Why Good People Leave Good Jobs | Hacker News Reader

Why Good People Leave Good Jobs

sciencecareers.sciencemag.org

35 pointsSmudge55 comments

"I see a lot of CVs. For years, I’ve noticed that some people—a lot of people, actually—don't stay very long at their first jobs. They may accept the job intending to retire there in 30 or 40 years, but instead they leave quickly, adding an early blemish to their CVs."

Leaving your job is considered an early blemish? Give me a break

Specifically, what you quoted says leaving your first job quickly. Obviously, "quickly" is industry-specific and the difference is in the results you produce.

In something like a biomedical lab, as a first job fresh out of university you're likely going to be something of a lab assistant, doing grunt work as you learn the ropes and work with an experienced team who has been doing this for decades. The accomplishments section of that job are likely going to be incidental with things such as "improved accuracy of testing by 58% in the first three months; reduced sample contamination from an average 1 in 23 to a notable 1 in 287 through an innovative workflow" (and bonus points if you translate that into specific business value such as cutting trial times by 9 months with an estimated savings of $15M). Nothing to sneeze at, of course, but you barely got your feet wet and any job you move to is going to be more of the same.

In a software startup, you can be doing anything and everything as a first job and, if you're an accomplished hacker with passion and have been building things in your spare time, your accomplishments will have a lot of incidentals but will be overshadowed by things such as building the product from scratch, launching it, and scaling the production environment to handle 10M paying users with peaks of 50K simultaneous users. Switching jobs at that point can be chalked up to "did something awesome, handed the project off to an experienced team for continued development, and looking for the next challenge".

Of course, there's still something to be said for being tenacious and fighting through the drudgery of ongoing maintenance. It's amazing how much you learn about how you ought to have built something when you are required to continue to grow and iterate on what you built. It's not something that someone will necessarily learn as part of their first job unless they stay with it for a while.

I think it's very different in other fields. Software developers (especially in the Bay Area) seem to switch jobs fairly often and it's definitely an accepted practice. Other fields expect you to keep a job for a far longer time.

I'll go even further and say it also differs by economic climate.

Take today's environment. Companies can't fault people for leaving their first job when they might've landed it only after several months of searching. Chances are that job isn't a good fit for the candidate, but if you're a new grad you have to pay those loans somehow.

If your job sucks, and you're not learning shit, you should leave ASAP. Then, when your next employer says

"I see you left your last job after only three months, what's up with that?"

You can respond:

"Honestly, my job sucked, I wasn't learning shit, and I thought it was bad for my career, but this place seems different"

And this so called "blemish" is an advantage.

I get what your saying, but I think if you have the balls to leave because your not learning enough, no decent employer is going to look at that as a bad thing, and if they do, you should keep searching anyways.

Edit: The difference in other fields is it is harder to find a new job, but if you were good, this probably wouldnt be a problem anyways

I actually thought a 2-year stay at a software job was a long time. In my experience, staying beyond that was pointless. After 2 years you've mostly learned everything you can learn from that position, and I've never received a raise more than 5%, so I always had to look elsewhere for better pay and new opportunities and technologies to learn. If there are companies that go out of their way to retain their software engineers, I've never been fortunate enough to work for one.

I had a 'mentor' at an early employer tell me that my first job should be like a marriage, and that fidelity was important. That piece of advice came to epitomize why I was looked for a different job.

The problem with most workplaces is that they are so big one or more persons efforts go unnoticed. I worked at a fairly large media conglomerate a while back and there were 4 people in the front-end development team, 3 people in the systems administrators team and 4 people in the backend development team. The issue with the front-end team I was in was that the guy who had been there the longest and had reached a point where he would delegate most of the work to people did nothing but got all of the credit. Occasionally some of us "other" devs would get a collective thank you, but this one developer who wasn't very good and had been there for 4 years prior got the special treatment and it caused the entire team to continuously reshuffle and it continues to do so long after I've been there (so I hear).

There are two things employers need to do to keep good workers: pay them what they're worth, if they're doing a great job and contributing to the business pay them for their dedication and hard-work, make their life easier (especially if they have a mortgage and family to feed). And lastly, make your employees feel trusted and valued. It's not always about money, but it is 50% of the total equation that equals a happy employee.

a series of 1- or 2-year stays will still hurt you. Five to 7 years at a company is a good run. Consider 2 to 3 years the minimum commitment when accepting a new job.

Is this statement accurate? At first glance it seems to be a little conservative. I ask as a potential career changer with 2.5 years in my first position, and 1.5 into my second.

This is from Science magazine. Presumably the audience is scientists, not programmers.

Having worked as both, I'd definitely say that scientists change jobs less frequently than programmers. It takes a lot longer to settle into a job, the jobs don't evolve as fast, and it can take longer than one or two years just to wrap up your first project. Data only arrive so quickly.

The supply/demand situation is also reversed: There's a surplus of scientists, and no matter what your field is there's probably not many open positions, so the odds that the alternative job of your dreams will open up during any given year are smaller.

Finally, science is organized as an international guild that respects seniority. If you hold a chair for twenty years you've got more political power. The opposite situation prevails in many subfields of software - you have to turn over your skills fairly rapidly or risk being left behind.

Agreed.

My first programming salary job (did some consulting earlier) was for ~2 years. The person who hired me gave me a series of about 12 promises about what the job would be like, and then systematically broke every one. My second job (huge raise!) only made it about a year, at which point I lost faith in that company and was sick of the long commute.

After that, I did consulting for a while, then took another job for about a year and a half, and moved on and did more consulting...repeat. I did finally land somewhere that I stayed for almost six years before eventually resigning to consult some more, but in general my jobs have all been 1-2 years at most.

I have never been questioned about why I stayed such a "short time" at those positions, and I've only rarely had trouble getting interviews when sending in my resume (the only time really was the period after 9/11, when the country was in shock and, as far as I could tell, no one was hiring). And I get offers from many of the positions I interview for.

So no, I can say categorically that, at least in software jobs, 1-2 years at a job isn't considered problematic, at least if you're otherwise a strong candidate.

I think it depends on the candidate's situation. If they had a series of 1-2 year stints at companies that were interrupted by the company going out of business I wouldn't hold that against them because it could just be bad luck.

If they were laid off repeatedly (with the company still surviving) it would make me question why their name always seemed to make it onto the layoff list.

If they changed jobs repeatedly every 1-2 years because they were bored then I'd be leery because I wouldn't be able to trust that I could give them responsibility or factor them into long range plans without them getting bored and leaving.

As a manager I would consider two years to be the minimum commitment for full time employment. If you (the candidate, in general) leave before then without extenuating circumstances I would probably skip over your resume the next time it landed on my desk down the road regardless of how much of a rock star you were.

Searching for candidates is an expensive, time-consuming process, I don't want to do it when I wasn't expecting to. Especially to fill a position that I recently filled.

I understand you need to be picky as an employer, and I still can't comprehend the crap you as an employer receive when advertising jobs and I certainly don't envy you having to go through it.

But I'm not sure you should assume a candidate who changed jobs every 1-2 years will continue doing so indefinately, especially if they have only had 2 or 3 jobs. Personal circumstances change and peoples appetite for risk generally decreases with age (and experience) especially once they pick up partners and children along their life journey. Intuitively it feels like a very bad metric for gauging if they are a longer term employee.

If you have high staff turnover the larger factor may be an environment which drives them out. Though admitedly, if you have a say on hiring and don't have a say on the employees working environment then I guess you have few options.

if you have a say on hiring and don't have a say on the employees working environment

Anyone in that position should probably be the one looking for a new job.

As someone who recruits for Electronic Arts who has far from a stellar record where the treatment and retention of staff is concerned; I would take this with a grain of salt.

I agree. A small period of time with a great employee can completely change a company. I don't think past employment length is in any way an accurate indicator of the value an employee can bring. Unless your company objective is "hire someone who will sit in this chair for 4 years, guaranteed".

Thanks. An interesting perspective from a manager.

I have a question. It stands to reason that one would want to avoid searching for candidates because it is expensive and time-consuming. But why especially to fill a position that one recently filled? Is it just sunk cost fallacy? I mean, it doesn't seem to change anything from what I can see.

There are two reasons. The first is that presumably I passed on all the other candidates to go with my selection for a reason. Now that the best candidate for the position has decided to leave I must now go back and likely revisit those who I passed over.

The time is also a big one too. It takes a long time sometimes to fill roles so the group is going to be a man down until a new person is hired.

But why especially to fill a position that one recently filled?

The phrase, "add insult to injury" comes to mind.

As a manager I would consider two years to be the minimum commitment for full time employment.

So, wait... you're saying you want employees to commit to you for 2 years, no matter how bad the job turns out to be? Ok, so are you going to commit to the employee for a minimum of 2 years, no matter how bad the employee turns out to be?

Or are you just trying to have your cake and eat it to? Employees don't exist to make your life easier, they're people, with their own dreams, hopes, goals and ambitions... why should they take one on the chin for you, if it might interfere with their pursuit of what matters to them?

Did you read the sentence after that? Hopes and dreams are great. If you leave because you're unhappy I'll wish you all the best. However if you find that the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence and re-apply after being on the job for only 9 months in the first place, I'll probably pass on you as I'll still have it in my mind that you left your old team down a man with the same work to do.

It's far from black and white. Context matters. If you're coming from another part of the company I'll check to see what projects you were on. I know a lot of good people that lost their jobs, and others who left, after they were on a string of unbelievably bad projects. But I knew the context of the work and the project they were on and ended up recently making one of the best hires my group has ever done with one of these guys.

After that point? If you're unhappy with your work, or want to try something new, I'll help you find something better. I hired you because I thought you'd be a good fit for the company and ideally I'd like that relationship to continue. To that end I'll ask the all people I know to see what's open and hopefully find you something that's engaging.

Sure, and the corollary is, if a firm lays somebody off after 6 months because their numbers for the quarter took a dip, the employee should pass on them if they come calling wanting them back.

That's a good outlook to have. Glad to hear it. That earlier bit just came off a little bit as "The employee owes us something, but we don't owe them anything in turn." All I'm saying is that "fair is fair."

My experience is that very few firms feel any sense of loyalty to their employees, but they want their employees to be loyal to them. That's what I have a problem with.

This goes against a lot of what I've read in the past, where the 1.5/2 year mark is where you re-evaluate where you are and what you want. My longest stay somewhere was 3.5 years, and that felt like an eternity given the type of work I do and how I yearn for constant growth, particularly through change.

I think it depends on who you ask.

I think it's assumed that 2+ years is a normal stepping away point. Personally I've done a nearly 7 year stint, then a 2.5 year stint, and currently nearly a year into my current position. My thoughts are that I wish I would have changed jobs more often for my first job when I was learning, to open up my mind to what was out there. Although I still think it's important to move around. 5 years seems like you're stagnating (unless you're in a position where you are driving the direction).

It does seem a bit conservative to me, which is why I submitted the link. I wanted to see whether I was alone in that thought.

Part of the disconnect may be down to industry norms. For instance, it's probably a little unusual to stick around a tech startup for 7+ years.

That said, I have colleagues who have worked in my current company (startup) for 5+ years. However, they are certainly the exception and not the norm.

IME, it's unusual to see a resume wherein almost the entirety of a senior engineer's experience is from 1 organization. I've even heard it described as a potential weakness.

IME, it's unusual to see a resume wherein almost the entirety of a senior engineer's experience is from 1 organization. I've even heard it described as a potential weakness.

I left my first job about 4 months ago; two weeks from tomorrow would have been my 10-year service anniversary. I definitely think that tenure seriously hindered my efforts to leave said organization (along with a couple other, off-topic issues).

I understand the position of those who believe that should be a weakness, but I don't agree the length of tenure in itself should be a weakness. In that not-quite-10-year period I went from being an electrical engineer, to a systems engineer[1], to a real-time software engineer. Had I parked and done the same thing for 10 years[2] I would agree that it was a weakness. Of course, that has little to do with the organization and much to do with attitude, as one could move companies but not really progress technically as well.

[1] The aerospace/defense kind, not the IT kind [2] There were lots of people who did that, for far longer

I once left a job after just three months. It was obviously not a good fit for me, but I realized that sticking around for a year, the whole "I'm going to give it a year" thing, wasn't really a good idea for anyone.

For me, having an explanation about each job change is more important than the length of time at any given position.

You know, you don't necessarily have to put that 3-month job on your resume. Leaving a 3-month gap might be better, YMMV.

Yeah, I haven't put that job on the resume for years, nobody has asked about the gap yet.

"you’ll earn the job-hopper label"

What? In the year 2012? I assume this is being written about the USA? His comment seems to come straight out of the 1980s. I remember my parents telling me stuff like this when I was a kid. But what is the actual reality in 2012? Many companies are afraid to hire and ask that people work some sort of trial period. If you do programming, most companies in New York will offer you a 90 day contract, and see if you work out. If you want to get into editorial work, a lot of magazines are insisting that you work an internship first.

The unwillingness of companies to commit to people means it is only fair if people are unwilling to commit to companies.

Besides all that, during the last 12 years I have not worked anywhere continuously for more than 18 months. I'm still flooded with offers. I suppose working for small, new firms is different than working from large ones, but I've worked for some large ones as well.

I do not doubt that there are still some large, conservative organizations in the USA that still are worried about "job hoppers" but clearly the era where this was a predominate concern is now several decades in the past.

This is complete rubbish. Take a look at my LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/jonathanconway.

Virtually nothing but 3/7/12-month stints.

I'm now making more money (and having more fun!) than ever before in my career!

The key is to keep your skills fresh and relevant to the job market, have an excellent C.V. and interview well.

Unfortunately a lot of people take on the mindset of "employees"/serfs and don't realize that every individual is a mini-business, which can benefit and profit from doing excellent work and marketing properly.

I'm going to keep up my contracting gig for as long as I can, because this is what I love doing, and I don't ever intend to "belong" to any employer.

Sigh... I think my job hits just about all of them. Although I think that would disqualify it from being a "good job".

Follow up needs to be "Why Good People Stay at Bad Jobs".

agree

OP is a wanker. Wah-wah, Millennials are entitled and don't want to do 70 hours per week of our grunt work, and they leave before they burn out and we can fire them.

People should leave jobs as soon as they realize they aren't going to learn or grow where they are. This can happen after 8 years, or 3 months. Companies don't promise to employ people for 3 years regardless of whether they are any good, so why should an employee be expected to pay dues in a job that's obviously not going to lead anywhere?

The "job hopper" stigma is perpetuated by people who only want the side of "at will" that benefits them.

I will say that most 22-year-olds need to be better at figuring out when a job is worth leaving, because I've seen error on both sides. Everyone gets grunt work when they start out, but there are chef's apprentices (who still get grunt work, but are being primed for something better) and there are dishwashers, and it's important to figure out, in an entry-level job, which of these you are. That's a separate matter altogether. I've known a few job hoppers and they're not all people with bad judgment.

That said, people should generally go into jobs with the intention and hope of being there for at least 2 years, but I think that goes without saying.

Hey Mike! Hope you're doing well.

Wah-wah, Millennials are entitled and don't want to do 70 hours per week of our grunt work, and they leave before they burn out and we can fire them.

I think you're misrepresenting OP's argument here. He's arguing that younger people with repeated job jumps may raise flags at prospective employers.

I tend to agree with OP, too. Jumping between gigs can be a problem, especially for people with little experience, since shorter job stints mean you don't get a chance to work with multiple people in the company or work on increasingly complex projects. Both can be problematic from a career development point of view.

I agree with your point about young 20-somethings, though: most probably don't know how to evaluate offers -- compensation, benefits, culture, and their bosses -- well enough when they graduate. I know I didn't.

Hey! How are you doing? I just sent you an email. Are you still at the same company?

I know what the OP's saying, and I'm probably exaggerating my normal reaction. I just feel like this idea that "job hoppers" are the problem rather than a symptom is a bit ridiculous. I don't know anyone who goes into a job intending to bolt after 1 year.

I think one of the most perverse things about the job market is that it's, in almost all companies, a lot harder to get a transfer (much less promotion) than to get a new job. Job hopping exists because companies impose timetables based on the average.

I've actually known people to look for jobs within their own companies using external recruiters because it's easier to do it that way than through the official transfer process, which often has bureaucracy and political overhead attached.

That was the driving reason I ultimately left my first company. I had success in the first several years either getting promoted or new internal positions, but hit a wall about 3 years ago in a position that slowly made me miserable. I got negative progress in my efforts to find another internal position.[1]

I never did that, but I thought about it a couple times.

[1] I was basically labelled "disloyal" for wanting to find a new position.

> OP is a wanker. Wah-wah, Millennials are entitled and don't want to do 70 hours per week of our grunt work, and they leave before they burn out and we can fire them.

Insults and straw men don't belong here.

OP is a wanker. Wah-wah

The rest of your post was really good, you don't need to debase it with that kind of pointless drivel.

On the contrary - I thought it was a pretty accurate description of the article, especially when you have statements like:

  Expect to spend 2 to 3 years learning how the company works,
  though it may be longer before opportunities arise.

And people think millenials are entitled. Sheesh.

I've posted before how I saved a previous employer millions of dollars. That was mostly during the 3-9 month period after I joined. Their response was...nothing. After a bunch of politicking, I got offered a promotion doing work I didn't want to do, with a timeline of getting promoted about 9 more months after my major accomplishment. And companies wonder why their best employees leave.

I may be unusual, but it doesn't take me 2-3 years to get a sense of how a company works. I won't know all the details, because no one can, but I can generally figure out what the company values and who the players are (and whether I have a chance of joining them) pretty quickly. Taking 2 years to figure out whether an opportunity is worth pursuing isn't honorable; it's a way to get overinvested in what would otherwise be minuscule mistakes.

If the game is worth playing, you have to execute and that takes time. That can take 2-5+ years. Whatever the vision is, it's going to take a lot of effort to put it together. But you can usually figure out when a game is not worth playing in a couple of months. I'm not saying that people should quit a job after a shitty week because even the best jobs have bad spells, but people shouldn't waste time because of a need to keep up a false appearance of loyalty. Again, it comes down to this: are you the chef's protege, or are you washing dishes?

I don't have a problem with the message. I have a problem with the tone.

But not a problem with the tone or content of the original article? Maybe it's because I'm Australian, but if the OP is a wanker, I don't see a problem with calling him on it.

The tone of the original article isn't as relevant as that's not as directly a part of the community as the comments here.

If the article doesn't belong, then it should be flagged, right?

I've always viewed staying at the same company for a very long time (10+ years) as a potential red flag. Your fastest growth comes from a new company or new position. And anecdotally, most of the more successful people I know have had an average job tenure of 2-4 years.

>a series of 1- or 2-year stays will still hurt you

At my last job I helped in the process of interviewing for an embedded USB developer position. It was extremely difficult to find people with that expertise. I remember one candidate in particular had 13 jobs over a 20 year career with the most time spent at one company being just under five years. When we all gathered at the end of the day to discuss the candidate I brought this up and my manager and he admitted he noticed this but filling the position was so difficult he didn't care. My takeaway from this was if you have a sought-after skill no one cares how long you stayed at previous jobs.

I don't think the author mentioned personal reasons.

There are definitely important reasons to leave a good job that are not related to the job at all.

We still have personal lives.

Why is that question interesting? To me, it's like asking why water is wet. "Good people" leave "good jobs" for an unimaginably large array of reasons. I've left good jobs to go back to school, to start a company, to take time off, because I was bored, etc.

I guess other things being equal, employers would prefer employees who they think will stay with them longer. I mean I would if I were an employer. But other things are not equal, and I am not sure how important this consideration is.

Ive heard people making hiring decisions at various companies make the statement "oh, this guys been at company X for 5 years and didn't move around even in the company? He's probably not any good"

Moral of the story, who cares what's the "right" amount of time to be at a job. Enjoy what you do, do it well, and it will reflect on you accordingly.

Title seems misleading. The actual reasons listed are more like, why people leave bad jobs.

I think the sub-text is why they leave "jobs that look good on paper".

"When does a high-status / high-pay position become a 'bad job'?"

Its hard to make a blanket statemnet. The value of the article is it dimensionalizes the problem a bit.

One benefit of having many different jobs is that you meet a lot of awesome people in your field. And if you actually are good, then these ex-colleagues will probably invite you to new opportunities when they hop themselves.

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