4 ms·
I've only ever seen a few resumes that were exclusively short tenure careers. The two questions it raises for me: 1. Is this a person who has ever lived with
by buro9 4y ago
I've only ever seen a few resumes that were exclusively short tenure careers.
The two questions it raises for me:
1. Is this a person who has ever lived with the consequences of their decisions and code? Can they maintain what they write?
2. Is this a person worth investing training, mentorship and coaching into?
I will still interview the person, but I change my questions to find out if they've maintained systems, lived with code they've written.
To the second I ask no questions... It's just a risk. Onboarding takes time from a productive engineer, if I don't believe someone will stick around that time is wasted when paid double (for this person and the person that will replace them within a year).
That's only a few people in hundreds of people interviewed. I hired one, they left after 10 months :shrug
These people are likely not you though. There's a big fear that "I've only had one job and I'm ten months in and it's truly awful, if I quit have I destroyed my career?"... no, you're fine, just quit. Or "I've worked a few jobs for 3+ years and then had a couple less than a year, I'm trying to find the right thing for me and this isn't it, if I quit have I ended my career?"... no, you're fine, just quit.
A resume covering a decade or more of entirely short tenure things is a different beast from whatever your circumstances are likely to be. But if you are one of those people, consider the signal it sends... has this person ever lived with the consequences of their decisions (both technical and interpersonal)? How would you show this? Do you have a long-lived OSS project? A long-lived and maintained side-project. Extracurricular isn't needed to get a job, but if your resume can't communicate something then this is where that stuff helps.
- donkeyd 4y agoI have had pretty short tenure for most of my career up to now. The reasons for this are pretty much your questions turned around: 1. Am I allowed to write maintainable code, or just have to push features? 2. Will the organization invest in me, coach me and allow me to grow into roles with more purpose and hopefully financial reward? If companies treat me like a piece of meat, in stead of a human who's trying to build a career, I get out. And often it takes a while for the truth to appear. I always hope to find a place where I feel good enough to work for 5 or 10 years, but up to now no employer has treated me well enough to stick around that long.
- thewarrior 4y agoI have a rule of thumb for job hopping - If it’s your Nth job in your career you can job hop after N years at that job. In your first year you can hop after a year. Then you stay for 2 years at the next , 3 years at the next and so on. Staying at a shitty job at the beginning of your career is a terrible idea. But only having short stints in the later half of your career is also a bad idea.
- donkeyd 4y agoIf I ever feel that I need to go by some rule of thumb like that, I'll just go back to working for a government institution. No stress, solid paycheck and impossible to get fired. For now, I'm still trying to enjoy what I'm doing and will switch when I'm not.
- Vibgyor5 4y agoI wonder what would be your take on my stints (non-tech Ops guy here, based out of Asia/Europe for reference). I have changed jobs 5 times in 6 years: # Company 1: First stint after university at a Bank. Management development program. Left after 4 months to join a startup backed by renowned European VC/accelerator. 4 months #Company 2: Technically an internship here which was supposed to be full-time after 6 months. 3 months in, co-founder who was also my hiring manager died - startup was on the verge of sinking. 5 months. #Company 3: Ops role with plenty of ownership at Food-delivery company (think Doordash for Europe). Left after 1 year due to personal reasons (had to move back to Asia due to medical reasons in my family) Good impact here though. #Company 4: Asian unicorn. Impactful role, scaled a new business vertical to $xM ARR fwiw. Left after 3 years to change industry. #Company 5: Booming startup that ultimately did not succeed. Very short time but still made some strides. 3 months. Laid off along with 75% of the company. Now, what's your take if you were to look at my resume? As you can see, I had just 1 long stint so far (3 years). My only saving grace is that my projects were at least somewhat notable. Especially in the current climate where entire teams can be laid off and many orgs are downsizing, I feel insecure that another short stint < 1-2 years would be a red flag to recruiters and Hiring Manager - circumstances notwithstanding.
- mplanchard 4y agoSounds like an interesting career with some bad luck and some risks that didn’t pan out. I think your three-year stint shows you’re capable of sticking around when it works and is possible. I can’t imagine anyone who had a conversation with you about your job history holding it against you.
- Vibgyor5 4y agoThanks. That's a helpful point. With startups, you take some risks and they don't pan out. I am still trying to figure out the best way to bring this in my profile/pitch/resume. I suspect that the Hiring Managers/HR in the US don't seem to be very pedantic about job-hopping in startup world if we're looking at the first 5-6 years. Europe is a lot more old-school in this sense.