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Ask Slashdot: How Often Should You Change Jobs?
An anonymous reader writes "We all know somebody who changes jobs like changing clothes. In software development and IT, it's getting increasingly hard to find people who have been at their job for more than a few years. That's partly because of tech companies' bias for a young work force, and partly because talented people can write their own ticket in this industry. Thus, I put the question to you: how often should you be switching jobs? Obviously, if you find the perfect company (full of good people, doing interesting things, paying you well), your best bet is to stay. But that's not the reality for most of the workforce. Should you always be keeping an eye out for new jobs? Is there a length of time you should stick around so you don't look like a serial job-hopper? Does there come a point in life when it's best to settle down and stick with a job long term?"
If you're not doing or learning something new, you're dying a slow painful death inside.
I suppose that depends upon other variables. Such as, what are your personal risk factors? For example: a family, do you have enough $ resources so if you fail you'll recover ok, etc. Lots of people got hit badly in the $ when the tech market went kaput -- some haven't really fully recovered. Then, there is age. We all know what the stereotype is of age in the IT sector - though I would hire an older IT person over a kid any day, partly due to their wisdom from experience. Back in the stock boom, it used to be 2 years max I would change jobs and/or positions; not just to stay relevant, but to move on. Sometimes I got lucky, by being pulled in to new ventures because I knew people (that's a powerful ally in this industry).
Seems like the market is starting to grow a little bit, but I'm not sure it's a job-bull market just yet. Curious what others think and feel about this.
Yeah, I did desktop support too.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Given a steady job with a pension that won't disappear, I think most people would rather stay at a company long term. Corporate America took this from us and now complains they can't keep people. They set the rules, we're just getting around to beating them at their own game.
Once every 56 years?
Too soon?
I can tell you now than when I am hiring and looking at resumes and see 1 year, 2 years, 1.5 years, 9 months, I label it is a "job hopper" and throw it in the "least likely to consider" pile. And a CRAPLOAD of the resumes are that way, regardless of the position. Many things come to mind when I see that "hopping"- maybe they are just using each job as a stepping stone to get more money or experience, maybe there is something wrong with them and they can't keep a job, or perhaps they are too easily bored.
As an employer, hiring a new employee is a HUGE amount of time and financial drain on my department. Regardless of what somebody does know or thinks they know, I rarely get full productivity from someone until perhaps a year (sometimes less, sometimes more). If they are looking for such temporary employment, I need them to just look elsewhere.... I need some reasonable return on my investment.
I don't expect people to stay at a job for decades anymore (although there is nothing wrong with that... I have 25 years now with the same company) and I know sometimes a job is just not a good fit. But turnover in a small department can be devastating. If I were to see the same resume with 5 years, 3 years, 6 years, that looks FAR more attractive.
I tell people I will change jobs for a 30% increase in compensation. That results in a job change every seven years, and here's why. There is a difference between the reported and actual rates of inflation. And annual increases at an existing job more closely track reported inflation, whereas job offers from other companies more closely track actual inflation.
For example, if reported inflation is 3% and actual inflation is 7%, then after 7 years that's a 32% difference.
It's not just that people can "write their own tickets", but that promotions and raises seem to happen much more at time of hire than after good performance. Work on that and there might be a lot less churn ..
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
By "change jobs," do you mean change employers as well? What about lateral moves within the same company, or between different organizations within the same company?
A lateral move within a company is going to result in little or no pay increase. A new company will usually give you a significant boost to your current salary. To maximize your income, you should move to a new company every three to six years. In some professions, longevity and loyalty are rewarded. Software development is not one of those professions.
You should move on when you stop having opportunities to learn new skills.
Don't advise this UNLESS he's also a good salesman and can afford his own sick days and vacation days and health insurance and retirement and insurance. It's a great way to go IF you have all the talents and resources AND can make money from it. Lots of people try, and spend most of their nestegg, then end up broke and taking an even lower paying job just to eat.
That being said, it has a trap. You will have to save for your retirement yourself. Which means that people who spend their money as soon as they get it, and want lots of it might be tempted to job hop.
So they don't prepare for retirement. Going to try to live on Social security? Good luck with that. The moral is that if you do job hopping, do it while you are young, and save, save, save.
Staying in one or a couple jobs comes with it's own issues. Raises are smaller, promotions fewer. But the retirement options are often better, and you're not likely to need to tap into retirement savings between jobs, as some many job folks I've known.
Dunno if this will help or not, but I did some job hopping in the early 80's after entering the workforce. Nearly doubled my salary over the course of three years by going to three different jobs - ironically, coming back ot the first job I had. Eventually you have to settle down though. After some assignment changes that had me pondering leaving after 15 years on the job, I made the decision that with family and all, I'd hang in there to save up the money for retirement. They had a decent retirement plan, plus some TSA's I could invest in on the side. I ended up with three separate retirement accounts. Another sort of trap, but a nice one. So I retired on my own terms at 55.
So my advice based on my experience would be to job hop as early and quickly as possible when you hit the job force, then go conservative.
Also, do not ever think that a 401K will fund your retirement. You gotta have multiple accounts in multiple places.
And lest ye be accusing me of "Get those damn kids off my lawnism", y'all will find yourself in your mid 50's a whole lot sooner than you think. And that is no time to start thinking about your post-work life. Cuz you'll have one. You think that your job won't be replaced by some recent graduate for half your wages? You might be redundant at age 60 only five years after you got serious about saving for retirement.
Finally, if you think you cant save for retirement - you are 100 percent correct. The people who said there was no point to it during the mid-late 70's, (inflation was the bugaboo then) are the same people who were almost prophetic, because after years of spending their money as fast as they could make it, they can't retire now. Go figure. They did have nicer cars than I did though. There's always that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'd be suspicious of anything under a year. That doesn't mean I wouldn't hire, but I'd want to hear why you left so fast. Hell, I'd even accept "My last employer was bad and made me do X, Y, Z, and thus I left".
The longest job I ever had - 5 years... and I left because they changed overnight and culled all the decent staff - fulfilled my promises, got screwed over, left the next day. Before that, I don't think there was anything under a year but I was working freelance for a while and there not having a client with under a year of service means you're doing well. They just kept buying me back.
What worries me is not serial job-hoppers, it's people with unexplained gaps. It's also people who stay where they are forever (it's easy to know when you're onto too good a thing and just coast... and I've met plenty of coasters who never want to progress and, when they move on, they only have their way of doing things). Sure, again, if you can explain yourself and you come across as so passionate for that job that's probably the reason you stayed, but anything out of the average range needs an explanation.
For yourself? Always look at jobs. How else do you expect to know what the going rate is, what the growing trends are, where the industry is moving, what your competitors are up to, etc.? And every now and then one of those jobs you're casually browsing will seem so much more your kind of thing, and there's NO harm in just applying and seeing what happens. If and when you get the job, that's the time to weigh things up.
I work in independent schools (I'm not a teacher, I do the IT). Once in, as a teacher, your job is pretty much guaranteed for decades so long as you don't screw up. Would you like to know how many jobsites I pick up in my web filtering logs? People keep on top of what's happening, what the competitor schools are doing, where's not a good place to work (you could tell my old workplace was going downhill by the fact that they advertised for an Assistant Bursar, then another Bursar, then another Bursar three months later, etc.), how much you should be earning, what else is about.
Keep your ear to the ground. It helps if you need to leave. It helps with comparisons should be need to go and ask for pay-rises. It helps with knowing what's out there. And it doesn't take any time at all to do.
But time-limits? You leave when you have a reason to leave, and not before. Someone who leaves EVERY year? That's bound to make me wonder why.
#2 is mostly but not entirely true. I've been at my current job for nearly 7 years now (and have no intention of leaving as long as the doors stay open) for just that reason: It's a very small software company, and the pay is below market (especially given the number of DevOps hats I wear), but it's more than enough to live on, and the bosses DO treat me with the same loyalty and respect I give them.
Apparently, I work in Narnia.
The pattern I've seen time and again is that even if you find an employer that gives regular raises, the market rate for programmers moves much faster than a lame 3% cost of living raise. So, unless you're an assertive extrovert, with a high tolerance for uncomfortable moments with your boss, you probably aren't demanding a competitive raise each year. Easier to just interview every few years and get a big salary bump.
And the employers who lost you? They'll pay much more to replace you, learn nothing from the experience, then repeat the cycle again in a few years.
Ask me about my sig!
lol - there's a job you'd want to jump away from.
I forget the name but there's some theory that suggests that when you reach 80%(?) of the maximum salary for a specific position that you should start looking to move to the next rung up the ladder (salary wise, not necessarily in the same company/industry). It gives you some time to find the job since you're not maxed out and it keeps you in a good bargaining position. You may need to take a short term pay cut when you switch, just so long as the potential is far greater than your current position.
As a tech contractor, I really don't have much choice regarding the jobs that I do. My last three jobs ended after nine months on average. One recruiter submitted my resume for a desktop position at a law firm. The hiring manager rejected all the resumes because the applicants "lacked tenure" (i.e., three years or longer in each of the last three years). The recruiter cried because that was an impossible request.
I would strongly advise anyone not to "strike it out" completely on their own, but to find one or two partners at least. If you can't convince one knowledgeable person of the validity of your plan(s) it might be time to rethink them : ).
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It seems to me that the benefits to working at the same company for long periods have gone away.
I started as an engineer in the 90's for a very large company that spent a lot of money training its people and on the tools for internal R&D. The company had been around for about 70 years and was full of gray beards doing cool and interesting projects. I think this is where longevity comes from - companies that heavily invest in R&D tend to make Engineers want to stay.
But, by investing in itself, the company built up a huge asset base, and so its fate was to be sliced up and sold off to maximize immediate shareholder gain. In the 90's many larger tech companies with heavy R&D cultures met similar fates. There may be a few left - perhaps Corning, Intel, and IBM... But for the most parts, large companies don't invest in themselves anymore.
Most successful large tech corporation now seem to buy expertise, rather than build from within. They poach people with the right experience or puchase smaller companies and startups that have already figured out the R&D. From the management side, it is the philosophy of the quick fix. But this mindset won't ever keep engineers long term. Either the engineer gets bored or gets poached.
I moved to the US from Canada about 10 years ago. Not only did I have no employment history, but the place I had most recently worked at in Canada for the past 5 years had gone bust. And my university degree might as well been from Uzbekistan for all the good it did me. I took the first IT job I could find, as a helpdesk Linux specialist supporting several hundred servers.
When I arrived the Linux infrastructure was in a detuned state. I started fixing what was broken and I am now one of three sr network engineers in the company. I mostly work on whatever grabs my interest, like automating various things with bash/ksh or powershell, optimizing traffic flows through our network, etc. No one bothers me about drifting in at 9 or 10 or wearing flip-flops, and if I need dollars to implement something I generally get it. I've saved the company a s**tpile of money over the years and they know it.
OTOH I work like a dog, just ridiculous hours at times. Although as we all know that is often the nature of IT.
I could make more money by changing jobs. But I basically have complete freedom now and I just don't think I'd have that anywhere else. I'm staying.