I've dinged folks pre-interview for having too many job hops. It's not an issue for junior candidates, but if I see someone who has 12 jobs in 10 years, and I

I've dinged folks pre-interview for having too many job hops. It's not an issue for junior candidates, but if I see someone who has 12 jobs in 10 years, and I know the goals of the position I'm hiring for are 2-3 years, I won't bother. The person could be great for a lot of things, but the track record suggests they're not the person for long term goals and objective. Or during an interview, it would be hard to ask, "Can you show me a goal that you worked towards over many years." Anecdotally - someone getting increasing responsibility over many roles at a company is a great sign. The people that know them the best are promoting them and keeping them happy. Someone hopping too frequently, or keeping the same job with no switch over long (10?) year horizons is a bad sign. The latter could be a case of specialization so I'd still interview, but one needs to be careful. To your point about loyalty as an excuse to underpay - my experience is Sort Of. When large companies like AT&T and P&G first had to do big layoffs, it did hurt the management teams. They weren't used to it, and were very generous. After a couple rounds, they got over it and got cheaper. (Severance packages almost always get worse over time, not better) And I saw many phone company employees hang on for 2 or 3 more years to get the company retirement party. On the one hand the company got to underpay them for several years just for them to "earn" a $300 party for some colleagues. On the other hand, perhaps the company didn't really need them the last few years, but still held them on.