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.
Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
11–20 of 58 posts
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#12a 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.
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.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#13The 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.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#14a 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.
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.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#15Title seems misleading. The actual reasons listed are more like, why people leave bad jobs.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#16a 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.
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 ev…
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.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#17"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
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.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ev…
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.
But why especially to fill a position that one recently filled?
The phrase, "add insult to injury" comes to mind.
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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
Re: Why Good People Leave Good Jobs
#20a 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.