Let's face it—it's never too easy to deliver a perfect answer when your prospective employer is probing about why you want to change jobs.

The hiring manager wants to make sure that you're leaving for the right reasons—which in most cases would be a better opportunity and career growth.

But a lot of job seekers, worrying about looking like "job hoppers", force themselves to stick it out at jobs they hate.

Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, has some advice for those who are looking to switch jobs: work with people who you like.

Less than two years ago, Khosrowshahi left his comfy gig as the head of Expedia to lead what was at the time the most dysfunctional company in tech.

"My wife always had faith in me and she always – from the very beginning until the end, she just said, you are the right person for this role. So she bet me for $5 and I owe her $5 because it turned out that she was right," Khosrowshahi, who led the travel company Expedia for over a decade, told CNBC-TV18 in a Uber Townhall last year.

Upon hesitating on the new job opportunity, Khosrowshahi thought back to the career advice he often shares with others.

"One is you want to work with people who you like, you want to work with people that you respect because why waste your time working with folks that you don’t respect, that is number one."

Khosrowshahi had already expressed his admiration for his coworkers at Expedia, where he was named one of the Highest Rated CEOs by Glassdoor. He's known as friendly, calm and drama free.

A professional and seasoned leader, Khosrowshahi was known for not being afraid to assert himself, but in calculated ways. An Iranian refugee, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 9. That perspective has informed his leadership decisions, such as leveraging his power on issues concerning immigration.

Another piece of advice Khosrowshahi shared was about making a difference at the workplace, no matter how big or small.

"Working is about making a difference in your own way and everyone can make a difference in their own way but you want to go to a place where you can make a difference," he said.

"As far as going to place where you can make a difference, Uber was in a lot of trouble. It was a real turnaround and at a company that can make a difference," said Khosrowshahi, who took the reigns of Uber in 2017 when the company was facing a slew of sexual harassment and gender discrimination allegations, a messy lawsuit with Alphabet-subsidiary Waymo and disgruntled drivers.

In combination with his second piece of advice and his third, "finally you want to make a difference at a company or an organisation that is making a difference," he said.

The 50-year old executive has helped diversify Uber's offerings. One of the crown jewels of the company is its meal delivery service, Uber Eats, which generated nearly $1.5 billion in revenue in 2018, up from $587 million the year before.

And finally, the last piece of advice, "The advice that my father gave me which is if a company asks you to go lead it, you just say yes."

Khosrowshahi, who has lived an affluent life, has been paid handsomely. He received compensation valued at $45 million (about Rs 311 crore) last year, according to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

First Published:Jul 2, 2019 12:54 PM IST