1–10 of 89 posts
Please Jobhop as much as Possible
angryasian.posterous.com
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
I'm not sure that's such a bad thing, yet I wouldn't say that what we have today is bad either, I suppose they're just two equilibriums. The problem more likely lies in the transition from one to the other: employees that expect to be treated with loyalty and are summarily dumped with a few years left before retirement, or employers who invest a lot in employees and expect to see them stick around because of it.
This is pretty off topic, but I'm not particularly a fan of 'loyalty' to countries either. Most people happen to be born in a particular one; at least a company is something that you likely chose.
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
what makes it possible to be loyal to a country? a country is just a bureaucratic + economic entity you randomly get assigned to.
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
what makes it possible to be loyal to a country? a country is just a bureaucratic + economic entity you randomly get assigned to.
There are people who want loyalty and dedication above all else -- both from themselves and from their workers and employers. Then there are people who want challenge, risk, excitement, and travel.
From what I've seen, if you want to learn meta-tech (and not just tech in your neck of the woods) you need to get out among a bunch of different industries and job situations and start learning.
Or put a different way: as one of those people, I get approached all the time for full-time jobs. The conversation goes like this "We see that you have experience working in X, Y, and Z, and you have industry experience in A, B, and C. You also have been in G, H, and I job positions. We are desperate to have somebody with these experiences and skills, but all we find are people with a lot of experience in just one of these areas. Would you consider a full-time job?"
My reply is this: if I were the type of person to consider a full-time job, I would not be the type of person who had all those things you want. Full-time jobs are stability -- stable platform, stable work environment, stable job position, stable insurance, stable retirement. Things may start off chaotic (as in a startup) but the goal is to reach stability.
I've been parachuting into situations where the building is on fire and saving the baby. It's like startup work all year round -- and for dozens of different highly-rated companies. And by the way, the rates are great too.
Do that for a while. Learn what you like and what you don't. Then start looking for stability. Don't sell yourself out too soon in the name of loyalty and stability.
EDIT: And I know a lot of folks from those companies who only wanted stability and loyalty and ended up on the street after ten years with very little in the way of marketable skills. Don't fool yourself: IT is a risky and always-changing business. Stability and long-term jobs are an illusion.
The whole concept of loyalty towards a corporation is off. You can have loyalty to family, to friends, to a country but never to an economic entity whose only purpose (on paper) is profit. I think that professionalism and well-defined internal rules should be the only things expected by employers.
I don't see the problem with being a job hopper except it sounds really hard to jump jobs once a year or more often considering it takes about half a year to get settled into a new job. Personally I've set myself a 5 year limit as max time to work at one company before moving. This is part of my not-form-lifelong-habits program. So even if I do have my dream job I force myself to leave after 5 years. Forced perspective is good for you, you should always try to push forward and you can't do that by sitting tight in a job.
I would be skeptical about hiring someone who switched jobs 6 times the last 5 years, but I'd be even more skeptical hiring someone at 30 with less than 5 jobs on their CV as that might suggest them being lazy sods who didn't have summer jobs etc.