Job hopping: it’s career suicide, that is, if conventional wisdom and my father are to be believed. They tell us to stay at a job for at least two years, and that the longer you stay in one place, the more dependable you’ll appear, and that staying in one place improves your chances for success when you look for a new job. They tell us that too many jobs in a short period of time makes you look like a flake. Forget job offers. Instead, you’ll be getting offers of advice on how to mask all that job hopping on your resume.
But how bad is job hopping really? Is there anything to gain from all that moving around? Let’s find out!
Here, we look at the benefits of job hopping, its role in this economy, the right and wrong ways to do it, and how to put a positive spin on it the next time you’re looking for a job.
The Changing Landscape
Career dynamics have shifted dramatically over the years. Gone are the days when college grads joined a company and stayed for life, rising through the ranks to win the corner office.
According to Business Week’s Richard Florida, people under the age of thirty change jobs almost once every year and a half (compared to the national average of once every three years).
It’s not surprising. Workers feel less incentive to stay put. Pensions, in the traditional sense, are virtually obsolete. We’re increasingly paying the price for our employer-sponsored healthcare. Loyalty is no longer about putting in your time or paying your dues. It’s about providing measurable value and being rewarded for it. Corporate culture has changed, and employees are responding to it in the only way that makes sense to them.
Chris Murdock, recruiting expert at LandingJobs and former senior sourcer for Yahoo, says job tenure—and expectations around it—have changed. “It used to be that people would stay at a company for life, but nowadays, if you’ve been in a company two years, you’re the seasoned professional,” he says. “Some even think if you’ve been at a company for five years, you should move on. That it’s too long.”
Job hopping as an Asset
It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but some experts now say there are benefits to job hopping—and not just for the employee.
For one, they argue, it can help those early in their career figure out what they want to do. Let’s face it: no personality test or career adviser can compare with real-world experience.
On her blog Brazen Careerist, career expert Penelope Trunk wrote about job hopping as a path to career stability. In her post, she says it’s “nearly impossible to find something right without trying a bunch of options.”
Trying different jobs also means building a more diverse skill set.
“[Job hoppers] continue to hone their skills and develop new ones,” says Ron Katz of Penguin HR Consulting. “And not just the tactical/technical skills. They also develop the strategic skills, the ones that transfer from to job and assignment to assignment.”
And what effect does all that hopping around have on performance?
Trunk says job hoppers tend to be top performers because they have no choice but to deliver results. “If you don’t need to get another job anytime soon, then you don’t need to perform well in the next six months. You can coast,” she says. “Job hoppers don’t coast, or their resume will look bad.”
