TOPHEADS
A TOPHEADS executive assessment

Should You Leave Your Current Company? The Honest Test.

Twenty questions, six dimensions, seven minutes. Built on Job Embeddedness Theory (Mitchell & Lee, 2001 — the academic standard for retention research with 50,000+ citations) and the Unfolding Model of Voluntary Turnover (Lee & Mitchell, 1994). Behavioral, scenario-based, and forced-choice — not agreement scales. Seven archetypes. No flattery.

Where senior executives stay anonymous — until they choose not to be

What TOPHEADS is

A members-only platform where senior executives maintain a persistent, anonymous professional presence, visible to a curated set of executive search firms and hiring companies. Not a job board. Not a recruiter database. Not a LinkedIn alternative.

Why this matters when you're thinking about leaving

Most executives who eventually leave a company spent 12-24 months "quietly considering" before they took action. During that window, publicly signalling interest is risky — but doing nothing means you arrive at your decision point with zero alternatives in hand.

TOPHEADS exists exactly for this in-between phase. Your profile is anonymous by default. Your contact details are released only to opportunities you choose to engage with. The right firms find you on their own timeline, not yours.

Who it's for

Senior leaders ($150K+ packages, typically VP through C-level) who want to be discoverable without publicly signalling that they're in market. Particularly relevant when you're past the point of "definitely staying" but not yet at "definitely leaving."

TOPHEADS is not a free directory. A nominal entry fee and a modest monthly subscription ensure the network is limited to executives who treat their career as an asset — one worth investing in. Pricing and details are on the candidate page.

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Stay-or-Go Assessment for Senior Executives

This assessment is built for senior leaders — typically Vice Presidents, Senior Vice Presidents, Division Presidents, and C-level executives — who are weighing whether their current role is still the right one. Unlike most career quizzes, the underlying model is grounded in the academic literature on voluntary turnover that researchers and consulting firms have used for over two decades.

The methodology

The six dimensions measured here come from a synthesis of the most-validated turnover frameworks in the field: Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski and Erez's Job Embeddedness Theory (the academic standard with thousands of citations across industries), Lee and Mitchell's Unfolding Model of Voluntary Turnover (which describes the five cognitive paths people actually take when leaving), and behavioral economics research on sunk cost bias as it applies to long-tenure career decisions.

Why six dimensions, not one

Stay-or-go decisions don't reduce to a single number. Research on executive turnover shows that the most damaging mistakes happen when leaders mistake one pattern for another: burnt-out executives confuse exhaustion with a real reason to leave (the Premature Jumper); long-tenure leaders confuse sunk cost with embeddedness (the Sunk Cost Trap); satisfied executives confuse social FOMO with a genuine pull factor (the Phantom Pull). Separating the dimensions makes these patterns visible.

Why TOPHEADS commissioned this assessment

Most senior executives who eventually change companies spent a long evaluation period before they acted. During that period, they were neither actively looking nor truly settled. Existing tools — job boards, LinkedIn job alerts, recruiter inbound — all require either active commitment or passive waiting. TOPHEADS exists for the in-between: maintaining quiet, curated visibility to the right firms without public signalling. This quiz is designed to help executives understand which pattern they're actually in before they make the decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it actually mean to be "embedded" in a job?

Job embeddedness, defined by Mitchell and Lee in their 2001 Academy of Management paper, is the constellation of forces that keep a person at their current employer — not just satisfaction. It has three dimensions: links (relationships and connections), fit (alignment of values and skills), and sacrifice (what would be lost by leaving). Embeddedness is a better predictor of voluntary turnover than satisfaction or commitment.

Why measure "push" and "pull" separately from embeddedness?

Lee and Mitchell's Unfolding Model identifies five distinct cognitive paths people take when leaving. The two main triggers are push factors (accumulated dissatisfaction, burnout, toxic environment) and pull factors (real external opportunities, recruitment activity). Embeddedness buffers against shocks but doesn't eliminate them.

Why include sunk cost as a separate dimension?

Sunk cost bias is the tendency to continue investing in a path because of past investment, even when current evidence argues against it. In senior executive careers — where tenure, equity vesting, and identity are deeply tied to a company — this bias systematically distorts stay-or-go decisions. Most career tools miss it; the result is people stay 2-3 years longer than they should, then leave with regret.

What are the seven archetypes?

The Anchored: high embeddedness, low pressure — stay. The Right Time: real reasons plus real opportunity — move thoughtfully. The Sunk Cost Trap: low embeddedness, high push, but locked in by tenure or equity. The Quiet Quitter: high push, low pull — internally checked out. The Premature Jumper: burnout-driven exit with no real outside reason — needs rest, not exit. The Phantom Pull: pulled by feelings rather than data — grass-is-greener bias. The Comfortable Plateau: long tenure, low pressure either way — comfortable but not growing.

Is this quiz biased toward selling something?

No commercial CTA appears for the Anchored or Premature Jumper archetypes. For those profiles, recruiter conversations or platform listings would be wrong. The TOPHEADS recommendation appears for profiles where anonymous executive presence is the right fit — primarily Right Time, Sunk Cost Trap, Quiet Quitter, and Comfortable Plateau.

Is this a substitute for an executive coach or therapist?

No. This is a directional diagnostic that takes 7 minutes. A real decision about leaving a senior role should involve conversations with people who know your specific situation. The quiz identifies your archetype and the dominant pattern in how you're framing the question — it doesn't make the decision for you.