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Comment by mauving | Hacker News Reader

> [...] Jobs are "sticky" [...]

My experience has been the opposite, in that sticky jobs are jobs held by people who aren't in demand. There's a balancing act for employers ("brilliant but flighty" is less desirable than "good but sticky") so it's certainly possible to argue that jobs being sticky for less-than-brilliant people is a good thing... but in my experience, jobs aren't sticky because of inertia for brilliant people.

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I mean, I won't claim the 'brilliant' label, but I am competent and in-demand, and my experience is just what the OP laid out. Once I started interviewing, opportunities came left and right. Getting starting interviewing was a hump though, and there IS always the fear of landing somewhere that seems good, but isn't, especially if your current job ONLY lacks for adequate compensation.

You might be right. As a counter-argument I can only offer my anecdata of being a contractor who has met quite a few people deep in the bowels of large enterprises who I would class as brilliant, but who are coming up on five, ten and sometimes fifteen year anniversaries. Perhaps they do have good reasons for staying, but whatever they are those reasons are they are out of reach of my make-as-much-money-as-fast-as-you-can monkey brain :)

I think you'll find a fair number of people who like their work, are comfortable where they are, and feel like they make enough money. And don't really care that they could maybe make more somewhere else.

I also expect that the moving around every 2 years meme is pretty influenced by Silicon Valley. It certainly isn't the norm I've seen.

I think people who are "brilliant" at interviewing will job hop frequently, while people who are "brilliant" at actual job performance will tend to be promoted and incentivized to stay internally.

This just isn't true. Find me any data that any level of performance results in better compensation than changing jobs every 2-4 years and I'd be willing to at least consider the idea, but it just doesn't exist.

It's not sufficient to make 1% more money. If it's not a 20%+ increase, you might as well bide your time. This means the first, lower paying job, is sticky. Otherwise you could leave instantly at every better offer without penalty to long term prospects.

And even for those brilliant people who can get it on the first try, you're taking about 2 months minimum to go through the interview process. If you're someone who doesn't like taking risks, that's a tall order until you've become convinced there is no path to promotion within your company.

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