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Keep in mind a lot of this is dependent on what you are doing.
I graduated college in 2010. I'm on my eighth job since then, and I think twelfth job overall. Discounting the jobs I had before graduation, it goes like this.
1) Help desk - FTE - Virginia - two years. Left because of hundred mile roundtrip commute and low pay.
2) Help desk - FTE - Iowa. Nine months. I moved sight unseen. Pay was a lot better, but I didn't like the area and moved back home.
3) Help desk - contract - Tennessee. Temp job at $12/hour. Six months. Got a raise and was told not to come back one evening. All of IT was shutdown within two months.
4) Help desk - contract - Virginia. Three weeks. It was the same place at job #1, but a different program. Took it because I had to have something to keep the bills up. Left because of commute and more permanent nature of next job.
5) Help desk - contract - Tennessee. Six months. Left because of pay and the company wouldn't make me full-time.
These five help desk jobs look bad. I don't even list them individually on my resume. I don't use anyone from those jobs as a reference. I don't do that type of work anymore. They aren't even relevant professionally. It gets one entry for the years of those jobs with a generic help desk description.
I stayed at my next employer about two years, then moved on for an upgrade in pay/title. I was at that next job for about six months, then moved back to Tennessee where I've been working at the regional hospital system for about two years. Slight title upgrade on the job move back here. These last three jobs, and really only the first job in Indiana and my current job (the duties on that six month job in the middle were way different and out of kilter with the original job description), are the only ones that mean anything to me professionally now.
My friend keeps switching jobs. She gets bad reviews and is put on performance plans and either gets fired or finds a new job before she does. She is 48. Her brother who is a manager said he would never even consider her resume. But she keeps getting interviews and job offers. Is it because she had a masters? Maybe that’s the main thing companies look at? It’s a master in education but she is working in the corporate world. I for one don’t feel a degree automatically makes you smarter.
Your friend must keep doing something wrong in order to receive bad performance appraisals and change jobs frequently. A college degree has nothing to do with bad performances.
Would I hire someone who had five different jobs in a span of five years? It would depend on the jobs the applicant has had, the span of employment the applicant has been at each job, and the performance of the applicant at each job. For example, if an applicant is managing five self-owned businesses successfully, he or she is worth considering for employment.
Yes, in my field, Engineering, it's quite common to have five jobs in five years.
Yep.
I've had 5 jobs in 5 years. My business unit was sold to another company for job #2. They laid most of us off after 20 months after they'd managed to kill the business. I did some contracting for company #1. I did 90 days of contracting for another company. I'm now at company #5 with a full time job.
I can pretty easily name several other times in my career where I had 4 employers in 5 years. In a 37 year career, the longest I've ever worked anywhere is 7 years.
My friend keeps switching jobs. She gets bad reviews and is put on performance plans and either gets fired or finds a new job before she does. She is 48. Her brother who is a manager said he would never even consider her resume. But she keeps getting interviews and job offers. Is it because she had a masters? Maybe that’s the main thing companies look at? It’s a master in education but she is working in the corporate world. I for one don’t feel a degree automatically makes you smarter.
So, she's had 5 jobs in 5 years. I think it's safe to assume she didn't particularly enjoy any of those 5 jobs, otherwise she'd probably still be there.
So, the question is ... is somebody who doesn't like their job or doesn't have a job that provides any meaning, BUT busts their a@@ anyway, works long hours and has a great work ethic, gets good reviews, are they any better off?
I think the answer might be no. I assume that your friend doesn't work long hours, so she has 'lived' more of her life in the last 5 years than somebody who has just with a 'blind work ethic' attacked their job duties. Maybe had less stress.
Has the other person made some more $? Maybe, possibly. Yea, who gives a sh@t.
My friend keeps switching jobs. She gets bad reviews and is put on performance plans and either gets fired or finds a new job before she does. She is 48. Her brother who is a manager said he would never even consider her resume. But she keeps getting interviews and job offers. Is it because she had a masters? Maybe that’s the main thing companies look at? It’s a master in education but she is working in the corporate world. I for one don’t feel a degree automatically makes you smarter.
In 2012, I hired an accountant who was on her third job in four years. She was very well qualified and I was aware of some of the operating issues of a couple of her prior employers in the 2009-11 time frame. She was also a great interviewee.
She really did a pretty decent job. However, I noticed several issues. She did not handle any conflict very well. Also, she always seemed to keep in contact with her recruiter longer after the first 90 days.
After 18 months, I retired and she took over my position. She lasted about four months. She contacted me at home a year later and she was on her second job since leaving.
Part of her problem, IMO, was that she did not work through issues. When the going got tough, she called up the recruiter. That is great for her and great for the recruiter who was getting 25% of her annual salary. For the company, not so much.
If they’re all lateral moves, I would be suspicious. If they’re positions with increasing levels of responsibility, I would be interested.
Good point -- are these five different jobs at different employers? That would be an absolute NO for me. I wouldn't even consider someone who had three different employers in five years.
The ideal candidate is someone mid-career, with 5 to 10 years at a sequence of three or four employers, moving up the food chain within each employer and also moving up between employers.
There are a number of different, valid reasons why someone might have that many jobs in such a short timeframe.
1) She's a military wife and has moved around a lot
2) Her husband moved around and she's following him
3) The jobs were temp jobs with a hard stop date
I could go on but you get it, easy to "spin" a story why someone has had this many jobs. But PLEASE for the love of God don't let her work at my company, I've had the displeasure of working alongside many job-hoppers like this and it never ends well.
Agreed. There can be valid reasons, however, 5 jobs in 5 years will be a red flag for more upper-level, professional positions. For most of those positions, even if they understand that there were valid reasons, they will want to know what will prevent you for moving again for a spouse’s military position. They invest a lot in training, and if you are interviewing for an important strategic position, they don’t want you to leave in the middle of an important transition/project/etc, even if it’s for a valid reason.
Now if the person is applying to a more entry level job with lots of turnover, then it probably won’t be a problem.
In 2012, I hired an accountant who was on her third job in four years. She was very well qualified and I was aware of some of the operating issues of a couple of her prior employers in the 2009-11 time frame. She was also a great interviewee.
She really did a pretty decent job. However, I noticed several issues. She did not handle any conflict very well. Also, she always seemed to keep in contact with her recruiter longer after the first 90 days.
After 18 months, I retired and she took over my position. She lasted about four months. She contacted me at home a year later and she was on her second job since leaving.
Part of her problem, IMO, was that she did not work through issues. When the going got tough, she called up the recruiter. That is great for her and great for the recruiter who was getting 25% of her annual salary. For the company, not so much.
The flip side of that is that if an employee is struggling with something or there are other issues in the company, many employers will just walk the employee to the door.
In 2012, I hired an accountant who was on her third job in four years. She was very well qualified and I was aware of some of the operating issues of a couple of her prior employers in the 2009-11 time frame. She was also a great interviewee.
She really did a pretty decent job. However, I noticed several issues. She did not handle any conflict very well. Also, she always seemed to keep in contact with her recruiter longer after the first 90 days.
After 18 months, I retired and she took over my position. She lasted about four months. She contacted me at home a year later and she was on her second job since leaving.
Part of her problem, IMO, was that she did not work through issues. When the going got tough, she called up the recruiter. That is great for her and great for the recruiter who was getting 25% of her annual salary. For the company, not so much.
The experience with one employee is indicative of nothing overall. We can't make a generalization based on one employee.
Probably wouldn’t even get to the interview honestly. It takes a full year to train someone up to speed and even then 2-3 to be fully self sufficient in my field. I would consider her a flight risk.
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