Revisiting Job Hopping
I am going to play Devil’s advocate here for a second.
What if we considered job hopping to be not a negative thing (generally) but a positive thing and an indicator of the type of economy we are going to be seeing for the next decade? The world around us is changing and companies are starting to value those who change. Change is everywhere and to err on the side of ridiculousness, change is being taught in the change education, change economy, change employers, change employees, change leaders, change evangelists, change … well, you get the point.
So if we are going to start emphasizing change and flexibility, why wouldn’t we expect a more fluid workforce? More importantly, what happens if those people that are so well adept to change and are your typical job hoppers? What happens if they are actually better employees? They become productive quickly and stay incredibly productive throughout their term and instead of spending the next five years doing mediocre work, they went on to the next exciting project. What happens if the best and brightest aren’t the guys that are going to be in your office in five years? And what happens if these people are bright and have adapted to learn more quickly, their cost of hire goes down and therefore the cost of turnover goes down because you know you could hire on another person who is going to be hungry for something new in two years? What happens if realize an ROI on a new employee in the first MONTH instead of the first year?
Would all that change our perception of turnover, job hoppers and that flaky Gen Y I keep hearing rumors about?
Would your company be ready for such a change in ideals? Could they ever be?
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19 Responses to “Revisiting Job Hopping”
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Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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I agree with this perspective (as opposed to the previous one) as it pretty much describes me. I’m a Gen X ivy league grad with an MBA and i went through the dot com mess, had to change careers and also move for my spouse’s career, so to some I look like a job hopper on paper. However, my significant startup experience and experience adapting to new environments (Fortune 100/Startup/Govt/Non-Profit) in new jobs, new functional areas, new industries makes me mr. change. Oddly enough, I’m now working in change management consulting, and hope to continue in HR consulting, Organizational Development and Training. Note though, that in my experience the downside of the hopping is that employers place a salary premium on deep, focused specialized expertise, rather than diffuse experience.
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Frankly, I am tired of the antiquated saying that several jobs in one’s career is labeled as a “job hopper”. In my field production (livestock) I took a job where I could get the experience. Sometimes jobs were “suck you dry” jobs were a corporation had a revolving door and worked the hell out of you with little pay and really didn’t respect anyone unless you “brown nosed the boss”. The user jobs found another person to use up. Experience should be the priority not how many jobs. I have seen in my career the “slugs” hanging on, the person with job experiences brings with them ideas, motivation and needs little to get started on the new job.
What irks me as that it is a “two way” street. I look at the employer as if I am hiring them. Today I think one of the major problems is the lack of people skills manager. My career is more than just putting in my time on the job. Many managers lack skills to manage people and anyone that will not sell their “character” of who they are will move on and the manager can find someone else to “abuse”. They usually end up with anyone staying because either the employee is afraid to look for another job for reasons that include reduction in pay, wife won’t let them, and other reasons including lack of motivation. I will not be one of those people that look forward to retirement. Life is living at the moment and who says that you will make it there and in what physical condition.
There is nothing like interviewing with a person that never had another job beside the one that they have at the present time. As a prospective job seeker the interviewer may be intimidated by your job experiences so they diffently are going to hire someone with more experience.
I always looked at someone with more experience as an asset and to be made part of the team.
Why is the employer never deemed to be the problem and is always a taboo talking point. Today there are to many managers that should never have their position as they are not team players nor leaders!
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Perhaps people job hop because they are offered more money? And it must be significantly more because an employee has costs involved with changing jobs and they would not ‘jump ship’ if there was not incentive to do so. If these employees are more productive because they are working at the current employer for some time and have experience why can’t the current employer also offer to pay them more?
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I finally figured this out. You as an HR person are interested in hiring employees the company can take advantage of by not giving raises and paying a low salary. Someone who will not leave. I as an employee are interested in reading a Blog whose information will help me advance my career. Perhaps our motivations do not meet.
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Kelly: I think there has been a lot more of the thinking that the employer is the problem in the last 20 years. I don’t think anybody who honestly evaluates the current working conditions can seriously blame it on just employees. There is a joint responsibility there but I think that employers see it one way and employees see it a completely different way and I am trying to bring those two elements together.
Damon: Where did I suggest that employee should not be paid a fair wage? Acknowledging a current trend (more people moving around) doesn’t mean I endorse the root cause of that. I think your second comment really begs the question of what you see as my motivation? I write this blog for myself and to help people understand where HR people in general come from. If you think I desire or like employees who I can take advantage of, you would be wrong. I have no problems paying a premium price for a premium employee. Are people underpaid in their jobs? Of course. But that responsibility doesn’t fall just on the employer.
My motivation is to inform you of what is out there so that you can act accordingly. You don’t have to agree with me to get something out of this blog.
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I really am concerned here - everyone seems to be focusing on pay and while that is important and it is important to be paid a competitive wage… most people leave jobs for other reasons more than pay… lack of respect in general, abuse, supervisor incompetence, etc come to mind.
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Jim Brock,
I agree. “…lack of respect in general, abuse, supervisor incompetence, etc come to mind.” Those are greatest motivators to seek emplyment elsewhere. Far greater than the wage factor.
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This blog has been very informational for me, but everyone is always so serious. I am an avid Dilbert reader (guilty pleasure) and the for the last two days the topic has been job hoppers. Ironic… So for the sake of a good laugh, enjoy:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/dilbert
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Bravo, Sarah… I had a hearty laugh
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Perhaps if there were specific cases of people who hop jobs frequently and their reasons I might agree in some situations. But I my belief so far is that corner cases aside someone who has frequently been changing their job is probably just looking to better him or her self. A new job or job offer may be the only way to get a raise.
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I for one look at not only the length of each position but the total picture of the career. What scares me as an H/R person more than multiple jobs, no job, giant open spaces of time. I think that in our current environment job hopping is a part of the landscape. I work in an environment with large numbers of tenure exist and that is great. But I can tell you most associates with 20+ years at one job fear change like it’s the grim reaper. This entry made some excellent points. I will certainly think about it the next time I loan “Who Moved My Cheese” to a co-worker.
KEL
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How do HR people feel about employees that stay with an employer for 7-8 years (or the amount of time it takes to be fully vested in their 401K program)?
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The problem with this, HRGUY is that it’s just not possible for a person to contribute a whole lot of value in the first 6 months. The reason is that it takes longer than 6 months for most people to get accepted into the (unspoken) social network that allows work to get done. I’ve written more about it here:
http://nobscot.blogspot.com/2006/08/secret-of-why-hoppers-dont-add-value.html
So it’s really not in a company’s best interest to encourage this “new” model of employment hopping.
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Beth: I would say that depends greatly on the type of organization and the type of person hired. There are some organizations that you need to be part of for 3-5 years before you can trully be a contributor. HR has generally created itself around this model. Existing employees are of incredible value while a new employee is of little value until it gets beyond a certain point.
It is worth making a point that this is a luxury for both the employee and the employer. After all, if this is how it works, people don’t have to change their thinking or develop a new model that doesn’t require a quicker amount or training and learning.
So I guess I am talking about the future. Are companies even capable of thinking outside of this job hopping = bad paradigm for a second to prepare for it as a real possibility? Are corporate trainers willing to cut a 12 month training down to 3? Are corporate social networks willing to open up to become more productive?
If the best and brightest become the people who job hop, do organizations still pass those people up? Or will smaller organizations take advantage of their flexibility and snatch them up?
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I think it’s an interesting question and I agree that we need some speeding up on getting new employees up and running. But I don’t think it will ever be realistic that a company now or in the future could run effectively if all the best employees were jumping ship every 3-6 months.
Think about your own company. If all the best employees were there for just 4 or 5 months and then left, what kind of havoc would that wreak? How happy would your customers (both intenal and external) be?
It doesn’t matter how bright an employee is, if he is jumping ship after mere months then he is more of a liability than an asset.
An interesting twist on the issue might be what if we shrunk the definition of a long term employee? What if long term meant 5 or 6 years? Could we keep employees that are all at peak levels of productivity, creativity and motivation? To run a company effectively under this model you would definitely need to speed up the new hire acclimation process as you suggest.
True job hoppers though should stick with temp work or project work. There is always a need for short time hires in that respect.
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4-5 months, no.
1-2 years, yes.
I think that is a pretty reasonable expectation for HR departments to deal with, especially in competitive, labor short industries.
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Hopping jobs every 4-5 months isn’t sustainable though. I don’t see how it’s even worth complaining about that type of a person since they would never be considered by a worthwhile employer. When I think of job hoppers I think of maybe someone who had an average of almost 1 new employer per year. But those sort of people wouldn’t be able to move around if their positions weren’t somewhat project related so they could say they accomplished something and wanted to move on.
I hire for mostly midlevel positions and find people who stay at a place for 5 or more years - w/out a significant change in rank - dead in the water. Those people are the ones being abused by their employer and are perceived as doormats… ‘gimme back my stapler’ folks.
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There are many reasons for job-hopping. There is a strange reason can make you change your job without your intention, If you are serving in a booming industry. This is well said at http://www.blogya.in/job_hopping_due_to_consultancy
Many job hoppings happening due to consultancy enticement in growing industries. Be study when consultancy approaching you.
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I have two Bachelors degrees and recently finished my second degree about 4 years ago. Because I had little experience after graduating, I “job-hopped” quite a few times. I left for the following reasons: no personal, financial, and career growth, not enough compensation (one company wanted to pay me $32k a year, work 9 hours a day, and work weekends!), no passion for what I was doing, lousy benefits, commute to and from work was a couple of hours a day, etc.
Each time I “hopped”, I did notice that my compensation would go up with each company (even though I was and still am severely underpaid).
About 2 1/2 years ago, I was hired at my current company. There are positives to this company- I work 6 miles from my home, the people are nice, the company offers “Christmas-New Year’s shutdown fully-paid, and I do have a good amount of freedom and choice in what I do. In addition, I have learned a lot and gained some valuable experience these last couple of years. However, I am back to looking for another job to hop to, hopefully one that will last longer than this one. My reasons for leaving this company are no support by management or the company for professional development, no position growth (-I look at the people who have the same position as me and have been here 10 years), salary/benefits/401k package are not competitive, etc. I have even offered to make use of my 1st degree in this company and add even more value to my position and hopefully be fairly compensated, but I have been turned down. In a nutshell, I have stopped growing and learning from this company. I can’t control what the company does, but I can control myself and make choices that will benefit me, such as the choice to move on and find something better.
I think everyone needs to treat their career like dating and relationships. You’ll experience a few bad ones before you find a good one. You hope for the best- that it is long-term and that both parties will constantly grow, but if it doesn’t happen, then you still learned something from the experience that you can use for the next one and move on.
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