10 ms·

As a hiring manager, I look for employees who have stayed at previous jobs at least two years. If you switched a few, that is fine, but if your average is aroun

by SEJeff 11y ago

As a hiring manager, I look for employees who have stayed at previous jobs at least two years. If you switched a few, that is fine, but if your average is around 1.5 years, then that seems like a problem. For most companies with complex environments, it might take 6 to 8 months to fully get you up to speed. Why should I put that into you only to have to do it again? Perhaps you're looking for jobs in the wrong part of tech, or corporate tech isn't for you? Have you considered trying to found a startup, one that you yourself are directly vested in? Perhaps that is your best bet for the future.

justizin 11y ago
I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all opportunities are created equal. In a number of cases I've stayed less than a year at a place where I really could see what was wrong a couple weeks in, because you get several offers, and once you choose one, everyone else evaporates. I've certainly had to put my shoulder into getting past this, but it's shocking how common it is for basically any hiring manager to assume that the behavior of past hiring managers was correct. In this way, hiring managers can be replaced by LinkedIn. Also, keep in mind that your recruiters are contacting us when we're happily employed, and that at a recent meetup in San Francisco, I'm told someone raised their hand to say, "We're hiring", to a room of booming laughter. ;) UPDATE: I was thinking about this, something I think about a lot, and certainly one could say, "But how do you end up with several bad managers in a row?" I think that once you have a resume that is off the beaten path at all - and mine was almost 10y off the beaten path before my recent spate of job hopping - it's tough to get hired by anyone except the desperate, who can't fill their position. You can learn and grow in these positions for a few months, but you look around and see stagnation in people who stay longer. I also worked for a number of managers who had never been a manager before, for a CTO who hired someone 3 months a year to do a job that he otherwise insisted on doing (badly), and for someone with an MIS degree that often talked about having been taught to intentionally foster dishonest and manipulative relationships with his staff. I'm hoping the new gig sticks for a while, but you have to give respect to someone who keeps trying. Otherwise, I will say, in the past six years I've interviewed at over 200 places and worked at aybe six, and over 100 of those companies were the same bush league situation, and usually they had terrible diversity, and even though I'm a straight cis white male, the "bro" factor was way, WAY too high for me.
- mdekkers 11y ago
  > I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all opportunities are created equal. Good for you, but I'm with SEJeff on this one. Like him, we invest 6 to 8 months of training to get an employee productive, and job hoppers cost a lot of money, and contribute little. The ROI is typically not very good. We make no assumptions on the part of other hiring managers, and are interested to hear why you job-hopped, but it would be an issue to consider carefully for us.
- panjaro 11y ago
  What surprises me is that when you get calls from Hiring Managers or recruiters, they talk so good of the employer and judge candidates from every perspective. But you start in the company and it's not even 50% of what recruiters describe. So they call employed people, offer a wonderful opportunity at a wonderful company. Then they have no idea what takes work in there. If someone stays long, they get left behind in current tech trend. If you don't stay long, they question why. So, either way its employees fault.
ObviousScience 11y ago
Just for the record, 6 months of training and 1.5 years of work is the same ratio as 8 months of training and 2 years of work. So if you're okay with someone taking 8 months of training and staying with you a total of 2 years, what's your objection to the shorter cycle?
CmonDev 11y ago
Do you ever hire contractors for odd 6-month jobs?
swalsh 11y ago
On the other hand, the guy who switches because he's interested in harder problems might not take the same amount of time to train up. At my last company my boss hired me with the intention of me taking a year to learn the business (it was an entirely new industry for me). I was running a part of a new team 3 months later. After a year he left, and brought me with him to a new company. If you ask him I was a pretty successful hire. If you look at my resume, and ask... why only a year? You might think I am unreliable.
Bahamut 11y ago
I have only 2 1/2 years of experience so far - I have generally gotten up to speed in companies' stacks in 1-2 days (I work on the frontend). My average tenure is 9-10 months at a company when omitting my employment at one company (3 months, very poor fit - even then that company was sad to lose out my talent, having been called the best engineer at that company). I would probably fail that criteria, even though just about everything else is considered stellar to most companies (high quality open source work & contributions, hard & extremely efficient work at companies I have worked at, Marine Corps infantry experience, 4 years at a prestigious math PhD program, etc.). Many other extremely good developers I have encountered would also fail that criteria - this is because the industry does not reward loyalty, and the developers get burned for showing any.
- ortuna 11y ago
  Do you have a Github profile I can follow? Don't know many other former Marine developers.
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    https://github.com/wesleycho https://github.com/wesleycho
    - SEJeff 11y ago
      Also, in a lot of cases, github replaces a long resume if you contribute to a lot of open source software. Please do keep that up as it is also a great way to stay current on tech you like, but might not be able to work on as part of $DAY_JOB. I hold working open source code that is reasonably good higher than job experience in a lot of cases. My github: https://github.com/SEJeff https://github.com/SEJeff
- SEJeff 11y ago
  And I'm a former US Army Military Intelligence person with 0 college experience. Thanks for your service Marine. I was self taught and my first hiring manager very much took a chance on me, one that he was happy to take that turned out well. More than 10 years (and 3 jobs later), him and I are still friends. When you only have a few years of experience, or one/two jobs, that is different. But if you've worked in the industry awhile, it shows either a lack of discipline, lack of respect, or both. Occasionally, you have someone unlucky to accept shitty offers at multiple places and leave due to personality conflicts. That is something that I'd ask you were you to interview for a position on one of the teams I'm on the hiring board for. It is all about perception. If the perception is that you're going to leave after a very short period, I'll generally be gunshy, as many other experience managers will also do.

by SEJeff 11y ago

justizin 11y ago

I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all opportunities are created equal. In a number of cases I've stayed less than a year at a place where I really could see what was wrong a couple weeks in, because you get several offers, and once you choose one, everyone else evaporates. I've certainly had to put my shoulder into getting past this, but it's shocking how common it is for basically any hiring manager to assume that the behavior of past hiring managers was correct. In this way, hiring managers can be replaced by LinkedIn. Also, keep in mind that your recruiters are contacting us when we're happily employed, and that at a recent meetup in San Francisco, I'm told someone raised their hand to say, "We're hiring", to a room of booming laughter. ;) UPDATE: I was thinking about this, something I think about a lot, and certainly one could say, "But how do you end up with several bad managers in a row?" I think that once you have a resume that is off the beaten path at all - and mine was almost 10y off the beaten path before my recent spate of job hopping - it's tough to get hired by anyone except the desperate, who can't fill their position. You can learn and grow in these positions for a few months, but you look around and see stagnation in people who stay longer. I also worked for a number of managers who had never been a manager before, for a CTO who hired someone 3 months a year to do a job that he otherwise insisted on doing (badly), and for someone with an MIS degree that often talked about having been taught to intentionally foster dishonest and manipulative relationships with his staff. I'm hoping the new gig sticks for a while, but you have to give respect to someone who keeps trying. Otherwise, I will say, in the past six years I've interviewed at over 200 places and worked at aybe six, and over 100 of those companies were the same bush league situation, and usually they had terrible diversity, and even though I'm a straight cis white male, the "bro" factor was way, WAY too high for me.

mdekkers 11y ago
> I find this logic itself unreliable, because it presumes that all opportunities are created equal. Good for you, but I'm with SEJeff on this one. Like him, we invest 6 to 8 months of training to get an employee productive, and job hoppers cost a lot of money, and contribute little. The ROI is typically not very good. We make no assumptions on the part of other hiring managers, and are interested to hear why you job-hopped, but it would be an issue to consider carefully for us.
panjaro 11y ago
What surprises me is that when you get calls from Hiring Managers or recruiters, they talk so good of the employer and judge candidates from every perspective. But you start in the company and it's not even 50% of what recruiters describe. So they call employed people, offer a wonderful opportunity at a wonderful company. Then they have no idea what takes work in there. If someone stays long, they get left behind in current tech trend. If you don't stay long, they question why. So, either way its employees fault.

ObviousScience 11y ago

Just for the record, 6 months of training and 1.5 years of work is the same ratio as 8 months of training and 2 years of work. So if you're okay with someone taking 8 months of training and staying with you a total of 2 years, what's your objection to the shorter cycle?

CmonDev 11y ago

Do you ever hire contractors for odd 6-month jobs?

swalsh 11y ago

On the other hand, the guy who switches because he's interested in harder problems might not take the same amount of time to train up. At my last company my boss hired me with the intention of me taking a year to learn the business (it was an entirely new industry for me). I was running a part of a new team 3 months later. After a year he left, and brought me with him to a new company. If you ask him I was a pretty successful hire. If you look at my resume, and ask... why only a year? You might think I am unreliable.

Bahamut 11y ago

I have only 2 1/2 years of experience so far - I have generally gotten up to speed in companies' stacks in 1-2 days (I work on the frontend). My average tenure is 9-10 months at a company when omitting my employment at one company (3 months, very poor fit - even then that company was sad to lose out my talent, having been called the best engineer at that company). I would probably fail that criteria, even though just about everything else is considered stellar to most companies (high quality open source work & contributions, hard & extremely efficient work at companies I have worked at, Marine Corps infantry experience, 4 years at a prestigious math PhD program, etc.). Many other extremely good developers I have encountered would also fail that criteria - this is because the industry does not reward loyalty, and the developers get burned for showing any.

ortuna 11y ago
Do you have a Github profile I can follow? Don't know many other former Marine developers.
- Bahamut 11y ago
  https://github.com/wesleycho https://github.com/wesleycho
  - SEJeff 11y ago
    Also, in a lot of cases, github replaces a long resume if you contribute to a lot of open source software. Please do keep that up as it is also a great way to stay current on tech you like, but might not be able to work on as part of $DAY_JOB. I hold working open source code that is reasonably good higher than job experience in a lot of cases. My github: https://github.com/SEJeff https://github.com/SEJeff
SEJeff 11y ago
And I'm a former US Army Military Intelligence person with 0 college experience. Thanks for your service Marine. I was self taught and my first hiring manager very much took a chance on me, one that he was happy to take that turned out well. More than 10 years (and 3 jobs later), him and I are still friends. When you only have a few years of experience, or one/two jobs, that is different. But if you've worked in the industry awhile, it shows either a lack of discipline, lack of respect, or both. Occasionally, you have someone unlucky to accept shitty offers at multiple places and leave due to personality conflicts. That is something that I'd ask you were you to interview for a position on one of the teams I'm on the hiring board for. It is all about perception. If the perception is that you're going to leave after a very short period, I'll generally be gunshy, as many other experience managers will also do.