1) I get it. Having a great group of people is often hard to repeat! So "culture" is important. But only you know how important culture is to you.
2) The best advice I can share is YOU are responsible for looking after YOUR OWN best interest. Period. You can certainly stay in that comfy group, but what you may find is that a) some of them will leave to go on to better opportunities b) the company may have layoffs and either you or some of them are gone anyway, c) your manager may leave and a new one may come in, changing the entire dynamics of the group. Now, you are either stuck there within a poor group or still no opportunity to advance.
3) Sure, this is a brutally tough job market right now, but everyone has their OWN story and it doesn't have to be yours. Some people are not as pro-active as you, have the same amount of contacts in the same positions you do, or haven't kept up relationships like you do. Also, they may have crappy resumes, personalities, or quirks, or dress style, lack charismatics, etc. They could be in the wrong industry. Who knows, but that is THEIR story, not yours!
4) As they say, the best time to look for a job is when you have one. How do you know you won't find a better opportunity with an even better team? You don't, until you start looking. Remember, when you have a job and you are looking, YOU hold ALL of the cards. So you can be as discriminating as you want. For example, you only want a job that pays over $300k a year, so you do not entertain any jobs or job offers below that. Period. However, after a few months, you find out that this figure was an unreasonable expectation given the job market or your experience or your industry, etc. So now, you re-align your job expectations. And you may have to do this anyway for any number of reasons. But my point is, YOU get to pick and choose what your comfort level is with each of the opportunities presented to you. What sacrifices are you willing to make? If it's a higher salary but the group isn't as "fun", will that work for you? Only you can answer those questions.
5) There are other factors to consider. For example: what is the company's layoff history? What are the growth opportunities there? What is their potential of being bought out? What does their turnover look like? Because you can leave your job now and wind up in any number of "unknown" situations. And I share this not to put in a "fear factor" but so that you understand you want to make a very educated decision when leaving a job and moving to another, especially in a bad economy like we have now.
Just food for thought. Hope it helps.
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