Write at least 250 words · 40 minutes
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Ideas to get you started
- Loyalty can bring security and promotion
- Changing jobs builds a wider range of skills
- Modern economies reward adaptability
A plan for this question
- Introduction: paraphrase both views and give your opinion: changing jobs a few times is wiser today, if done for good reasons.
- Body 1: staying with one employer: security, loyalty, trust, promotion, pensions, stability.
- Body 2: changing jobs: wider skills, new contacts, higher pay, readiness for jobs that disappear.
- Conclusion: your opinion, with a warning about changing too often.
Model essay
267 words
In the past, many people worked for a single employer until they retired, but today changing jobs is far more common. Some people still value staying with one company, while others believe moving between jobs and even careers is better. In my opinion, changing jobs a few times is the wiser choice in a modern economy, as long as it is done for good reasons.
Those who prefer to stay with one employer emphasise security and loyalty. Long-serving employees understand how their organisation works, build strong relationships with colleagues and are often trusted with greater responsibility, which can lead to promotion. They may also benefit from pensions and other rewards linked to length of service. For many people, the stability of knowing where they will be working next year is worth more than a slightly higher salary elsewhere.
On the other hand, people who change jobs argue that it helps them develop a wider range of skills. Each new role brings new challenges, methods and contacts, and moving to another company is often the quickest way to earn a higher salary. Moreover, technology is changing industries so quickly that some jobs may disappear altogether, and workers who have adapted to different roles are better prepared for this than those who have only ever known one organisation.
In conclusion, while loyalty to one employer can bring security and promotion, I believe that changing jobs, and sometimes careers, is more beneficial today, because it builds the adaptability that modern workplaces demand. However, moving too often can look unreliable to employers, so each change should be a clear step forward.
Written by Acedmi to show what a high-band essay looks like. It is not an official IELTS sample, and your own ideas can be different.
Useful vocabulary
- employer
- A person or company that pays people to work.
- “He stayed with the same employer for thirty years.”
- loyalty
- Staying faithful to a person or organisation.
- “Some companies reward loyalty with promotion.”
- long-serving
- Having worked somewhere for a long time.
- “Long-serving staff know the company well.”
- promotion
- A move to a more senior job.
- “She got a promotion after five years.”
- job security
- Confidence that you will keep your job.
- “Staying put offers more job security.”
- adaptability
- The ability to change to suit new situations.
- “Employers value adaptability.”
- career change
- Moving to a completely different type of work.
- “He made a career change from banking to teaching.”
- step forward
- An improvement or progress.
- “Each new job should be a step forward.”
Common mistakes
- Mixing up "job", "work" and "career": a job is one position, work is uncountable, a career is your working life.
- Discussing only the view you agree with. Each view needs its own paragraph.
- No opinion, or an opinion that appears only in the last line. Give it in the introduction too.
What the examiner marks
Four criteria, equally weighted: Task Response (answer every part of the question with a clear position), Coherence and Cohesion (logical paragraphs and linking), Lexical Resource (range and accuracy of vocabulary) and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. An essay under 250 words loses marks for Task Response.