Job Hopping
The Captain discusses why it’s good. I job-hopped a lot early on in my accounting career. The reason was simple, I could stay where I was and get a 5% per year salary increase. Or I could jump ship and, in one case, make 40% more per year doing the same thing. Now, I work for me so I don’t get any raises.
People often act aghast that one would act in their own self-interest. Never understood that.
July 25th, 2013 at 6:36 pm
My God, man! Are you some kind of Ayn Rand wannabe 😉
July 25th, 2013 at 7:26 pm
Job hopping is pretty much SOP for the IT industry.
July 25th, 2013 at 7:50 pm
We teachers tend to stay in one place because after 10 years experience we are too costly to hire compared to a freshly-minted, new-car-smelling teacher.
July 26th, 2013 at 3:31 am
IT people are gypsies in suits. I’ve never signed an employment contract longer than 2 years, nor one without an escape clause.
July 26th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
I have gone through lots of resumes and hired my share of techies and expect to see (especially in IT) a certain amount of hopping in the early part of someone’s career.
But, for those applying for tasks with deep technical knowledge (true subject matter experts), the hopping has to have slowed or stopped as they matured in their career. We’re not talking run-of-the-mill systems administrators. We’re talking about experts in large system design and integration. Think satellite constellation ground system design.
You don’t get to call yourself an expert until you have taken something from zero to fully functional and then hung around (even tangentially) long enough to make sure it is working like it should. I am especially leery of those who “design and architect” systems and then hop right before the whole thing has to deliver.
Anyway, thought I’d share that. If you want to be trusted as an expert in something big and/or complex, you gotta stick around long enough to get the job done. My team has an expression for ‘experts’ who start a project then jump before delivery: “baby daddies”. Jumping before system delivery makes you no more an expert at system design, than knocking up some chick makes you a father.
My best hires are still with us ten years later.
July 26th, 2013 at 1:07 pm
@Patrick – “you gotta stick around long enough to get the job done.”
Agreed. Before one accepts a job offer one has to evaluate the employer; the interview process is as much them interviewing you as an employee as you interviewing them as an employer.
1) What, and how much of it, do they need done; 2) How much of that can you do; 3) How much of what they need done that you don’t already know will they allow you to learn (OJT, info transfer internally, external classes (which require them to commit dollars)); 4)are they a “get shit done” organization (results oriented), or a “this is how we do things” organization (process oriented); 5) are you being regarded as a Hired Gun or A Member Of The Organization; 6) Do you want to be working there AND with those people in 3-6 years.
Can I accomplish stuff that’s interesting, learn stuff I don’t know, meet intelligent, interesting people, or is this 2-4 years of bullshit? Or, “How much crap will they put in the way of me getting done what they said they wanted done?” (I said I’ve never signed a >2 year contract; I didn’t say I never renewed one). Evaluate, assess, decide; the job hunter’s OODA loop. And never not have an escape clause built in.
July 26th, 2013 at 1:46 pm
The visual effects field (computer graphics) is nearly 100% job hoppers. My longest tenure anywhere is 4 years. As a matter of fact, I was just chatting with one of the pioneers of the industry yesterday at SIGGRAPH, and that’s his only beef with this business; we’re all nomads. And he used to own a company. Worse, too many government subsidies all over the effing planet adds politics to the economic winds blowing us around; it’s looking likely that I’ll end up overseas at some point because that’s where the work is. For now.
July 27th, 2013 at 10:30 am
I work in HR and have recruited in several industries for over a decade. I personally don’t buy into the job hopping bias. I do look at why the person left and if I hear, “it was a better opportunity” only to find it paid less and the benefits sucked, I call BS.
This is and excerpt from “Enjoy The Decline”. It’s wortha read for those who haven’t read it.
July 28th, 2013 at 6:56 pm
I did job hopping for many reasons, not just to get more cashish. Though I did have one interview where the Sr. VP of the unit I was interviewing told me I job hopped too much. Ummm sorry for wanting to get ahead in my career life and make more money to support myself and now my family. Luckily, I didn’t get the position. I call it winning by losing.