Other Pineapple Smurf
Honorary Master
I know what Cerebus does so it looks less risky in his environment but do agree that all look bad in the end.
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Job hopping
- Thread starter cerebus
- Start date
I know what Cerebus does so it looks less risky in his environment but do agree that all look bad in the end.
Other Pineapple Smurf
Honorary Master
If its a 5% jump then it looks bad, if its a 50% jump then once is fine, twice shows you are after the money. Actually, I would never mention it.
I only mention once on my CV that I moved because of money and that was for a 50% increase.
grok
Honorary Master
This.
Been in consulting ever since my engineering days & jobs usually only last as long as the project lasts. Seldom been at a company more than 2-3 years, mostly working for the same contract house during that time but on different projects at different clients. Nothing strange for a project to only last a few months, the length of time needed to finish a specific deliverable. Job hopping is my life, in fact staying too long might be more questionable in my industry.
Just counted, my CV states I've done 32 distinct projects through my career. That's 17 different employers in 25 years & I'm currently interviewing again - tired of traveling looking to work closer to home for a while.
For permanent employees, the more total experience there is, the more a job hopping trend becomes visible, and even ~3 years looks too short. E.g. Looking for a new job after 2 in four years doen't look as bad as someone looking for a 4th job in 9 years. Apart from the onboarding and offboarding costs, which the company has to foot, having many samples says a lot about the employee. It says that they either weren't valued enough by the company to justify market related increases, and/or that they were likely incompetent and/or the employee gets bored easily and/or chases incremental increases due to a constant expectation of not being valued. Sure, companies are often to blame, but with enough total time, the only invariant becomes the employee.
Chevron
Serial breaker of phones
Never mention that. They'll think you'll leave soon as you get offered something better.
You're starting to sound like a job hopper now.
Edited: cguy explains it better than I.
mercurial
MyBB Legend
I don't get why people are judged by wanting to change jobs for more money. Times are tough. Costs go up and companies offer a measly 5% increase annually. That's a joke. They only have themselves to blame.
There's nothing wrong with changing jobs for more money if your company isn't paying you what you are worth. Not all companies are like this though, and once you've gone through enough of them, it becomes clear that either the employee is the problem, or that the employee makes really poor career choices (generally not orthogonal to the first point).
Chevron
Serial breaker of phones
Because who wants to hire someone that's just gonna leave in a year anyway?
OMB
Mountain Man
money is usually not the real cause of why people will leave an organisation, it's usually a combination of many factors of which money is only one. If there's a sense that you only move for money then that would indicate that you are mercenary and will likely move for the next increase in what you get in your back pocket (just like an artisan, they're notoriously mercenary) this means you are a flight risk and companies seldom invest in flight risks unless they have a rare skill set (unfortunately we're horrifically short of artisan skills in this country at the moment)
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mercurial
MyBB Legend
No, I totally get it from a company's perspective. No issues there. Just grates my carrot sometimes.
Kosmik
Honorary Master
As an employer, I would say the same, up to one year and just over. 2 years I'd say no but that's because junior IT tend to hop to climb ranks as rarely can you climb quickly in same company.
I am in my 4th job in a two and half year span. First job I was doing flash development, then when to do .Net at a company where I just did not fit into and had no support as a raw junior. Left that and worked for 11 months at a company that does not value its developers and my boss explicitly told me there is no scope for growth for me at the company.
So I may come across as a hopper but circumstances can force you to find alternatives. What I have seen in my short career is not many companies are willing to give juniors a shot, as I had to start of with flash to get going.
So I may come across as a hopper but circumstances can force you to find alternatives. What I have seen in my short career is not many companies are willing to give juniors a shot, as I had to start of with flash to get going.
You cannot really tell much about an employee based on how often they move because there is fairly common company behaviour involved too. It can just as easily be said that the ones who stay longer are lazy or incompetent or afraid of change while the more ambitious and competent people just move on because they've learnt the lesson that most of the time the only way to get ahead is to change where they work.
In fact what are called market related increases are generally the lowball figures offered to existing employees, whereas companies will pay more for the same quality employee when bringing someone in from outside, because they compete to get those people, but they tend to take their existing employees for granted. The longer those employees stay the more the company knows believes they can take advantage of them. Giving existing employees lower increases is fairly typical.
I hear this often, but it is not generally true. Some people will stay even though the pay is bad in spite their excellent skills and quality work. Others will leave because they're more ambitious or less afraid of change. Companies are mercenary, so employees should be too. Everyone should make their employer feel they're a flight risk, so employees get some incentive to make an effort to retain them. Companies in fact shoot themselves in the foot, then do the other foot, so the holes match nicely. An employee will stay for a year, then see their increase and hear talk from other employees that such meagre increases are typical. At that point one of two things happen, the employee realises there is no point making an effort or they start thinking seriously about moving on. Sometimes they'll put in some extra effort during the second year thinking that will bring them a better increase. When the end of year two rolls around and their increase confirms what they've been hearing, they go. It's at this point that they discover that a move brings a juicy jump in pay. Or worse they stay because they can't be bothered to leave and do the bare minimum needed to avoid getting dismissed. This whole thing becomes a vicious cycle.
OMB
Mountain Man
actually you're making some broad sweeping generalisations that just aren't true, any reasonable organisation (and I know not all organisations are reasonable) will have a talent management strategy in place to mitigate a lot of the factors that you have mentioned. Your view in my experience is particularly prevalent among employees in companies that don't have decent strategies in place.
My comments in my previous post are well documented in regular research across many industries.
Such strategies are incredibly rare. And remember the reason a business exists - to make money. If they can pay you the bare minimum that will keep you from quitting, they will. Very few businesses give out deserved raises - they generally wait until you resign and then counter offer you.
OMB
Mountain Man
I have to disagree with you, perhaps they're rare in the IT industry, but there's plenty of organisations that have a talent strategy and processes in place
They are rare in the IT industry. I think they are also rare in smaller companies. But then its well known (and statistically proven) that larger organizations pay better.
Even in your organisation, when people leave, do they get paid more? If the answer to that is yes, then they were underpaid. If a candidate approaches a company and finds out that they are not willing to pay him more than he is already getting, then he is getting paid at market rates for his services. Guess how often this happens?
OMB
Mountain Man
It really can't be said just as easily. The ones who stay are lazy and incompetent, and the ones who move on are the competent people? Sure, "it happens", but if you think that that this is common, or the way a successful business operates, you must be smoking something really good.
Once again, this isn't the way a successful business operates - good employers try to price their good employees out of the market. There may be an initial pay bump offered to get someone to move, but whether or not this stays the same or continues to be competitive, really depends on how much the company wants to retain the employee.
There is a lot of psychological bias in these "my employer doesn't value me" arguments - most employees believe that they are significantly better than the median. Employees that job hop tend to believe that all their previous employers didn't value them enough. My experience tells me that the invariant in these situations is the employee, not some bizarre uniformly adopted self-destructive compensation policy - the latter simply isn't sustainable.