Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

thebalancecareers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 100 posts

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#31

Post by fivre »

noitsnot wrote: post #15
yibg wrote: post #11

Personally I find it harder to switch jobs often as I go up the ladder. There are just fewer positions and it gets more difficult to go directly into a high level position at a new company. This applies to both ICs and management. E.g most VPs and distinguished engineers stick around pretty long.

I feel like when you're outside of let's say a Fortune 500-ish type of company, there are no 'levels' and a manager will always attempt to minimise pay/budget and absolutely will not bring up promotion. The structure of the company isn't there unless there is decent turnover and there is rarely the growth needed to create new positions. Promotion / pay is most likely initiated on the employee end. It's easier just to…

Yeah, this. It's simply not worth it for a manager a company with less structure to entertain the idea of giving you a raise, even if you're underpaid, certainly not if you don't demand it. Even then they won't give you much.

I got a <10% raise after much haggling at one company and a 50% raise by switching companies into a lower-stress position. Maybe it's better at companies with a defined career ladder, but it's not worth it to stay elsewhere.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#32

Post by WilliamEdward »

luckylion wrote: post #29
Pfhreak wrote: post #20

> Millennials are labeled lazy, self-entitled, and, therefore, responsible for high turnover rates in the labor market. Who are they supposed to be loyal to? Certainly not their employer, who is squeezing every cent of labor value from their work. I'd understand this attitude if companies took care of their people or if the person was part of a worker's coop. Also, anecdotally, job hopping has been incredibly lucrati…

> Certainly not their employer, who is squeezing every cent of labor value from their work. > Also, anecdotally, job hopping has been incredibly lucrative for me. It seems both sides are simply maximizing their value here.

The employer almost always makes more money than the employee and is the one profiting from the worker. It is not an equal comparison and the worker will always make less than the money they bring in to the company.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#33

Post by AmericanChopper »

asdff wrote: post #25
Pfhreak wrote: post #20

> Millennials are labeled lazy, self-entitled, and, therefore, responsible for high turnover rates in the labor market. Who are they supposed to be loyal to? Certainly not their employer, who is squeezing every cent of labor value from their work. I'd understand this attitude if companies took care of their people or if the person was part of a worker's coop. Also, anecdotally, job hopping has been incredibly lucrati…

Anecdotally among my fellow millennials across different fields who've jobbed hopped, few did it for the promotion, most did it because they were being exploited and depressed. Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits because people are just that desperate to get a job that whittles down ye olde student loan and has a hea…

> Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits

If job hopping is a viable strategy (which it certainly is in some sectors), then that is literally proof that they can’t get away with this. That’s not to say that every company out there is actually going to figure out the source of their staff retention problems, but the fact that those problems exist for employers is really the only way such conditions will improve.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#34

Post by bryanrasmussen »

cauthon wrote: post #3

I don’t think this article makes the right comparison to determine whether people switch jobs more often “these days”. They only go back to the mid 2000s. When I hear or talk about the idea that people change jobs more frequently now, I definitely include people who started working then, and I don’t think a decade is sufficient time to see a trend in tenure. I’d be more interested in a comparison between the 00s/10s…

well I remember articles from the beginning of the century talking about how much more job switching there was nowadays, with comparisons to the 60s 70s 80s, my memory suggesting that the trend was generally suggested to have started in the 90s.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#35

Post by moneywoes »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #26
laurieg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead of training up people with weaker skills we are just happy to see them out on the kerb? They had jobs already, so how bad could they really have been?

In my experience, people who want to develop their skills tend not to struggle much with employment. The people who I’ve personally seen get the most frustrated are the kind of people who don’t understand why their colleagues are upset about the 15,000 unfixable linting errors in their React spaghetti, and who proudly announce in standup that they fixed the failing pipeline by commenting the tests out. I’m sure we’ve…

As a recent grad looking to get a job and avoid those errors, do you have any resources or suggestions? Maybe like the book clean code?

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#36

Post by tiglionabbit »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #32
luckylion wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly not their employer, who is squeezing every cent of labor value from their work. > Also, anecdotally, job hopping has been incredibly lucrative for me. It seems both sides are simply maximizing their value here.

The employer almost always makes more money than the employee and is the one profiting from the worker. It is not an equal comparison and the worker will always make less than the money they bring in to the company.

Then we should all start our own business, right?

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#37

Post by diN0bot »

guynamedloren wrote: post #23
papito wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The raises in tech are pretty high if you are starting out and stand out among your peers. You can easily nail a 25K raise if you are underpaid. My first job, I requested so little money, they gave me MORE. But I learned a ton, and then my salary took off like a rocket. But there IS a ceiling. At some point your salary flatlines as you become very expensive.

The question is.. where is that ceiling? I'm thinking about next steps in my career and wondering if I've already hit that ceiling, or at least a local maximum (barring a switch to FAANG). Perhaps the best way to know is spend the time talking to potential employers?

Talk to recruiters, as they can tell you what to expect at the companies they’re recruiting for, and to some extent in general.

Also your network and online databases and discussions. Some info is public, some info is more available if you can find a private professional community.

If you want to email me I can calculate what to ask for based on my research and experience working with a wide range of engineers.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#38

Post by newswasboring »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #33
asdff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally among my fellow millennials across different fields who've jobbed hopped, few did it for the promotion, most did it because they were being exploited and depressed. Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits because people are just that desperate to get a job that whittles down ye olde student loan and has a hea…

> Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits If job hopping is a viable strategy (which it certainly is in some sectors), then that is literally proof that they can’t get away with this. That’s not to say that every company out there is actually going to figure out the source of their staff retention problems, but the fact…

The existence of job hopping does not negate existence of abuse. Because the baseline is, and in my understanding, will remain low. You will get some extra money but that 50 hour will turn to 55. People are so crushed by their loans that they will just see the dollar amount because at some point sadness over amount of work saturates. I am just as depressed at 50 hours a week as I am at 55 hours a week. Of course eventually it creeps up to no weekends and 80 hours. But people don't feel it because it happens gradually and they have by that point acquired more debt for a house and maybe they have kids.

Also for the lower end jobs there is an infinite supply of people when the current lot eventually burns out.

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#39

Post by newswasboring »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #36
WilliamEdward wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employer almost always makes more money than the employee and is the one profiting from the worker. It is not an equal comparison and the worker will always make less than the money they bring in to the company.

Then we should all start our own business, right?

That's the dream, isn't it? Like a network of microservices. And we must realize that a few hundred years ago that was the default (well, if you were not a slave of some description).

Re: Job Tenure and the Myth of Job Hopping

#40

Post by VRay »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #33
asdff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally among my fellow millennials across different fields who've jobbed hopped, few did it for the promotion, most did it because they were being exploited and depressed. Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits because people are just that desperate to get a job that whittles down ye olde student loan and has a hea…

> Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they can get away with de facto 50+ hour weeks while offering the bare minimum in benefits If job hopping is a viable strategy (which it certainly is in some sectors), then that is literally proof that they can’t get away with this. That’s not to say that every company out there is actually going to figure out the source of their staff retention problems, but the fact…

> that is literally proof that they can’t get away with this

?? What if the company saves a lot of money, and only lose a tiny percentage of employees every year?

I think it's pretty safe to say that most salaried employees will just keep trucking along happily so long as their bills are paid and they don't feel horribly oppressed or stressed out.

If there's a mandatory 5 minute daily meeting at 10 AM and free dinner at 7 PM, it's pretty easy to get everyone to put in 9 hours a day along with the occasional hour of e-mail at home or chunk of crunch time.

So long as everybody gets a 2-4% raise every year and feels like there's another job title to strive for, they'll just keep falling farther and farther behind the market rate.

Post reply on HN