Thanks!
As long as I stayed with that employer for longer than a year I would be fine, or would the period of job-hopping look bad permanently?
As long as I stayed with that employer for longer than a year I would be fine, or would the period of job-hopping look bad permanently?
If you're at a job for less than six months, the assumption people will make is that you and the company were a bad fit. "Bad fit" can be interpreted as "applicant was incompetent and hired by mistake" so, having your own explanation about why you were a bad fit helps. Maybe you don't even list this job on your resume.
If you're at a job for less than a year, then the assumption people could make is that you got a bad first performance review, and you're changing jobs now instead of getting fired later.
If you've been at a job for at least two years, then people will assume your performance has been reviewed at least twice and that if you were actually bad, you would have been fired.
If it happens once or twice and there is a good story/explanation that goes along with it that is fine, but I actively avoid candidates who switch jobs every year or so. In my opinion it takes a decent amount of time to understand everything within any given company or codebase (especially one that has a decent level of complexity or specialized knowledge). I don't want an unstable environment where people are leaving just as they begin to fully understand things to the point where they are extremely productive.
Along those same lines I think it is the responsibility of an employer to give raises that are equivalent to the salaries they would pay to poach people with a similar level of experience. If you are willing to give someone a significant raise to leave their current company you should be willing to do that for someone within your own company.
What would you say is a reasonable amount of time for an employee to stick around if an employer isn't providing pay increases?
Two years. If you came in at market value, the median market value shouldn't increase that much. Two years is also about the time to get enough experience to "level up"
But keep in mind that the majority of job switching happen unilaterally from the employee side. So that could also be a sign that the employee is not afraid to quit because she knows her value on the market.
edit: grammar
And there are also cases where a company promises a certain role or duty, the candidate joins, and then they aren't doing what they thought they'd be doing.
If you can articulate to the company your reasoning behind switching jobs, and why you're genuinely interested in the company and the value you bring, I believe you'll be alright.
Has yet to bite me in the ass (Chicago) and the experience you gain between companies (small-large, workflows/methodologies, stacks, etc) is priceless.
I'm at a point now where I need to stick around a job for at least three years.
I do believe 2 years is a great norm, 1 year for getting up to date, 1 year for giving the company a chance. But, we're in high-demand (mostly) and if you don't feel comfortable at a company, life's short, not worth staying imo.
I'd also like to point out, while I have a great track record of interviewing, it seems (pointing to the quantity of positions I've held) that I need to do a _much_ better job of asking questions about the company in the interview phase itself.
While I do feel stuck at my new job (2 mos), I have a different approach mentally for keeping myself happy.
It's all contextual/anecdotal to the person involved. Though I'll tell you, my mother is always worried about the short-term positions. Just for a personal reference.
As far as asking questions. I use a modified version of the Joel Test:https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...
Basically, getting rid of the last 2 questions and asking about automated testing, code reviews, continuous integration, etc.
I always of course ask about the technology stack and the amount of autonomy developers have.
Need to use this next time :}
Early 2012 - contract over self explanatory
Mid 2012 - I was brought in to work on a new .Net project and to convert a PHP project to .Net. Two years later they abandoned the .Net initiative and everyone was working on PHP. That wasn't a career direction I wanted to go in.
2014 - I was brought in by a manager who wanted people who would aggressively pursue change and modern best practices, they pushed him out and all of the people who didn't want to hear about change started pushing back on his hires.
So when I was looking for a job late last year, I was very specific about the technology stack I wanted and the coding practices that were in place. Ironically, I ended up accepting an offer with a company that ranked 2 out of 14 on my modified Joel Test. But I was promised the support of the manager to come in and implement best practices.
Be ready to answer questions about the reason why you quit your jobs, though. Just telling the truth is usually enough. "The commute was too much", "I was not growing/learning any more"...
If you stayed at one job for less than a year, nobody will notice or care. If you stay for 6 months at three consecutive jobs, then you might get a question about that.
Assuming that you pass that formality, the question doesn't seem to affect anyone's actual decisions afterwards. (Even though people may claim otherwise.)