There was a time in the not-so-distant past when job hopping was considered to be career suicide. This tide may be changing but some of the reticence to hire a new worker who has a history of job hopping remains.
According to an article that appeared recently on Human Resource Online, employment powerhouse Robert Half released a report on April 5th that indicates 75% of younger employees, aged 18 -34 feel that job hopping is beneficial. Workers that fall into the age group of 35 – 54, some 59 percent of workers felt job hopping was ok, while 51% of workers feel that it is beneficial, particularly if that worker is college educated.
Conversely, executives and HR managers are a little bit more cautious when hiring someone with a history of job hopping. In a separate survey given to CFOs, 44% of those surveyed said that they were not likely to hire someone with a history of job hopping because of the potential of losing that worker in the future. When asked what constituted a job-hopper, professionals indicated someone who had changed jobs more than 5 times 10 years while CFO’s indicated 6 would place a worker in the job hopping category.
Needless to say, with younger employees considering it to be a beneficial practice it’s going to be a challenge for managers to figure out how to retain younger workers and keep them from jumping ship. Studies will need to be done about why younger people want to hop and how to mitigate that.