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I've refused to hire people who job-hopped every year or two. With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest

I've refused to hire people who job-hopped every year or two. With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest in bringing them up to speed if they're just going to leave?

eyelidlessness 5y ago
Well, I think other people hire them because there’s high demand for talent and that kind of churn is expected. If you’re not having difficulty hiring while rejecting those candidates, that suggests you’re probably attracting people like me who stick around longer (for better or worse all around) or something about your offer is appealing to talent who have a knack for finding good long term opportunities.
inopinatus 5y ago
Because maybe they’re just looking for the right environment, and maybe you’re it. Hiring is like dating, after all. This reads instead like an egregious case of the fundamental attribution error, and one that’d I’d view as quite the blunder by my management team, since the real consequence is limiting our access to the talent pool. Even aside from the FAE, this kind of attitude also systematically reinforces structural discrimination within an industry, since candidates from unusual or unprivileged backgrounds are less likely to have been offered major career opportunities, or been obliged to juggle many life priorities along the way, and thereby more likely to have taken whatever they could get, or could realistically manage. Yet these can be some of the most interesting hires, thanks to their diverse/alternative perspectives, and may also be top-tier outliers when it comes to resilience, self-management, and self-directed learning. It’s also a failure of values since there’s an underlying assumption that people are interchangeable widgets, which is both false and dehumanising. For my own account, I hopped a lot in my early career before finding places where I felt I could belong and stay for years, and this pattern has repeated. So you’d likely have taken a pass on me whilst I went on to become senior this and principal that elsewhere, en route to starting my own firm. Go figure.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > Hiring is like dating, after all. Past behavior is a pretty good predictor of future behavior. If you're dating someone whose previous 3 spouses died in mysterious kiln explosions, I'd stay away from the ceramics factory.
  - inopinatus 5y ago
    Well I think that’s an absurd and extreme example, so the reductio ad absurdum is self-limiting, since serial killers are, hopefully, not the common case. How about this analogy instead, being more in the realm of the applicable and commonplace: I broke up with many girlfriends, and had many short- and medium-term partners, before meeting my wife of over a decade now, who continues to knock my socks off to this day. In practice, past performance is not a guide to future outcomes. How many times have we heard this caveat applied, in far more predictable markets than hiring and/or dating? Past performance of employment candidates is a subjective and observational assessment; relying upon it (especially in a negative framing) is to invite not only ones own biases to take center stage, but also those of others; see earlier point re. reinforcement of structural discrimination. At most, someone’s past successes qualify them for my interview shortlist, but there are many other green flags besides, and I’ll save my type 2 errors for the back half of the hiring funnel, after assessing someone’s potential.
    - DrJokepu 5y ago
      I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm fairly certain that this was one of those so-called "jokes" you may have heard of.
      - inopinatus 5y ago
        Perhaps, but jokes can convey meaning, and I think this was the case. [Dying is easy / Comedy is hard]
        disgruntledphd2 5y ago
goostavos 5y ago
Use this One Weird Trick to keep employees: pay them money. With the exception of my current gig, my early career was hopping non-stop. My shortest stint was literally 4 days, my average was probably about 1 year. Each time, pretty simple, you look at the paltry 2-4% increase being offered by your current employer versus the 20%+ increase from hopping literally anywhere else, and, well, you surely see why people hop ship all the time. Your "investment" means very, very little when it's not backed by the thing that actually matters (the money).
- kqr 5y ago
  But that really only helps low pay was the reason for hopping. The comment that sparked this discussion talks about a bad environment etc. as a reason for hopping. Wads of cash won't help retain an employee that's obviously bad at judging whether they'll be a good fit at an employer.
  - pojzon 5y ago
    Just to point out. At my current workplace I got a huge pay increase only in one situation. „When I said I quit”.. Employer runs a business and will do w/e is best for him money wise. If ppl want to work for 50% what they are worth - employer will alow it (bad employer). Ppl tend to quit such places because they see no options to advance. Employers rarely learn from such cases. For me its the issue of poor middle management not managing career of pupils correctly.
- Copernicron 5y ago
  Exactly. I'm happy where I am but I've currently got companies willing to increase my salary by 2-3x if I leave my current employer. I'm totally going to use that as leverage in negotiations for a raise. I'm due for one.
forbiddenvoid 5y ago
Frankly speaking you really shouldn't be hiring anyone with the expectation that they'll be in their role more than a year or two. Ideally, you're working with them to move into a position with more responsibility and then you need to backfill their position anyway. What does it matter if their next role is with you or somewhere else? It's a lot to ask for every company to have a role available for every employee when they're ready for more responsibility, and expecting them to just hang around waiting for their chance is pretty naive, I think.
- barrkel 5y ago
  Most of the other people we hired back then lasted 5+ years if they lasted one. This chap had about 10 jobs on his resume, 6 to 18 months in each, on average less than a year.
- Copernicron 5y ago
  I'm seeing this with my current employer. I'm helping out the hiring manager with interviews and technical assessment. He's trying to target people who will stay with the company for 8-10 years. It's ridiculous. (Almost) no one does that. Especially when you can make a whole lot more by changing jobs regularly. Personally, I don't care about working on cool technology. I care about getting paid. I can't afford to buy an absurdly overpriced house without getting paid.
S_A_P 5y ago
I jumped every 2 years and tripled my salary in 10 years. I started way under paid and made it to average to slightly higher than average pay. Guess what the employers were happy to underpay as long as they could get away with it.
didibus 5y ago
> With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest in bringing them up to speed if they're just going to leave? People don't job hop for fun, they do it because they find better opportunities elsewhere. The way you say it, it sounds like you're holding back everyone you employed from getting a better deal. If you truly offer competitive compensation and work conditions, than that person wouldn't have a reason to leave, but if 2 years down the road you didn't keep up with what others are offering them, I mean, the question is, why wouldn't they hop?
hdhjebebeb 5y ago
Conversely, I've worked at places where the people who had been there for 5-10 years were just coasting, the product was stagnant, and constantly hiring new people was the only way to get out of a rut. They were paying these people for maintenance and to hold on to institutional knowledge, but everybody was so comfortable that very little got done.
flippinburgers 5y ago
Because employees enjoy making more money.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Well, I think other people hire them because there’s high demand for talent and that kind of churn is expected. If you’re not having difficulty hiring while rejecting those candidates, that suggests you’re probably attracting people like me who stick around longer (for better or worse all around) or something about your offer is appealing to talent who have a knack for finding good long term opportunities.

inopinatus 5y ago

Because maybe they’re just looking for the right environment, and maybe you’re it. Hiring is like dating, after all. This reads instead like an egregious case of the fundamental attribution error, and one that’d I’d view as quite the blunder by my management team, since the real consequence is limiting our access to the talent pool. Even aside from the FAE, this kind of attitude also systematically reinforces structural discrimination within an industry, since candidates from unusual or unprivileged backgrounds are less likely to have been offered major career opportunities, or been obliged to juggle many life priorities along the way, and thereby more likely to have taken whatever they could get, or could realistically manage. Yet these can be some of the most interesting hires, thanks to their diverse/alternative perspectives, and may also be top-tier outliers when it comes to resilience, self-management, and self-directed learning. It’s also a failure of values since there’s an underlying assumption that people are interchangeable widgets, which is both false and dehumanising. For my own account, I hopped a lot in my early career before finding places where I felt I could belong and stay for years, and this pattern has repeated. So you’d likely have taken a pass on me whilst I went on to become senior this and principal that elsewhere, en route to starting my own firm. Go figure.

WalterBright 5y ago
> Hiring is like dating, after all. Past behavior is a pretty good predictor of future behavior. If you're dating someone whose previous 3 spouses died in mysterious kiln explosions, I'd stay away from the ceramics factory.
- inopinatus 5y ago
  Well I think that’s an absurd and extreme example, so the reductio ad absurdum is self-limiting, since serial killers are, hopefully, not the common case. How about this analogy instead, being more in the realm of the applicable and commonplace: I broke up with many girlfriends, and had many short- and medium-term partners, before meeting my wife of over a decade now, who continues to knock my socks off to this day. In practice, past performance is not a guide to future outcomes. How many times have we heard this caveat applied, in far more predictable markets than hiring and/or dating? Past performance of employment candidates is a subjective and observational assessment; relying upon it (especially in a negative framing) is to invite not only ones own biases to take center stage, but also those of others; see earlier point re. reinforcement of structural discrimination. At most, someone’s past successes qualify them for my interview shortlist, but there are many other green flags besides, and I’ll save my type 2 errors for the back half of the hiring funnel, after assessing someone’s potential.
  - DrJokepu 5y ago
    I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm fairly certain that this was one of those so-called "jokes" you may have heard of.
    - inopinatus 5y ago
      Perhaps, but jokes can convey meaning, and I think this was the case. [Dying is easy / Comedy is hard]
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago

goostavos 5y ago

Use this One Weird Trick to keep employees: pay them money. With the exception of my current gig, my early career was hopping non-stop. My shortest stint was literally 4 days, my average was probably about 1 year. Each time, pretty simple, you look at the paltry 2-4% increase being offered by your current employer versus the 20%+ increase from hopping literally anywhere else, and, well, you surely see why people hop ship all the time. Your "investment" means very, very little when it's not backed by the thing that actually matters (the money).

kqr 5y ago
But that really only helps low pay was the reason for hopping. The comment that sparked this discussion talks about a bad environment etc. as a reason for hopping. Wads of cash won't help retain an employee that's obviously bad at judging whether they'll be a good fit at an employer.
- pojzon 5y ago
  Just to point out. At my current workplace I got a huge pay increase only in one situation. „When I said I quit”.. Employer runs a business and will do w/e is best for him money wise. If ppl want to work for 50% what they are worth - employer will alow it (bad employer). Ppl tend to quit such places because they see no options to advance. Employers rarely learn from such cases. For me its the issue of poor middle management not managing career of pupils correctly.
Copernicron 5y ago
Exactly. I'm happy where I am but I've currently got companies willing to increase my salary by 2-3x if I leave my current employer. I'm totally going to use that as leverage in negotiations for a raise. I'm due for one.

forbiddenvoid 5y ago

Frankly speaking you really shouldn't be hiring anyone with the expectation that they'll be in their role more than a year or two. Ideally, you're working with them to move into a position with more responsibility and then you need to backfill their position anyway. What does it matter if their next role is with you or somewhere else? It's a lot to ask for every company to have a role available for every employee when they're ready for more responsibility, and expecting them to just hang around waiting for their chance is pretty naive, I think.

barrkel 5y ago
Most of the other people we hired back then lasted 5+ years if they lasted one. This chap had about 10 jobs on his resume, 6 to 18 months in each, on average less than a year.
Copernicron 5y ago
I'm seeing this with my current employer. I'm helping out the hiring manager with interviews and technical assessment. He's trying to target people who will stay with the company for 8-10 years. It's ridiculous. (Almost) no one does that. Especially when you can make a whole lot more by changing jobs regularly. Personally, I don't care about working on cool technology. I care about getting paid. I can't afford to buy an absurdly overpriced house without getting paid.

S_A_P 5y ago

I jumped every 2 years and tripled my salary in 10 years. I started way under paid and made it to average to slightly higher than average pay. Guess what the employers were happy to underpay as long as they could get away with it.

didibus 5y ago

> With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest in bringing them up to speed if they're just going to leave? People don't job hop for fun, they do it because they find better opportunities elsewhere. The way you say it, it sounds like you're holding back everyone you employed from getting a better deal. If you truly offer competitive compensation and work conditions, than that person wouldn't have a reason to leave, but if 2 years down the road you didn't keep up with what others are offering them, I mean, the question is, why wouldn't they hop?

hdhjebebeb 5y ago

Conversely, I've worked at places where the people who had been there for 5-10 years were just coasting, the product was stagnant, and constantly hiring new people was the only way to get out of a rut. They were paying these people for maintenance and to hold on to institutional knowledge, but everybody was so comfortable that very little got done.

flippinburgers 5y ago

Because employees enjoy making more money.