3 ms·

It only really matters in the eyes of potential future employers, so consider how it looks to them. Having done interviews and resume screening myself, I wouldn

by ufmace 11y ago

It only really matters in the eyes of potential future employers, so consider how it looks to them. Having done interviews and resume screening myself, I wouldn't balk too hard at one quick departure, but I would want to hear a good explanation for why you left so soon. The job and/or company being very clearly something different from what you were told would be a good one. Multiple quick departures in a row are kind of a red flag for somebody looking to hire a full-time employee, as opposed to a consultant of some kind.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
whitneyrzoller 11y ago
It would seem to matter not. Have a look at JMs career trajectory following his (first) exit from Amazon. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmccormack https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmccormack Amazon welcomes him back after a two month tour of duty with Yahoo. Six months later he goes to Google. He's got some obvious next steps: Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Snapchat?! Throw in some sentimental stints back at old Amazon, that's a career baby!
sulam 11y ago
It matters to the people you leave, too. When people spend a lot of energy recruiting you, doing due diligence on you and you on them, it (hopefully) builds a fair amount of trust and mutual respect. When you leave after a short time, that trust is violated, often in both directions. Barring something somewhat unusual (cough Clinkle cough), people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to help with a turn-around. When you have every opportunity to determine whether or not you're up for a challenge and then 3 months later are like "nah, actually, too hard" it will probably have some effect, at least with people that were closely involved in your hiring.
- nedwin 11y ago
  I've also seen where people come into a role being promised autonomy and once they start finding that they're stuck into a pre-existing strategy or hierarchy that doesn't want to change.
  - ska 11y ago
    Trust has already been broken there. If the job is a bait and switch, why would you expect someone to stay if they have other options?
- sheepmullet 11y ago
  > people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to help with a turn-around. Really? I've never had an interview where I've been told the team has constant high pressure arbitrary deadlines, a culture of micromanagement, a lack of autonomy, no career progression, low skilled colleagues, etc. Yet these kind of companies are the majority.
- ufmace 11y ago
  I suppose it could seem unprofessional to the company you're leaving, depending on your perspective on things. But unless you're in a very tight-knit community, exactly what your previous company thinks of you usually has no relevance to your future employment options - specifically because it's a matter of perspective whether the departure was justified or not, and whether you'd be likely to leave the new company. If your field really is that tight-knit, then you'll have to use your best judgement. If the employer you're leaving really is that bad, then you have to trust that everyone knows it, and nobody will blame you for leaving them. They might more wonder why you hadn't heard about how they really were ahead of time. Or if you actually are uncooperative, unprofessional, or otherwise unproductive, expect that to get around too.
p4wnc6 11y ago
I have two quick departures (4 months and 5 months respectively) on my resume and it has caused me a lot of problems. In both cases, the companies that I joined pulled unbelievable bait-and-switches on me, and my job was essentially unrelated to the job they described during the hiring process. I tried to stick it out in each case, and I even received excellent performance reviews during both short stints, but the burnout and the effect on my mental health of suffering through such egregious bait-and-switch situations was too much and in both cases I couldn't sustain working any longer and so I quit. I want to find a place to work for a long time, but the quality of software work these days is laughably poor. There are so many ways a job can be bad -- not just normal bad, where you grind it out for 40 hours (I've done plenty of that too and lasted long stints at previous employers), but really, seriously soul-crushingly bad -- that it has made me considerably more paranoid about the motivations and red flags that employers reveal during interviews and hiring. In general though, most people are willing to at least ask me to explain my unusual resume, and any time my technical skills are evaluated early on, they can see that I know what I am talking about and it goes OK after that. I'm not sure what lessons this has taught me. Everyone says not to quit a bad job until you know for sure that you have another job lined up. But even though I've quit two jobs in a row and had to live through very hard circumstances and very long, demoralizing spells of unemployment, I still don't actually think my overall life would have been better if I had continued to allow myself to be so egregiously mistreated in those past jobs. I still think the awful grinding-out-the-unemployment stuff has been at least an order of magnitude better than enduring mistreatment, even though it hasn't been good.

by ufmace 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

whitneyrzoller 11y ago

It would seem to matter not. Have a look at JMs career trajectory following his (first) exit from Amazon. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmccormack https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmccormack Amazon welcomes him back after a two month tour of duty with Yahoo. Six months later he goes to Google. He's got some obvious next steps: Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Snapchat?! Throw in some sentimental stints back at old Amazon, that's a career baby!

sulam 11y ago

It matters to the people you leave, too. When people spend a lot of energy recruiting you, doing due diligence on you and you on them, it (hopefully) builds a fair amount of trust and mutual respect. When you leave after a short time, that trust is violated, often in both directions. Barring something somewhat unusual (cough Clinkle cough), people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to help with a turn-around. When you have every opportunity to determine whether or not you're up for a challenge and then 3 months later are like "nah, actually, too hard" it will probably have some effect, at least with people that were closely involved in your hiring.

nedwin 11y ago
I've also seen where people come into a role being promised autonomy and once they start finding that they're stuck into a pre-existing strategy or hierarchy that doesn't want to change.
- ska 11y ago
  Trust has already been broken there. If the job is a bait and switch, why would you expect someone to stay if they have other options?
sheepmullet 11y ago
> people are generally going to be very transparent with people they hire to help with a turn-around. Really? I've never had an interview where I've been told the team has constant high pressure arbitrary deadlines, a culture of micromanagement, a lack of autonomy, no career progression, low skilled colleagues, etc. Yet these kind of companies are the majority.
ufmace 11y ago
I suppose it could seem unprofessional to the company you're leaving, depending on your perspective on things. But unless you're in a very tight-knit community, exactly what your previous company thinks of you usually has no relevance to your future employment options - specifically because it's a matter of perspective whether the departure was justified or not, and whether you'd be likely to leave the new company. If your field really is that tight-knit, then you'll have to use your best judgement. If the employer you're leaving really is that bad, then you have to trust that everyone knows it, and nobody will blame you for leaving them. They might more wonder why you hadn't heard about how they really were ahead of time. Or if you actually are uncooperative, unprofessional, or otherwise unproductive, expect that to get around too.

p4wnc6 11y ago

I have two quick departures (4 months and 5 months respectively) on my resume and it has caused me a lot of problems. In both cases, the companies that I joined pulled unbelievable bait-and-switches on me, and my job was essentially unrelated to the job they described during the hiring process. I tried to stick it out in each case, and I even received excellent performance reviews during both short stints, but the burnout and the effect on my mental health of suffering through such egregious bait-and-switch situations was too much and in both cases I couldn't sustain working any longer and so I quit. I want to find a place to work for a long time, but the quality of software work these days is laughably poor. There are so many ways a job can be bad -- not just normal bad, where you grind it out for 40 hours (I've done plenty of that too and lasted long stints at previous employers), but really, seriously soul-crushingly bad -- that it has made me considerably more paranoid about the motivations and red flags that employers reveal during interviews and hiring. In general though, most people are willing to at least ask me to explain my unusual resume, and any time my technical skills are evaluated early on, they can see that I know what I am talking about and it goes OK after that. I'm not sure what lessons this has taught me. Everyone says not to quit a bad job until you know for sure that you have another job lined up. But even though I've quit two jobs in a row and had to live through very hard circumstances and very long, demoralizing spells of unemployment, I still don't actually think my overall life would have been better if I had continued to allow myself to be so egregiously mistreated in those past jobs. I still think the awful grinding-out-the-unemployment stuff has been at least an order of magnitude better than enduring mistreatment, even though it hasn't been good.