Job hopping - is it a good idea?

In recent years, I have seen a substantial increase in the number of job hoppers. I class a job hopper as someone who stays at companies for less than two years before moving on. On many CV's now, people are staying for less than a year before moving on. They tend to be people under thirty and whilst I understand the need to move on for career progression, there are a number of reasons for thinking twice before leaping into another role after six months or so. These are:

1) If you are in a company for under a year, the company has not had enough time to really assess you or give you further opportunities. These rarely come along immediately as the company needs to see how you perform before giving you more responsibility. 

2) Companies will steer clear of interviewing people whose track record is bitty as they expect you will leave them too after a short while. They don't see any reason why they should invest management time and effort in someone, who won't stay around long enough for them to reap a reward on their investment.

3) Jumping from job to job shows someone,in theory, who can't make good decisions about their life choices, which then makes companies worry about the kind of person you are. Do you have resilience? Do you have staying power when the going gets rough or tough decisions have to be made? How much backbone do you have?

4) Jumping around also makes a company think that maybe you are having to move because you aren't very good at your job.

In this day and age of the internet, people are used to having their expectations met immediately and in most aspects of our lives now, we don't have to be patient and wait for results. Unfortunately, sometimes we still do and I think that developing a career is one of those areas. Companies aren't just going to give you the job of CEO because you think you want it. You have to prove to them that you can do it first and sometimes it's a gradual process that takes a few years. 

If you do have to move jobs frequently through no fault of your own - eg redundancy - always put the reason for leaving on your CV so that the recruiter can see the narrative and understand the reasons. 

Happy job hunting and have a great week!

Jeanette Robinson