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>4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? Am I wrong to think this seems at least somewhat reasonable? Like obviously it's annoying to explain yourself,

>4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? Am I wrong to think this seems at least somewhat reasonable? Like obviously it's annoying to explain yourself, but it takes time to on-board someone and for them to become productive and it seems reasonable to want someone to stay on long enough for that at least. This naturally applies less to those super engineers you barely need to train and have obvious experienced, but that's probably not the normal case.

chadash 4y ago
A short job or two, fine, but at a certain point it’s a pattern that needs a reason. If the reason is “my spouse was in the military and we moved around a lot for that, but we longer do”, that’s fair enough. If the answer is that you weren’t happy enough at your last jobs to stay for more than 12 months, then why should I think you’ll be any different at your next job?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  My wife had really bad luck with her first three jobs: the offices would just up and close a year or so after she started (this included a Nokia office because of the Microsoft merger). But she would still have to frame her answer in a way that didn’t give vibes that she was cursed.
  - recursive 4y ago
    No one would blame her for the closing of the whole branch. That's kind of the best possible answer.
  - mosdl 4y ago
    I've seen some resumes/linkedins that put reasons for why they left the job in similar situations. Acknowledging stuff like that is a good way to get ahead of questions.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  You'll never hear the real reason. So if you have an issue with this fact, don't invite the candidate to an interview. If you don't have an issue with it, then why ask? They'll never say "because I'm constantly looking for better opportunities and will jump ship when I can". This is what most of those questions on the list have in common: both sides of the table know that the answer will be contrived BS. They are a waste of everyone's time.
  - Kranar 4y ago
    Not everyone is a serial liar, don't assume people can't give real reasons for deficiencies in their resume.
  - chadash 4y ago
    Maybe I’m 80% sure I’m gonna pass on this candidate because I’m not confident they’ll stick around, but it can still be worth my time to get on a screener call and at least ask. There can be many reasons why someone jumps around frequently and maybe after hearing their story Ill be convinced that it’s a true story and a reasonable situation for them to be moving so much.
- ghaff 4y ago
  How short? How many examples? And credible reasons, especially if I know something of the circumstances at various large companies. I know personal counterexamples where someone verged on job-hopping who became a great relatively long-term employee. And I've also known people who had a single example of clear not-meeting-of-the-minds. But, in general, if there's a consistent pattern, no reason to believe you'll be different.
lr4444lr 4y ago
No, you're not wrong, and are even downplaying how seriously disruptive a serial job hopper is to a company. I have without regrets red-flagged numerous well-qualified candidates who were an obvious flight risk at the companies I have worked at, which were always smallish. Now that big tech is contracting its ranks somewhat, this behavior is going to be even more suspect, because they will not have that refuge so easily, and I think it's for the best that we have more pressure to curtail it industry wide. I don't begrudge people for having good reasons to justify their job switches (e.g., wanted a manager role, and was told none would be forthcoming in the future), but e.g. "I got bored doing React and I wanted try Vue on the MEAN stack" does not bode well for the projects left in the lurch when he gets bored at my workplace.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  How short is short in your opinion?
  - lr4444lr 4y ago
    Speaking personally, I always want to give a technically promising candidate a chance to defend his job hopping, but rarely do I hear convincing reasons for sub 2 year stints unless it is something out of their control, like a spouse needing to move for work, or their whole department getting laid off.
    - Volundr 4y ago
      I'll just second this based on my experience with software engineers. Most places I've worked your looking at at least 6 months before someone is starting to get enough familiarity with everything involved in the internal ecosystem (both technical and non) to really be productive and probably a year before they're starting to reach the productivity of their peers. So if someone leaves at 2 years you've probably gotten one of something resembling their full productivity. Less than that and there's a good chance your better off hiring the slightly less impressive candidate who will stick around for a few. Less than 6 months to a year you may be better off hiring no one.
xedrac 4y ago
I felt this point was very out of place on that list. I've interviewed so many people that had an average tenure of 6-9 months across many different jobs. In my field, if someone only stays for 6-9 months, then it was a complete waste of time. I suppose I could just outright reject the candidate without letting them explain, but that seems to be worse than just asking the uncomfortable question.
KyeRussell 4y ago
No. It’s a fine, useful signal. I have asked this question in the past, and will continue to do so. I used to be more lenient with short term stint candidates. It never paid off, so I’m a lot more strict about it now. I have not once experienced the highly competent short stint non-contractor developer that HN would have me believe exists in such frequently that’d make this an unreliable signal. I can’t realistically envisage an employee so valuable and productive that anything less than a 12 month stint wouldn’t leave a taste in my mouth, and for good reason. Not many people would be earning their keep for a fair portion of that. And I would’ve burned a lot of time learning how to work with them. At the end of it you’ve ended up with a loss of what little institutional knowledge they had, and a bunch of code written by someone without the proven ability to build maintainable software that’s only learned by being burned and learning the hard way.

chadash 4y ago

A short job or two, fine, but at a certain point it’s a pattern that needs a reason. If the reason is “my spouse was in the military and we moved around a lot for that, but we longer do”, that’s fair enough. If the answer is that you weren’t happy enough at your last jobs to stay for more than 12 months, then why should I think you’ll be any different at your next job?

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
My wife had really bad luck with her first three jobs: the offices would just up and close a year or so after she started (this included a Nokia office because of the Microsoft merger). But she would still have to frame her answer in a way that didn’t give vibes that she was cursed.
- recursive 4y ago
  No one would blame her for the closing of the whole branch. That's kind of the best possible answer.
- mosdl 4y ago
  I've seen some resumes/linkedins that put reasons for why they left the job in similar situations. Acknowledging stuff like that is a good way to get ahead of questions.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
You'll never hear the real reason. So if you have an issue with this fact, don't invite the candidate to an interview. If you don't have an issue with it, then why ask? They'll never say "because I'm constantly looking for better opportunities and will jump ship when I can". This is what most of those questions on the list have in common: both sides of the table know that the answer will be contrived BS. They are a waste of everyone's time.
- Kranar 4y ago
  Not everyone is a serial liar, don't assume people can't give real reasons for deficiencies in their resume.
- chadash 4y ago
  Maybe I’m 80% sure I’m gonna pass on this candidate because I’m not confident they’ll stick around, but it can still be worth my time to get on a screener call and at least ask. There can be many reasons why someone jumps around frequently and maybe after hearing their story Ill be convinced that it’s a true story and a reasonable situation for them to be moving so much.
ghaff 4y ago
How short? How many examples? And credible reasons, especially if I know something of the circumstances at various large companies. I know personal counterexamples where someone verged on job-hopping who became a great relatively long-term employee. And I've also known people who had a single example of clear not-meeting-of-the-minds. But, in general, if there's a consistent pattern, no reason to believe you'll be different.

lr4444lr 4y ago

No, you're not wrong, and are even downplaying how seriously disruptive a serial job hopper is to a company. I have without regrets red-flagged numerous well-qualified candidates who were an obvious flight risk at the companies I have worked at, which were always smallish. Now that big tech is contracting its ranks somewhat, this behavior is going to be even more suspect, because they will not have that refuge so easily, and I think it's for the best that we have more pressure to curtail it industry wide. I don't begrudge people for having good reasons to justify their job switches (e.g., wanted a manager role, and was told none would be forthcoming in the future), but e.g. "I got bored doing React and I wanted try Vue on the MEAN stack" does not bode well for the projects left in the lurch when he gets bored at my workplace.

Ancalagon 4y ago
How short is short in your opinion?
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  Speaking personally, I always want to give a technically promising candidate a chance to defend his job hopping, but rarely do I hear convincing reasons for sub 2 year stints unless it is something out of their control, like a spouse needing to move for work, or their whole department getting laid off.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    I'll just second this based on my experience with software engineers. Most places I've worked your looking at at least 6 months before someone is starting to get enough familiarity with everything involved in the internal ecosystem (both technical and non) to really be productive and probably a year before they're starting to reach the productivity of their peers. So if someone leaves at 2 years you've probably gotten one of something resembling their full productivity. Less than that and there's a good chance your better off hiring the slightly less impressive candidate who will stick around for a few. Less than 6 months to a year you may be better off hiring no one.

xedrac 4y ago

I felt this point was very out of place on that list. I've interviewed so many people that had an average tenure of 6-9 months across many different jobs. In my field, if someone only stays for 6-9 months, then it was a complete waste of time. I suppose I could just outright reject the candidate without letting them explain, but that seems to be worse than just asking the uncomfortable question.

KyeRussell 4y ago

No. It’s a fine, useful signal. I have asked this question in the past, and will continue to do so. I used to be more lenient with short term stint candidates. It never paid off, so I’m a lot more strict about it now. I have not once experienced the highly competent short stint non-contractor developer that HN would have me believe exists in such frequently that’d make this an unreliable signal. I can’t realistically envisage an employee so valuable and productive that anything less than a 12 month stint wouldn’t leave a taste in my mouth, and for good reason. Not many people would be earning their keep for a fair portion of that. And I would’ve burned a lot of time learning how to work with them. At the end of it you’ve ended up with a loss of what little institutional knowledge they had, and a bunch of code written by someone without the proven ability to build maintainable software that’s only learned by being burned and learning the hard way.