Switching Jobs Every Three Years

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Vivian Giang over at Fast Company magazine has a very interesting article entitled “You Should Plan On Switching Jobs Every Three Years For The Rest Of Your Life”.

You can view the article here.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Mish Sukharev
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Mish Sukharev http://ow.ly/Xre2j

Vivian writes:

Changing jobs every couple of years used to look bad on a resume. It told recruiters you can’t hold down a job, can’t get along with colleagues, or that you’re simply disloyal and can’t commit.

That stigma is fast becoming antiquated—especially as millennials rise in the workplace with expectations to continuously learn, develop, and advance in their careers.

She goes on to say:

There are a lot of arguments for jumping ship every few years. The economy isn’t what it used to be—and never will be again. Workers who stay with a company longer than two years are said to get paid 50% less, and job hoppers are believed to have a higher learning curve, be higher performers, and even to be more loyal, because they care about making a good impression in the short amount of time they know they’ll stay with each employer.

Vivian goes on to quote author & career advisor Penelope Trunk. Penelope tells Vivian:

“In terms of managing your own career, if you don’t change jobs every three years, you don’t develop the skills of getting a job quickly, so then you don’t have any career stability. You’re just completely dependent on the place that you work as if it’s 1950, and you’re going to get a gold watch at the end of a 50-year term at your company.”

My experience as a Recruiter is consistent with what both Vivian and Penelope say.
When I first started as a Recruiter 24 years ago, you never wanted to present a “job-hopper” to your client. Anyone who had a track record of frequent job changes was usually perceived by our clients as being an “inferior” candidate.

However the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Ironically – if I present a candidate to a client who stayed with their company for an extended period of time – that candidate is frequently viewed as not being ambitious, not wanting to be challenged and unable to adapt to new situations/environments.

It is a different world out there. And while no one is advocating changing jobs simply for the sake of changing jobs, I think it is fair to agree with Vivian when she writes that it is time to abandon “the belief of past generations that you cling to an employer over a lifetime in the hopes that your long-term employer will treat you fairly in the end with a matching 401(k) plan, among other benefits.”

When In Doubt: Hire the Best Writing Skills…

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Kris Dunn has a great blog postover at The HR Capitalist entitled “When in Doubt: Hire the Best Writing Skills…”.

In his post, Kris states that a person’s ability to write well is strongly correlated with their ability to communicate verbally.  Kris goes on to write that with the large volume of email communication that occurs in Corporate America, strong writing skills have never been more important.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Peter Lindberg http://ow.ly/UuCS6
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Peter Lindberg http://ow.ly/UuCS6

And Kris clarifies what he means by writing skills:

“When I say hire someone with writing skills, I’m not talking about someone who can write term papers, because let’s face it, no one reads those. I’m talking about the ability to write down some thoughts in an engaging, personable, influencing manner.  You know it when you see it.”

I definitely concur…

Over the years I have noticed an extremely strong correlation between the ability to write well and overall job success. The people who write well tend to speak well, and in turn, tend to do their jobs well.

Like everything else in life – there are exceptions to the rule.

But bottom line –  the connection is definitely there.

 

How Long Should A Job Search Take?

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Liz Ryan has a great article over on the Forbes website entitled, “How Long Should A Job Search Take?”.

Liz writes:

“I hate to think about the number of times I’ve sat on a panel and heard a fellow panelist say “As a job-seeker, you have to prepare for the long haul. It could take months and months to find the right job.”

Every time I heard that I kept the fake plastic smile pasted on my face, because I’m an actress. I was raging inside.

I am sick and tired of hearing standard brainless job-search advice repeated like it was gospel, including the line ‘Expect to spend months looking for your next job.’ “

She goes on to say:

“When you teach people to be passive and wait patiently for a broken system to grind its way along, you disempower them.”

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF

Liz is absolutely right.

It’s funny how we routinely defer to the advice of the so-called ‘experts’ – and often to our own determent.

I learned early in my career not to listen to the ‘experts’.

At the first Recruiting Firm I worked at, I remember returning to the office after the long Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend.  I was surprised that the office lacked its usual buzz.  It seemed like no one was on the phones.  The office was quiet.

I walked over to Dan, one of the Sr. Recruiters and asked him what was going on.  Dan looked up from the newspaper he was reading and said to me, “Kid, it’s the Holiday Season.  No one is going to be hiring between now and New Year’s Day.  Everything is going to be quiet. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait for hiring to pick up again after the Holidays.”

Unfortunately, at that time I was broke and had a young family to support. I did not have the luxury to sit around and wait.  So I did the only thing I knew how to do – I got on the phone and just “smiled & dialed”.  And you know what – that December was my best month billing as a Recruiter.

And – going forward – for every year thereafter – I found that December is always one of my strongest months for the year.

After that experience, I decided that I would ignore the advice of the so-called experts. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for business to pick up. I was always going to go out and make something happen.

And my experience as a Recruiter mirrors Liz Ryan’s advice to job seekers.

In the article, Liz advises job seekers that they should not just sit around and expect their job search to last a certain predetermined amount of months because some so-called expert claims that is the case.

As Liz writes:

“You have way more influence on your marketability, your job search and your career than you think you have.“

To Hire Top Talent – Bring out the Big Guns

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In their book, The War for Talent, the authors (Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones & Beth Axelrod) wrote:

“What distinguishes the high-performing companies from the average performing was not better HR processes, but the fundamental belief in the importance of talent.”

While many companies subscribe to their belief in the importance of talent – their interview practices suggest otherwise.

One thing that companies need to do when trying to fill a key position with top level talent is to ensure that the “Big Guns” are involved in the interview.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Laszlo Ilyes http://ow.ly/HFsn2
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Laszlo Ilyes http://ow.ly/HFsn2

If the position is important and the candidate is an “A” level performer, then senior management must be involved.

In an article from a few years ago entitled “Waging a War for Talent”, Ann Dowsett Johnston writes:

“Last month, Bill Gates went shopping for talent at the University of Waterloo, one of six universities he visited in three days…Call it a one-person career fair.”

The moral of this story?

If Bill Gates (who at the time of the article was still actively running Microsoft) was still leaving the friendly confines of his office in Redmond to help conduct interviews, there is absolutely no reason that anyone in your organization can claim that they are too busy to interview.

I have had a number of instances during my career where a mid level candidate was floored that a VP or President actually took the time to interview them.  And they later admitted that meeting senior management during the interview process was one of the key factors in their accepting the offer.

Obviously – this practice needs to be used judiciously.  A company can’t trot out senior management for every interview.

But when trying to fill a key position, bringing out the “Big Guns” can mean the difference between hiring the best person for the job as opposed to simply hiring the best person applying.

 

 

Welcome to my Blog!

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I have been a active blog reader for years, spending countless hours reading other people’s posts and thoroughly enjoying the process.

And I had even made an earlier half-hearted attempt to start a blog before. But, because of work and family responsibilities, my blogging efforts were put on the back-burner.

However, I have decided to start blogging again. The reason for my change of heart is simple. I decided that I really wanted to provide a place where both Clients and Candidates can learn about my thoughts and my philosophy about Recruiting and Talent Acquisition. And a Blog is a place where you can write about and discuss topics in more depth and detail than you can during a normal workday phone conversation.

In this blog, I plan to write about issues that will be of interest to both the Job Seeker as well as the Hiring Manager.

Comments and feedback are always welcome.

Now, in the words of Jackie Gleason, “And away we go!!”