#jobhopping #loyalty #career #jobsearch
🔥Hot take: Job hopping is dead. Long live job hopping.🔥
Are you a serial job hopper like me, constantly moving from one opportunity to the next in pursuit of growth and new experiences? In recent years, job hopping seemed to be the norm, with many professionals like ourselves effortlessly transitioning between roles without scrutiny. However, the tides have shifted, and loyalty is now back in vogue as companies prioritize stability and commitment in their employees.
🚫 The Problem: Facing Judgment for Job Hopping
As someone who has embraced the flexibility and excitement of job hopping, I recently found myself in a challenging situation. After losing my secure position at a Fortune 500 company, I reluctantly accepted a role at a small, disorganized business that promised a “family-like” environment. However, the reality was far from ideal – I experienced long work hours, a significant pay cut, and a lack of work-life balance. Despite my efforts to adapt, my short tenure at this company raised eyebrows during job interviews.
💡 The Solution: Embracing Loyalty and Longevity
In today’s competitive job market, staying put and demonstrating loyalty to a single employer can work in your favor. Recruiters and hiring managers are increasingly valuing commitment and tenure in candidates, viewing job hopping as a red flag rather than a positive trait. To navigate this shift in mindset, consider the following strategies to enhance your career prospects:
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1. Showcase Your Career Progression
Highlight the growth and achievements you have experienced within each role, emphasizing how each move contributed to your professional development. Demonstrate a clear trajectory of learning and advancement, showcasing your commitment to self-improvement and success.
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2. Focus on Company Culture Fit
Prioritize finding organizations that align with your values and long-term career goals. Seek out employers who value employee loyalty and offer opportunities for growth and development within the company. By choosing the right cultural fit, you can establish a lasting partnership that benefits both parties.
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3. Communicate Your Reasons for Change
During job interviews, be transparent about your job-hopping history and articulate the reasons behind each transition. Explain how each move contributed to your professional growth and why you are now seeking stability and longevity in your career. By framing your narrative effectively, you can address concerns about your past job changes and demonstrate your commitment to future employers.
✨ Embrace the New Era of Loyalty
As we navigate the evolving landscape of the job market, it is essential to adapt our strategies and mindset to align with current trends. While job hopping may have been the norm in recent years, the resurgence of loyalty and longevity in the workplace presents new opportunities for growth and stability. By embracing this cultural shift and positioning yourself as a committed and loyal professional, you can enhance your prospects and secure fulfilling career opportunities.
ℹ️ Share your experiences and insights in the comments below – have you encountered challenges related to job hopping in your job search? How are you navigating this shift towards loyalty in the workplace? Let’s continue the conversation and support each other on our career journeys! 🚀
Interviewers are asking about it because employers have the upper hand in this market. However, they will be singing a different tune when the market recovers.
If we look at the data, it hasn’t been an employer-driven market since 2009. What happened in 2008-2009? Recessions create shortages for when the market recovers.
Baby Boomers are retiring in the masses, birth rates have been on the decline since the 1970’s, and more people have started their own businesses. It’s projected that by 2040, the median age in the US will be 40.
Once the market goes into recovery mode (already happening to a degree), employers will have no choice but to hire job hoppers.
I say let employers enjoy their moment while they can, because it will be a long time before they are able to enjoy it again.
Usually I disguise anything shorter than a yr as contract or internship. And tell the interviewers you are looking to become a lifer or other cheesy stuff .
Employers hate it when you job hop. Employers also hate it when you stay at a job for too long. Employers can go fuck themselves.
I’ve seen (as I think we all have) that the market isn’t what it was 2021-2022 but my job hopping history hasn’t caused me any problems, personally. I’m also in IT, just over two years of experience.
Beginning in October 2021 through November 2022 I changed jobs 4 times, and was rewarded with more pay/learning opportunities every step of the way. I’ve stayed put since then (and was promoted), but started passively applying to jobs this past December. Not as many call backs or interview requests as ‘21-‘22, but I’m also being really selective in what I apply to.
I always say the same thing “current job has no pathways for growth/I want experience with x technology that I see your org uses/current place does not want to innovate” blah blah blah, and that always gets a resounding “that’s reasonable”. I have a second round interview this Friday at a market leading company for as much as a 35% base comp increase.
I completely agree the market has shifted back to favoring employers, but at an individual level there seems to be a lot of variation.
I wish you luck getting back where you want to be!
Job recruiters can be very treacherous, they want employees to job hop when is convenient for them and complain when someone does to them…
As long as you are at a place for 18 months if you are in of a more technical discipline it’s easier to switch jobs. Business ops and customer facing roles leave stuck a bit longer. It also matters the industry. Certain industries are more prone to higher turnover over than others. Don’t always leave for money sometimes a title will get you paid more for the next switch. In this market where employers are low balling candidates chase the title as long as the pay cut is not to severe.
Manipulation at its finest.
Listen, you sign a contract in which you provide services for an amount of money.
That’s it.
You don’t sign a loyalty, bound by blood and honor contract.
You don’t need to earn any bullshit privilege or whatever.
You can resign as much as they can fire you or lay you off as we’ve seen in the past year or so.
Where’s their part of loyalty here, hmm?
If you stay too much in a company, it’s not good. If you stay too little, it’s not good either.
As another user mentioned already, let them have their way while they can.
I started working in development 6 years ago, and my progression was like this.
1 year and 6 months, 4 months freelancing, 1 year, and lastly close to 2 years now, and I’m gonna change it again since I have some technical interviews lined up.
I do my work and always got above expectations result but the pay was no where “above expectations” + lying + corporate bullshit + shitty wlb + burnout + clueless managers + forcing me back to the office when I explicitley told them I’m only open for remote, and so on.
Some are fine with it, that’s ok. I’m not, and that’s also ok.
I haven’t been asked about this during the interviews, but even if I was, I would be honest.
I mean, I get hit with “why choose us instead of the ones you’re already working with?”
And I tell the truth.
But at this point, I’ve been in so many interviews that I know all the questions that come, so I’m prepared.
I heard it all, from “you don’t deserve”, “you should be thankful”, “doesn’t matter you lose money, others don’t have a job”, “it could’ve been worse”, “others lost money” (as if it would make thinks sound better, lol) and whatnot.
Don’t forget that interviews are a two-way street. They have to sell themselves too. You just have to get better at doing them.
How are they working? What processes do they use? What’s the architecture? Dev/qa ratio, is it stressful? Do they manage to get deadlines without putting unnecessary pressure on employees? Do they lay people off? Is there any stability working for them considering how things have been lately? You get the point.
When they ask “do you have any questions?”, you better come with some well thought ones.
I wish I could find someone that I can be “loyal” to, but I won’t take the disrepsect and injustice.
Until then, I’ll just pivot to another better place.
I mean, I tried to be loyal. They’re the ones who laid me off. So…
Sounds like a VP completely unfamiliar with the basic concepts of capitalism
Yeah, fuck that VP guy.
Your story gives me 2006 vibes. The economy and everything else was going so fast, that everybody was an stock investor and entrepreneur next to their normal jobs. Everybody was moving up and about, then the 2008 crisis came and everybody just stayed put for 3 years. I had a 9 month gig at a smaller development and production facility with a horrible environment. That burned me out quite severly in 2010. Then they ended the contract and some low level job as electronics integrator at an OEM became available via my contractor. Just walking around there for the interview felt as a sign of relief.
2006 will never come back but it sure rhymes. At most jobs or gigs that I worked for more than 4 years, I was doing something else every 1.5 years. But got no pay rise out of it.
I’ve “job hopped” with about 1.5 year at each company early in my career, having 0.5 year in one company that was garbage, however no one ever asked about it and quite frankly if someone would imply that it was bad and the employer was giving me a favor I’d probably end that interview right at this point. Shit market or not, disrespect is not something anyone should tolerate.
Hmm. Not c suite material. Next!
In any half decent interview you’ll always get asked why you’re looking for a new job.
Something obviously isn’t right in your current role, and motivations are important. Are you purely money focused, are you looking for better work/life balance, are you wanting career progression etc.
The hiring company uses that information to see if you’re a fit for the role they’re hiring. They may not be the best payer, but may give you WFH and 40 days holiday – for some people that’s exactly what they want, for some, they’ll leave as soon as someone else offers 5k more, even if they have to go into office.
2-3 years is job hopping now?
I feel like staying more than 2 makes you fall behind the market rate of pay. I did 4 at each place for the first 3 jobs I had and was a good 45% behind most of my peers. Was able to play catch up thankfully in the last 5 or so mainly by contracting and moving at least once a year. It gives you a lot more exposure to different approaches. Which in turn adds money to your offer.
Serial job hopper here – in reality it is not a problem because if you bring the skills and have an explanation you are fine. I strictly keep the upper hand: „Finding a candidate with this expertise is impossible without having 5 jobs in 5 years as no job would teach you the experience.“ I go as far as saying: If you need a junior person get a junior person but if you need someone with a vision and a unique experience – then I might be your candidate.“ Discussion normally closed – either they love it or hate it.
I’ve been contracting since 2016 and have changed jobs due to instability and contracts coming to an end – I explain I want long term/permanent but there aren’t that many positions and most of the companies interviewing are also looking for a contractor.
I agree, the way to money is job hopping… but you have to be somewhat smart about it. At the end of the day, if you’ve got a list of 6-9 month stints and they’re not contract positions, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
I job hopped, but it was 1-3 years at each position. Longest tenure in my 21 year career has been 5 years. Never had a question as to what happened or why my jobs had certain lengths.
Alternative take: this is going to be my 3rd job in 18 months and the pay and location will be much, much better. But I am only just starting my career, so obviously I am going to have a different take from someone senior like the OP. Particularly in IT, the market has been shit outside of AI, and even in AI, it is merely “okay”.
I haven’t job hopped in my current job (i think its been 4 years now), but I’ve gotten every single pay rise I’ve asked for, and it’s maintained me at the market rate for my field.
You have to be smart with it. Getting a new job every 9 months may benefit you at the time but I’d pass on you because that means I’m going to be back to listing my position in 9 months.
Yeah, when the interest rates start coming down job hopping will become a norm again
IT says more about an employer’s failure to retain workers rather than workers themselves if they can only find promotion via job-hopping. BTW some people think that 2 jobs in 8 years is job-hopping.
2-5 years with proven growth is the sweet spot. Habitually hopping under two years is a no for me.
Got a company telling me straight no by email because i didnt stay long enough in companies.
So i did a bit of math and checked their tenure average… Basically they had 2.3 years tenure average vs 2.1 for me.
Sent them this info. They told me its wrong of their recruiters to tell me that. Still didnt get another interview.
Might be an industry and/or regional thing. I was at my second-last job for four years, and while interviewing recently I had more than one interviewer comment that I was there for a “long time”. There’s so much job hopping these days that four years is now a long time.
Makes me chuckle to think of my dad who retired from a company after nearly 30 years there.
I would have walked out on that VP interview. F employers.
Always be closing ?
Being 100% honest here we don’t even look at job hoppers (skilled technical) as we do a lot of investment in new hires and it’s just not worth the effort (not to mention the absolute pain in the @#$@ it is to hire someone in the first place).
I personally have nothing against job hopping in general (it’s your choice) and I realize it’s a direct result of corporations showing zero loyalty to employees (but we’re still not going to hire you). It sucks our work environment/culture has devolved into this hellscape of zero loyalty from companies (which has created the zero loyalty from employees).
>I took a pretty huge pay cut for the “privilege” of being part of this “family,” and I work way more hours than I ever worked for the F500
My experience as well.
>“we noticed you’ve only been with Doodoo Dynamics for 9 months, can you help us understand why you’re already looking around?”
Stay a year then say…
“I prefer a focused environment where I can work on XYZ part of the tech. I love the people at Z company, but my focus is spread too thin over XYZ, ABC, DEF, GHI tech and it’s not using my streghts to an advantage.”
Absolutely not. Never accept no for an answer in pursuit of your goals. VP can kick rocks
It’s an employer’s market, so they are going to harp on this. My answer is always some honest version of “I’m looking for a company to spend the next decade plus with, unfortunately ACME Co. stopped supporting my business unit a year in”. You get bonus points if you can make the interviewer feel like their company is going to be “the one”. I too have decided to settle in for a longer haul, but that has as much to do with my current gig being a good fit as it does with the market.
Job hopping is totally dead
It was never a good idea to begin with
If you simply calculate the losses you take by not fully participating in your company 401k, the matching money waiting to be eligible and vesting schedules
Then account for raises and promotions
You are far more likely to achieve wealth growing where you’re planted
People with long job tenure have more money – it’s that simple
If employers don’t wanna know the REAL reasons we were unemployed, left a job, or only stayed at a job for a short period of time, they need F off and stop hyperfocusing on that stuff.
I think we should normalize saying things like “this job sucked and didn’t pay well”/“we had a toxic and abusive workplace”/“we were micromanaged to death”/etc.
Being at a job for less than a year can be an issue for any employer and I think it’s best to stay at least two years to show you’re able to handle even bad workplaces for a long term stint. This isn’t ideal but it keeps the heat off of you when job seeking.
VP of being unhinged
Unfortunately, a lot of hiring managers see job hopping is a negative even though it did help your salary. I would suggest not to do it because it took me a long time to get a job this time and I had to keep explaining my job hopping over and over and over again, even though I had good reason for the hops as one position was toxic, and then I got laid off from the other
That is just one person’s perspective.
Oh no u actually have to travel to the job to work, I’m sorry
A successful company needs a mix of stable lifers and dynamic job hoppers.
Companies need to think carefully about which of those people a role requires.
Someone who values comfort and the status quo won’t do great in a strategy / transformation role.
Someone who thrives on change won’t do well in a BAU role.
> “so what has you looking for a new role?”
“In the past 12 months at my current role I heave learned the position, tackled higher level and more complicated work between other systems and teams, and continued to deliver on deadline and under budget.
“However, I am no longer growing my skillset in that role and do not see a path forward other than changing roles in order to find a position where I can learn and succeed. I hope this role will fit that and allow me to continue to grow my skillset and better complete work for you.”
Or anything that basically says “I came, I saw, I conquered, I got bored”. Boredom is easy to commiserate with unless the new place is also boring, in which case thanks for showing me so I can move on.
What the fuck? Doodoo Dynamics did not “give you a chance”, they hired you to fulfill a need, just as you took the job to fulfill a need.
Did you commit to lifetime service to Doodoo Dynamics? No? then in what way is it “dishonest” for you to be looking for something better.
People job hop because they can get a 20% pay increase doing so. if jobs dont like employees doing so, they are welcome to hand out 20% raises every few years
It’s just a manipulation designed to make you believe that you are now negotiating from a weaker position. They can either say that you didn’t stay long enough or that you stayed too long. It’s irrelevant, and because it’s completely subjective, there is no good way to respond.
You can just respond with something like “Ah, interesting.” XD It’s a similar non-statement that there is no real response for.