Is job hopping becoming more acceptable and what would be deemed too much

kathryn1985

Hi,

Just wondering how much job changing would be considered too much? I understand some potential employers would be put off immediately, but is there a point where all employers would just shred the CV immediately if they see too many job changes within a short space of time.

I have been in my current job about 5 months and am really unhappy. A co-worker recieved a promotion and rather than rehire for that position, a lot of the duties for this position were delegated to me (about 40%), even though none of the tasks match my job description. I am constantly working overtime but month end is really stressful as I have way more tasks to undertake in a short time frame. I feel I am constantly chasing my tail and have noticed that I have let issues that need attention slip.

I want to move on, but am worried as I will have 4 jobs over a 7.5 year period and know that if I were lucky to recieve an invite to an interview, the difficult job hopping questions would probably not work in my favour.

To be brief, my first job was 4 years long. During this time I undertook additional study and obtained my next job in this field of study. I took a pay cut to compensate for the fact that while I was exam qualified, I had no relevant work experience. I remained in this position for 2 years. The next position was in the same field in a rival company, that offered a promotion and was closer to home. On the day I showed up for the third job, I was put on a different team to the one I interviewed for as they lost 2 staff members in the month prior to me starting. This team is a very specialist and niche area. Although I enjoyed the role, I wanted to keep my options open. Also, as the area was so niche, there was always long periods of time where I had no work and other teams delegated very little work to me, even though I had a lot of spare capacity. I stayed for one year and moved to job number four, current role.

Would it be best to stay for 1 year/18 months. Even if I tried to stay for 18 months, there would still be a pattern of job hopping, would I still have this hurdle then.

Thanks
Kathryn

_Brian

It depends how well you interview and how confidently you can discuss this and explain.

If you are going to stay you need to get a handle on things as if it continues to go poorly and you move what sort of reference could you expect.

You could always sit your manager down and explain that you’ve been delegated too many responsibilities and ask for clarification on priorities. Make sure to highlight areas that you’ve let slip before they bring it to you.

No matter what position you have in any company you need to learn the skill of managing your manager or you will always be given more and more duties and then held responsible when they go wrong.

TG1

The job market has changed, the workforce has changed, a job for life is no longer the norm. As long as you can show progress and can explain each move, moving is fine.

But this comes from someone who has just started job number 5 in 5 years...! I am a firm believer in jobs should suit your current circumstance, and you shouldn't adjust your circumstances to suit a job.

Dog Man Star

I hire people. The method I take is to give someone a chance, give them everything they need and see how they go. If they can't handle it, they're out. If they can handle it, I will give them all the flexibility they want.

I make sure they are happy with their working conditions, the trade-off is that they do the work.

I don't care when or where they do it, just that they do it.

I can't guarantee pay rises, but I can guarantee flexibility.

I don't care how many times they have moved job, I don't care about that at all.

This is in the Finance sector, so I appreciate it is not open to everyone. I have three staff for four years now, they are all very happy. The work is done. That's it to me.

Arrival

Depending on your industry, changing jobs once every 2-3 years can be highly beneficial for your salary. Companies treat their loyal employees like **** nowadays so why should employees have some stupid loyalty to them? Look out for yourself and what's best for you, learn to negotiate your salary and perks well.

Dog Man Star

Arrival wrote: »

Depending on your industry, changing jobs once every 2-3 years can be highly beneficial for your salary. Companies treat their loyal employees like **** nowadays so why should employees have some stupid loyalty to them? Look out for yourself and what's best for you, learn to negotiate your salary and perks well.

Not strictly true. In every company there are key people, those people who keep everything going. They get the best of everything, and rightly so. Work is not fair. It is not school. Understand that it is not fair and you'll be fine.

jimwallace197

Arrival wrote: »

Depending on your industry, changing jobs once every 2-3 years can be highly beneficial for your salary. Companies treat their loyal employees like **** nowadays so why should employees have some stupid loyalty to them? Look out for yourself and what's best for you, learn to negotiate your salary and perks well.

The thing is though, if you going to negotiate a good deal for yourself, you need to be able to back it up. The higher the wage, usually the more pressure & expectation so be careful with this.

I think it would be better to start on a more modest wage, get to grips with the job, become good at it and invaluable to your company, then negotiate a better deal for yourself.


Anything more than than 3 different jobs in three years would be a warning for me. If someone is ambitious, they should be able to work their way up within a company unless their is a some sort of ceiling.

Diziet

The answer is very simple - there is nothing to stop you looking for another job while you are in your current one. When you get a good offer, you move.
There is no downside to applying for jobs. Maybe you are ovethinking this a little? The time to make a decision is when you have a job offer on the table, so get to that point first. No point in staying in a job that you are unhappy in.

skallywag

If you can explain the situation in a concise and logical way, then I think you should be fine.

The bottom line for me is that you will usually need to convince your new perspective employer that you see the new position as somewhere that you yourself will be happy in, and not only with respect to the role itself, but also considering your private circumstances, such as family situation etc. An employer may manage to find the best fit to a position from a technical and soft skill perspective, but it can often turn out that you end up losing that person due to outside influences.

As an example we have hired some great people who we ended up losing relatively quickly again due to a spouse who relocated being very unhappy with their new geographical situation, and such a personal situation definitely now influences our thinking when we are taking decisions on interview candidates.

I know that many will think that having happy employees is just typical HR bullcrap, but a happy employee is much more likely to stay with you mid to long term, and hence we put a lot of thought into getting a feeling for how happy your new employee is to going to be.

All in all OP I do not think that you have too much to worry about if you were to move again right now, I believe that you should be able to explain things quite well, and sell the fact that you are ultimately looking for something mid to long term.

Misguided1

I think the original question is whether some companies will consider it a few too many jobs in a short period.
Some companies will and some won't.  There is no perfect CV and no perfect amount of time in a job.  Short stints in companies can usually be explained pretty easily.  Someone who has spent 15 years in one company may also find changing jobs a challenge as there can be a fear that they are institutionalized and mightn't hit the ground running as quickly as some who who has changed a few times.
I wouldn't over think it.  If you are not in the right job, move.  It's just not worth staying somewhere you don't want to be...

kathryn1985

Hi all,

Thank you very much for your responses. I will start applying for jobs and as above, there is no downside as the time to decide would be when there is a job offer on the table. It is good to hear that others think that there would be employers that would not rule out potentially employees with many jobs in a short space of time.

Fingers crossed and thanks again.

OMM 0000

Frequent job hopping on a CV only troubles me when I can see they are changing jobs every three months or something like that.

One or two changes after 6 months is OK.

I would hope to see a few jobs which are 2+ years though, as it suggests they can stick to something.

That's one of the reasons I like people to have a degree - it shows they are able see something through.

Phoebas

It depends.

I work in Software Development where it might take a few months for a new hire to become net productive and the recruitment process also takes up a bunch of my time.

If I think the new hire is going to up and leave within a year and I'm going to be back on the merry go round, that would put me off

skallywag

Phoebas wrote: »

If I think the new hire is going to up and leave within a year and I'm going to be back on the merry go round, that would put me off

Would certainly agree with this, particularly if the position in question is a senior position. We recently took nearly a year to fill a senior software position. While the majority of candidates ticked the technical boxes, we really needed to maximise the probability that this guy was going to be interested to stay in the position at least for duration of the project , which is ca 3 years. Waiting so long to make the final decision certainly had it's pain points, but in the end we feel we found someone who is a great fit, hence hopefully the wait will pay off.