Job hopping has a bad rap and is generally defined by spending less than two years within an organisation! Many employers and recruiters evaluate the credibility of an individual by glancing at their career history and assessing how long they have stayed with their employers. As a rule of thumb, it is important to make good decisions about why and when to move jobs, but sometimes retrenchments, multiple contracts and life circumstances affect these reasons. That being said, these are the pros and cons of job hopping which career seekers need to note and realise what the perception is in the marketplace.
Pros
- The adoption of new skills
- Sometimes the increase in one’s salary is greater when moving jobs than when receiving an annual increase by attrition
- An improvement in company or team culture
- One may become more adaptable to different environments
- Greater upward mobility in position ranking
Cons
- The stress and anxiety of having to start over
- It has a negative effect on finding and securing employment
- Associated with unreliability, a lack of commitment, the inability to see something through and poor relationships with employers (the “red flag” effect)
- Individuals need to establish credibility in the organisation and have to prove their loyalty to potential employers
- The individual does not fully learn organisation and it’s potential less than five years, for one to truly know the in’s and out’s of the organisation you have to have been in the company for 5 years or more.
It is important to note that millennials especially, change jobs more refrequently as their values around stability differ and they opt for a career with more experiences and a quest for more challenges. Generally whatever your motivation is to make a career change, consider the consquences, consider the importance of the move, make good decisions, do your due diligence before moving voluntarily to another company and most importantly – make you sure you have a sound, credible reason for making the change.
