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No candidate is interviewing for a job already having made up their mind about whether they are going to stay for 6 months or 10 years. If you are trying to somehow filter on that you are just wasting your own time.

People stay or quit based on factors during the job. Is the salary good? Is the company growing? Are their career goals being met? Is the management competent? Are they feeling burnt out? Focus on all of these and retention will automatically go up.

Maybe a junior straight out of boot camp doesn't know what they'll be doing in six months -- but generally people have some kind of intent, eg, "I'd like to have a stable job for the next three years" or something along those lines.

I don't think GP is asking a candidate to know whether they'll stay for years at GP's org -- they're asking that the candidate have the intention of staying ~somewhere~ for a longer stint.

I'm not saying this is the case for you, but often when companies have recurring problems with retention it's because of some underlying issue: culture, perceived lack of professional development opportunities, low pay, etc.

These issues might affect even new hires joining with the best of intentions.

I mean it is extremely likely it is a problem with the company. We don't know how many "a rash of folks" is but sounds like at least 3 or 4 and at that point it's not just bad luck. Most people don't want to work somewhere for a year and leave, they do it because something better comes along.

Changing jobs often was a common advice though to ramp up your salary.

Which is only the case because the companies don't keep current employees' pay up to market rate. It's a problem with the company.

When the market rate salary increases 5-10% a year, year over year, and you're giving 2-3% raises, it's no surprise people leave for a 30% range after a few years.

(Writing this to address the several similar astute responses)... You're not wrong that there is an underlying, systemic, contributing issue on our companies side affecting retention. Our compensation/benefits are well above industry standard and our culture is very friendly and transparent (and I came from a place that was not thos things). In exist interviews, most employees are just saying that they want to expand their skiĺls by working in a new field (or something that aligns more deeply with their interests), and I certainly don't fault them for that. I think we could probably thwart that loss of talent if those feelings about wanting to grow professionally were recognized earlier and we worked together on a plan to achieve those goals. Maybe, maybe not.

I'm relatively new myself (1.5 yrs in) and we're in a growth phase, but the organization lacks structure for communication to flow efficiently. It's a problem we are actively working to fix via restructuring. That being said, when a candidate resume is received and there is a history of job-hopping, we will generally pass on that resume.

> Our compensation/benefits are well above industry standard

I've definitely heard companies saying this when it wasn't the case, "industry standard" means different things to different people I guess, and also depends what country you're hiring from.

Are you giving 5-10% raises every year to keep folks in line with market rate for new hires? Are you giving large bonuses that meaningfully affect people's lives? I've worked places where the "bonuses" were $500 or $1000 for people paid $150k/yr.

Very few people interview thinking "I'm going to take all the info I can here then leave in a year." Most people want to work somewhere for a long time and become an expert and master their craft. The most rewarding job I had I was there for almost 8 years and the last 2-3 I was really in the zone and felt like I could do anything.

There's an old saying about how if you're constantly smelling shit you need to check your own shoes. If a bunch of people come then leave, look at your own house first before assuming it's something wrong with them.

> and we've had a rash of folks come in, learn what they can, and then depart, leaving us to repeat the cycle all over again. It's taking a toll, so we're actively seeking people who are committed to the long run so that the energy we invest in education has a decent return.

In my experience this may be a sign that your company does not offer anything that retains people.

If people conclude that there is no growth opportunity and/or that the overall conditions are poor they will leave within 2 years even if they want to be committed for the long run.

I agree. This can partly be caught by screening - serial job hoppers may not be a good fit - but it’s more commonly a reflection of lack of dedication to the employee. I’ve been at my current job going on 11 years, it’s not like I planned on that, it’s that it’s a great place to work with smart people, interesting work, good pay, and just the right balance of pressure and work/life balance. If people aren’t hanging around, you are probably missing one or more of these components. I have seen senior staff evaporate from places when they merge and some component vital to employee well-being goes away. Companies that provide all this are definitely the exception, not the norm.

Inline with many adjacent comments, I think companies could genuinely do more to offer an incentive to stay for the long haul. What worked for past generations isn't enough in the current age where inflation/cost of living have significantly outpaced wages.

On a nominal basis I would expect to make more money in 10 years by switching companies every few than sticking around at one company for the duration. Beyond that, a lot of companies don't really care about what kind of growth/trajectory you want. It seems most employers are looking to fill a role and could care less about growing/developing your talent in new/existing ways.

Employers will need to really make an effort to understand their employees and connect with their needs/wants for them to stick around for the long haul. Maybe that's a tall ask, but offering a salary/healthcare/retirement is the norm now and isn't necessarily competitive in itself.

Can I really count on my employer to honor my well-being and interests or are they going to string me along until they don't need me? I think it's perfectly fair for employees to do the same, it's a two-way street.

In the 60's and 70's, people stuck around for the long haul to collect their pensions.

Once that game ended, all bets were off.

How many people looking for jobs though have a 10 year stint with a company on their resume? It's probably pretty uncommon outside of some traditional tech employers like IBM where I know people who have been there for 25+ years.

On the other hand, if the resume is all 1-3 year segments, yeah, there's no reason to think you're going to be different.

10 years might not be common though I see a few. I generally feel better seeing 3-5 years stints.

I've got a 10 year stint on the resume, but I doubt for various reasons I will ever have another. After that experience, I've learned the importance of jumping before the layoff hits, though of course that's very hard in the current market.

I'm not the OP but I think you're looking at it backwards. It's not that you're looking for a 10 year commitment, it's that you're looking for someone who isn't planning to leave in 1-2 years. At my place we actively discard resumes of people who never stick around for longer than 2 years even when they're a good candidate. The investment we put into the hire and the amount of pain caused when someone leaves means it is difficult to hire those people. We've never hired to increase or maintain headcount, we have always aimed to fill specific positions.

As a side effect, a good 10% of our employee base is at 10+ years (including me at 12) and around half the company is at 5+. Which is incredible considering the company is only 17 years old.

What kind of organization culture do you have where someone leaving after two years causes an "amount of pain" and you have to spend considerable resources on-boarding new hires? That sounds like a deeper problem to me.

I tend to work pretty short stints at places, but in the vast majority of cases am shipping things to prod the first week or so and building and releasing revenue generating products in the first 6 months. Most of the places I've left, even after a short tenure, are continuing the work I started just fine and generally get lasting value from a even a year of my time.

With few exceptions, most of the teams I've left are sad to see me go, but that doesn't diminish the befit my time there has provided.

On the other hand most of the people I know that have worked 7+ years at a place aren't particularly engaged in the products and certainly aren't keeping up with major industry trends/changes/etc, and generally just go to work each morning without leaving much of an impact. Even at places like Google, most of the 10+ year people (with some notable exceptions) are the "rest and vest" types.

I'm coming up on 10 years in my current position, and there are a lot of people just like me at this company. As well as a number of lifers with 20+ years at the company. It doesn't seem all that uncommon, but this is just an established mid-size software company that owns their niche, and not a silicon valley tech darling.

I'm starting to gear up for a job search myself, and I'm definitely going to be looking for quality places where I think the odds are good I can do another 10 year stretch happily. I don't job hob any more.

I have a 9-year and a 10-year stint on my resume. I am not looking for a job, though.

Pay enough so it doesn't make sense to hop jobs.

At this point, pay whatever you think just below market is and let candidates know they get a 10-15% raise at 6 months and 12 months, and 5-10% at 18 months and 24 months. Show them a comp schedule for their targeted salary, and give them a decent signing bonus with a repayment policy if they quit in the first year.

Solves the problem of hires wanting to jump ship even if they started 10-20% below their target salary but know that committing can get them decently above their target salary in a year

I would never trust a company to give me a raise like that. Management would just deny it when they want to save money on payroll.

I’ve had so many people promise things and have someone else them prevent them from following through.

I’ve had a department head reporting to the CEO try to keep me but HR wanted me gone. HR knew how to play politics and I was gone.

Ask to get it in writing. Then you’ll see how serious they are.

This.

Actually, I'm suggesting the top-level poster explicitly state they do this, so candidates know they aren't fucking around.

insert meme *Don't give me hope*

In an idealist world, you're the perfect employer and I should be your employee. I want to believe that these employers exist but my conventional wisdom says, they are just textbook version, real world is different.

A little bit about me: In my 12 yoe (still at same place with steady growth), worked 6 years for one team, built a framework. one SE was dumping his new projects and moving to fresh ones while I get to maintain them, soon moved to different team. I stayed, maintained, stabilized, scaled, tuned, left only after then to different team (actually I'm the only one) to work on a new product. Again same situation, many have joined and left, few after 1 year and none of them contributed anything significant to the product. None of them cared about the product or the company, just optimizing for their career and pay. But then what's the passion in it if you don't care about what you've built and make it better.

I'm now pivoting to new team (don't know yet) planning to build something again from scratch. I'm optimizing for my passion, but some where deep inside I'm worried about my future prospects because of long haul.

We need more devs like you.

thanks. I want to see more devs like me. I call it - owners mindset.

Wanting someone who will stay for the long haul makes sense, but it leaves me as an unemployed engineer with two options:

- Stay unemployed until I find a job that seems interesting enough to work there for years. Apply, get rejected because companies don't like hiring unemployed people.

- Get a job that I don't like, then be constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to leave. Get rejected because I haven't been on my job for long enough.

What should I do?

Leave. If you have an opportunity to, then by definition it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at your current job.

If you need the money, get the job that you don’t like, but then spend your time looking for the job that you’ll find interesting anyway. Life is too short to not earn your living with something you find interesting.

That's an interesting perspective. I wonder if the screening rejections/silence have anything to do with the history seen on the resumes; eg, 10 yrs of experience in 1 to 2 year stints, vs having worked in only two orgs but for say 4 and 6 years.

I've always heard that the best strategy to raise your salary is to change jobs every couple of years. Could this be the flip-side of that?

Yes change jobs every few years to raise salary and gain breadth. But it is crucial, nay critical, that at some point you stay somewhere for 4 years or more.

Nothing teaches you software architecture like dealing with your own crap from 3+ years ago. You cannot call yourself an experienced engineer if you haven’t done this.

Yes one down side of job hopping is people will be hesitant to hire you if they are looking for someone more stable

Sure. If I look at a resume with 1-2 year stints, I ask myself if it's OK if this person leaves after a couple of years. There was one case where a hiring committee I was on basically said "Yeah, they're worth it" (and they actually ended up staying a lot longer). But, generally, the answer is no.

Purely from an economics point of view, yes job hopping tends to net you larger pay raises and promotions.

I think the flip side is that you won't build a reputation with 1 year stints at 10 companies. I currently work with a VP of product who's only stayed max 1 year at their last 6 companies, and I can feel the lack of engagement and ownership since the day they joined. So I definitely resonate with GP's point.

What makes everything worse is that at the end of the day, you'll never get straight feedback from someone on why they left so soon. Laying bare all the issues serves little purpose when you're leaving a company, so I end up thinking most companies have very skewed views of retention and hiring. It's not an open conversation since both parties have selfish interests.

Everyone needs to think for themselves what they're maximizing for. For me, I feel like my reputation is worth way more than any single job, so I try to avoid jumping around too much.

When I was hiring yes it absolutely was something I looked at. If a candidate had only 1-2 year stints at a bunch of places, why would I expect my experience with them to be any different?

And yes, it there is definitely a mindset that jumping companies frequently is the best path to higher salary. There is even some truth to that, people who don't know you may value perceived potential higher than the company that knows you well. That said, if you do it too much you do risk ending up in the "jumps ship too frequently" pool and you'll start to be overlooked.

I wasn't looking for 5-10 years from an employee, I don't think that's realistic today. But somewhere in 2-4 for sure. Jumping after 4 years is pretty common as it's a frequent vesting cliff, even at large companies.

Retention is a problem with your company, not with candidates.

If you need people to stay 5 years then give them a gracious 5 year vesting schedule

Money and interest. There's only one reason we all work; to make money so we can pay bills. Otherwise we'd just sit at home and work on our own personal projects all day. You want people to stay 5-10 years, you have to keep their pay better than market. Secondary to that, you have to have interesting projects to work on.

Seems everyone is making guesses or assumptions, so I'll just ask - why do you believe new hires are leaving so quickly? Have any of them explained why? If so, what is their feedback like?

How do you filter for that at the resume/interview stage? Beyond just looking for resumes that don't have a lot of jumping around?

Even that's not a great signal. I have a strong preference for staying longer at a place, but that's not always possible.

It could be wise to favour the candidates with poorer interview skills, as they're less likely to be able to leave.

So when you say it’s mostly at the resume phase, does that mean if you see a lot of 1-2 year stints you move on?

Sounds like you want to recruit and retain like a bank.

Good luck.

The age of committing yourself to a company for ten years is over. That’s a recipe for obsoleting yourself ten times over. You’ll also miss out on the best talent, since by definition they have lots of options. I wouldn’t want to work at a place that filters by that criteria, on that basis alone.

It might seem like this is a reasonable thing to you, especially right now that the season is tough for programmers. But it’s an illusion.

Best talent that constantly rotates is useless when the projects you work on demand long term input from people with deep knowledge of existing systems. It's like hiring champion 100 meter sprinters to run marathons...