deducted per paycheque because that’s a %, but you max out your CPP and EI contributions (or whatever the US equivalent is) earlier in the calendar year, so you have more weeks of bigger paycheques, and deductions for supplemental health insurance, LTD, etc. aren’t a % so they stay the same and take a smaller bite. (Source: At a previous employer, I was promoted onto the executive team and went from $64K to $74K. That was a big raise! But not big enough, ultimately, to compensate for the stress of that job at that organization at that time. I quit after a year.)

    3. Tio*

      Because moves that aren’t lateral can significantly increase your earning potential in addition to your actual earnings. As Alison mentioned, a higher title in a smaller org can be more easily translated to a similar title in a larger org that can potentially pay more.

      1. iglwif*

        Ah, OK! I hadn’t thought about that. To me it seems like that weird conversation I see people having online about how you shouldn’t paint your walls the fun colours you personally love because at some indeterminate future time someone else looking to buy your flat/house might not like them.

  4. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    I think the question of what types of decisions you’d be “in the room” for matters a lot. I’ve worked at small places where the senior management team is so hands-on, being “in the room” means weighing in on processes for receipting purchases and what color paper to buy for the copy machine. And I’ve worked at small places where in a mid-level role, I presented to the board to make the case for an almost $10 million expense (well over half the entire annual budget for the company).

    The former would be a big step down for me at this point; the latter was what has positioned me to step up into a leadership role now. The two roles had almost-identical titles and JD’s.

    You can probably find ways to get a sense of that kind of thing through the interview process – try chatting with folks who are first- or second-degree connections who have worked there, asking questions about specific decisions you’d like to have input on, etc.

    1. OP*

      Yes, this is exactly what I meant, thank you for articulating that. I’m having trouble translating this into a question for a hiring manager though. “If X problem happened, would I talk to the general counsel about it or would you?” seems a little too specific. “What kind of regular leadership meetings do you have and would I be invited?”

      1. Just Thinkin' Here*

        OP, are you thinking about asking what level of autonomy you would have for decision-making for your group? Or what level of input you will have to long term corporate strategy? Maybe both?

  5. SHEILA, the co-host*

    I mis-read the title as lateral move or a “set up” and was very confused there for a second.

  6. Llama Wrangler*

    This may be a little harder to assess at a small org, but another question to ask about is what your peers’ backgrounds/experience levels would be. I moved jobs from a Director title in a small org to a Manager title in a large org, but I don’t consider it a lateral move/step down and part of the way I confirmed that is that many of my colleagues also moved from high level roles and similar years of experience. This company just structures their titles differently

    (Also, as a commenter said above, in this large org I have more layers between me and our CEO, and I may be in relatively fewer decision-making meetings, but the impact of the decisions I’m making are at a much greater scale and budget.)

  8. Melicious*

    I can confirm from experience that
    1) in small orgs, it’s much easier to have influence over decisions at pretty much any level, feel more ownership of projects and achievements, and have your hands in a broader scope of the business
    2) culture issues loom large. If there’s a clash between the CEO and the director of a major department in a 100 person company, it affects everyone (not hypothetical unfortunately. I’m glad I’m not there any more).

    1. Transitory Property*

      Agree with both of these! You are often “in the room” for big decisions because the room is all the same people talking about the same things and so there are far fewer silos of discussion and decision making. Everyone’s voice is amplified because there are so few of them.

      But that also means more room for unprofessionalism and a lack of checks and balances of established systems and bodies (again, advantage if you would normally not be included in that steering committee due to lack of experience or your traditional job title!), not to mention a smaller HR department.

      1. DefiningSmall*

        Are you considering 100 employees small? Because there’s a word of difference between 100 people and 20-35 which seems to be where most small companies I’ve seen live until they start to grow into a larger (midsize) company and start losing a lot of the characteristics of a small company.

    2. iglwif*

      Yes! My very best employment experience EVER was in a tiny, tiny organization with a really, really healthy culture. Despite not having a “high” title, I got to have input into all kinds of decisions and try out all kinds of things, and my expertise and ideas were respected and valued.

      BUT

      In the absence of the very hard work and very careful hiring and policy that went into creating that culture, it could’ve been a horrible nightmare.

  9. Literary Oasis*

    There’s also a lot to think about what you consider a ‘step-up’ vs ‘lateral’. I moved jobs recently and it has a lower job title and less people managment but because I’m in a smaller organization, there’s a lot more strategic and administrative skills I’m learning. I would never have had the opportunity to negoatiate contracts with vendors at equivilant job titles in larger organizations. I’m getting more rusty with managing people as I have one total direct report but I’m learning skills I can use elsewhere when the time comes. In a lot of ways it could be looked at as a step down from the outside and I know that I’ll have to explicity call out why it’s not on my cover letters.

    1. Margaret Cavendish*

      Yes, I think OP is asking the wrong question. There’s so much variability between organizations, there really isn’t a consistent straight line from any one position to any other.

      Instead of thinking in terms of “across” versus “up,” it’s better to think about what you actually want to DO in the job. What does it mean to you, to be in the room where it happens? Don’t worry about titles or even necessarily about pay (although of course that’s a consideration – I just mean it’s not always a good indicator of whether or not you have “advanced” in your career.) Good luck!

  10. Yes And*

    Another aspect of moving to a smaller organization: you’re less likely to avoid scut work. I’m a senior director in a smaller nonprofit, supervising a team of 5. In title, pay, and being “in the room” (which is very important to me as well), it’s the highest job I’ve ever had. But I still do some of the same day-to-day administrative tasks I did at the beginning of my career, especially when a member of my team is on PTO and mission-critical tasks need coverage. On those days, my job feels like less of a step up than it actually was.

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      Oh this is a very important consideration. Being in a smaller org means I have been able to enjoy more creative endeavors but it also means I’m in charge of minutia like sending out postcards and taking all customer service tasks.

    2. Zee*

      Yep. My last job was director-level in a small org. I was doing director-level things… and I was doing entry-level things, because there were no entry-level employees.

    3. Miracle*

      I often say, some days I make $20/hour and some does I make $250/hour at my small organization

  11. Data Nerd*

    One of the things I like most about working in a smallish/mid-sized org is the variety and breadth of my work. It’s easy to be involved in things outside of my normal scope since we operate so lean. But I am pretty responsible for own development and don’t get much formal training or the budget to go to conferences.
    I’m going to echo others in that 15% does not seem like a moderate increase to me, that seems really large. I guess it depends on where you’re starting from, but I’d consider that a big increase.

  12. Zee*

    If you’re getting that big of an increase going from a larger to a smaller organization, I’d say more likely than not it is a step up, or several steps up. Typically the same position at a small org will pay less than at a large org.

  13. Troubadour*

    In the small (relative to the industry) org I’m in, it definitely means I can be more involved in decision-making – I can have my fingers in all sorts of pies, it’s great.

    At the same time it also means I’ll often be picking up some front-line / ground-level work.

    This leads to needing to develop a lot of skills to figure out how to prioritise helping the customer who just walked in the door vs contributing to the business continuity plan that’s due next week. Basically it’s great for a “jack of all trades” person who likes lots of variety; if you wanted to just focus on your specific area of expertise then it would be less of a good fit.

    Different small orgs may handle this differently… though it’s hard for me to see how they’d get away entirely from some of it at least.

  14. NoName*

    working closely with the leadership team of my public sector organisation is a definite advantage I have to international peers in the same role whose organisations are 10 times the size (because their countries are 10 times the size). I was also able to build up my own unit with programmes from the ground up, very quickly and can implement anything I want because I can just suggest it to the two vice-presidents I work for.
    I wonder however how seriously that experience would be taken were I to move to an org 10 times the size and where I would be placed then. Would appreciate insights from people who moved from making big things in a small org to a bigger org!

  15. Hiphopanonymous*

    I went from being a first-level “Manager in” charge of ~12 people total in a company of ~7000, with 100+ people in my department, to a “Director” at a smaller org of ~50 people and was completely in charge of my department and reported directly to the org’s owner. I loved being in charge of the team, was in the room for many big org-wide decisions, got to set my own SOPs/directions/priorities, etc. But I only had 2 direct reports, still had to do a lot of gruntwork since there wasn’t a lot of entry level employees to give that work to, had very limited access to professional development resources or backup for my role, and zero insulation from organizational dysfunction since there was no HR and no layers between me and the owner.

    After 1.5 years I left- you guessed it – to be a first level “Manager” in charge of ~12 people at an organization of thousands. :-) It just fit my personality and needs better – I found out I’m really a “big org” kind of person and not a “small org” type of person. Was honestly a phenomenal learning experience, however, and I still use the perspective I gained at the small org all the time today.

  16. OP*

    Thanks for the interesting comments! To fill in some detail, I would be moving from a 400-person organization to one that has less than 50.

  17. Anony6473*

    Agree with the fact that you can go thru culture shock moving from a small or medium to a globally large company. I moved from a medium sized company and was in an individual contributor role but responsibilities were basically “manager” ones. I was involved with so many projects and was included in discussions where management was making decisions. I then moved to a large company with the same exact title and my responsibilities were two steps backwards from what I was used to. I did a lot more grunt work and felt like a junior employee however the pay was higher, and I was getting paid more to do less work. So titles and responsibilities do vary from company to company and ultimately it depends on what you are after.

  18. MistOrMister*

    OP2 – why even have Lisa as part of the planning team? It sounds like she basically didn’t contribute anything the first time. I wouldn’t count on someone who didnt participate abd therefore didn’t cause any headaches the first time to act the same way. I realize you don’t want to work with Summer and that is where all your focus is right now, but Lisa is now as big a problem as Summer and both need to be addressed. Given she is insisting Summer be included and you don’t actually expect a contribution from her, it would make more sense to tell Lisa she is off the committee and then you have no issues with Summer being invited to meetings and whatnot when it’s just you and Zoe. I assume the conference was such a hit last time that Lisa and Summer want to be part of this solely because they want the accolades and therefore they are more likely to insist on having a say in how things go, which is going to lead to a huge headache for you.

  19. 15 Pieces of Flair*

    In general, the relative position level, particularly for compensation, is strongly correlated with the organization’s size. Someone moving from a small org to a larger one often takes a demotion in title while increasing their comp package. The inverse tends to be true when moving from a large org to small one; title needs to increase to maintain an equivalent compensation package.

    For example, a few years ago, I was a senior manager in the professional services function of a tech company with ~1k employees and made 170k/year. Today I’m a senior manager still in professional services for a Fortune 200 company with ~15k and make over 250k/year. Our division leader is the former CEO of an acquisition, so it’s easy to factor comparative titles and levels for smaller org by considering leveling just within our division. Our division contains 1500 employees and I’m one layer down in the organization, so if I interviewed for a company that size, I’d need a senior director or VP role to maintain equivalent comp.

    1. Kat3883*

      Agreed! From personal experience, if you are early in on your career, then you are better off at a smaller/mid sized company so that you can be more involved in multiple projects and build your skill set. Once you do that, you can then move to a larger org with more pay and you might take on an equivalent role that has fewer responsibilities than what you are used to but by then, you are building tenure and move up from there.

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