Don’t leave your job without it.

There are many things we leave behind when going to our next career opportunity – our colleagues and team, our comfortable chair, and if we’ve been lucky enough to have it to begin with, perhaps even the company car.

I was fortunate enough to interview a CFO candidate recently that told me a great story about how he got his next CFO role. In leaving a previous CFO role, he cancelled his cell phone contract, and took a well deserved vacation for a few weeks. When he was ready to get back to his job search, he went to get a new cell phone. Luckily for him, the cell phone provider gave him options to choose his new number, and one of the choices was his old phone number, which he took without giving it much thought.

A week later his phone rang, and it was someone he once networked with a year ago that called him with a potential career opportunity that led to his next successful role.

Thankfully for this CFO, he was able to get his old cell phone number back.

What lessons can you learn from this story?

1. When starting a new role, have your company pay for your cell phone plan, but you should own and keep the number.

2. Make sure that when you leave your employer, if you don’t own the phone number, make sure you negotiate to take it with you.

3. Put your cell phone number on your business card. You never know who may want to reach you when you are no longer at the company.

Is there anything else you should not leave your job without?