Someone who has never stayed in a job longer than 10 months

[Riddickm]

..if you recruit as part of your job. Would this be a big put off?

I asked as I’ve never been put off. It seems fine to me to want to try different areas of work and often in our profession we work in locum short term contracts.

However my manager said she would be majorly put off by a candidate who had had several positions in just a few years.

It depends on how old the person was. It’s pretty normal amongst fairly recent graduates. I wouldn’t look askance at someone of 26 or so who had moved jobs a bit to find their ideal over the course of 5 years or so.

I probably would if the person was 45. It would seem strange to me if someone of that age had not managed to remain in continuous employment with one employer for more than a year.

Depends on the length of their career and what area they work in I suppose. If it was consultancy I'd expect a lot of 6-12 month contracts.

Teaching posts (unless suply teaching) would put me off, school children need stability.

Someone in their 20's/30's may have moved about for experience but i'd expect by late 30's at least 1 or 2 3-5 year placements.

I tend to move jobs every 2-3 years but I'm still climbing the ladder. 2 years is pretty normal

Just be careful and check sickness records if you can. I know of someone who has lots of time off sick in each job and then changes to another job.
Also, check what the second to last employer has to say about the candidate.

I think in industries where contracting is common it wouldn’t be a problem. Otherwise, I would potentially be concerned that they either get bored easily or aren’t much cop - either way, I’d have to spend time and money re-recruiting a year later.

It takes longer than that to train someone in our job, so I would be cautious about that.

It’s a red flag to be honest.

Depends doesn’t it, if each jump has been a natural career progression, or whether its because someone is flaky.

Ive seen, in the NHS, one particular person who moves every 18 months, she’s now 57, so that is the thick end of 35 years of perpetual moving. She has - according to her colleagues - sociopathic tendencies and inevitably falls out with the world; this does not ever seem to stop her getting another position - she never lasts in them though.

It would depend on why they left each job and whether they could give me their current / most recent manager as a reference. One or two such jobs would be ok, but more than that I'd be concerned about. Recruitment is expensive in terms of our staff time so I'm not lining us up to do that again within 12 months, not least because staff budget savings would mean we'd have to hold off recruiting for several months and leave us understaffed because the person had left so quickly.

It would be a red flag for me unless the person was really young and trying to find the right career. I would expect them to leave if I hired them, unless they had a great explanation for their job moves and showed they really really wanted this job and demonstrated why they would want to commit to it.

I would expect the managers at my work to hire someone with an unusual career history like this though, without questioning it, and then they would be confused when the person left! There is a very high staff turnover in my office.

I think it depends a lot?

Jumped up the career ladder multiple times - no
Contractor - no
Lots of roles in one business - no
No real reasons for leaving - probably would concern me.

Lots of public sector contracting about at the minute due to recruitment freezes, Brexit etc.

A friend has done projects/consulting for last 3 years. 3 employers I think. A career change & upskilling exercise.

She's more employable than most, I'd argue, but is at the mercy of employers that end contracts quickly

Private sector employers wouldn't touch her with a bargepole unfortunately

Generally when I recruit (rare) it's for a marketing assistant job which requires very limited experience so I couldn't care less - these are usually 23 year olds who have done a couple of six month stints doing events or something and want something to build their skills, so I couldn't care less.

At the level I'm at now, it takes a full year to get the 'cycle' of the job, so if I hadn't done at least 2 years with each employer they'd not really have got the value out of me, so if I were recruiting a replacement for myself yes it would worry me.

I think it depends if each move is a progression upwards/something more specialised or just a sideways move.

And on the norm for the role and industry

And on the age/experience as in a few years moving around in your twenties is more acceptable than 30+ years of short term roles

I’m sure that some would look askance at my CV!

2 years
4 years (three different roles for one employer but I’ve banded all together)
1 year fixed term contract
1 year fixed term contract
1 year
6 month fixed term contract

I have had a couple of roles in that time that were meant to be perm but I only stayed a few weeks. They aren’t on my CV!

Yes I think it would put me off. I would think I’d have to advertise and recruit all over again soon.

If they were short-term contracts - no.

If it was the candidate leaving the post - yes.

Honestly, now I would yes, having been burned a couple of times by people with this kind of job hopping on their CV and letting them have the benefit of the doubt and taking their reasons at face value. I would be much much much more wary now.

No because staying beyond 12 months is not the MO of my target employee (high ability 21-28 year old investment banking analyst). I would be looking for ‘promotions’ though - millennials now look for promotions within and external to the company and won’t necessarily be loyal. If it seems the person is doing the same job in every organisation then it would be a massive red flag.

It is a red flag. Consultancy is different, but that’ll be very obvious.

Depends how many jobs, but yes that would put me off a candidate

If they had contracting jobs or short term contracts the no problem.

Quitting several permanent jobs then it's a yellow flag. Depends if there is field changes, moving and how experience they are.

I think it really depends on the job and the actual content of the CV.

If I received a CV from someone who had deliberately been taking fixed-term roles or temporary contracts as a consultant or something, that would be fine - in my field, it's not uncommon for people to do that really. I've worked with lots of great people who have chosen to do fixed-term roles covering other people's maternity leave or working on projects that have an end point, which works well for them and their employers.

But if I was recruiting and someone had taken lots of roles that were supposedly permanent and then just left for whatever reason after 10 months every time, I'd have a lot of questions to ask. Maybe if they were really young and finding their feet it wouldn't be that big a deal, but if they were well into their career I'd find it odd.

Bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question.
Depends on age, experience, industry, what each job was.
For certain areas that I recruit for it's quite usual as work is on a project basis and these projects can be short term. Someone may have chosen to go with multiple short term projects to fast track experience or may have been luck of the draw.
If it's all in the same industry and has facilitated progression then it can show ambition.
If they've been bouncing around between industries then honestly? I probably would be put off as it shows a lack of commitment and focus.

Employers can get rid of employees with minimum notice for any reason yet get annoyed when employees resign. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Can’t have it both ways.

I left an NHS job recently after two weeks in post because it was largely crap! It won’t be going on my CV! Sure, they will have to recruit again but sure they will find someone and I doubt they even remember me now.