As someone who has been in the recruitment field it always interests me how long people stay in one job nowadays. Or how short the period should be to be considered jobhopping?
Somewhere during this week there is a day when I have been employed by MicroLink for 3 years. Hard to say when exactly, as my job contract started April 29th, but I showed up at the office already around April 25th, 2002, so eager to get started.
Is three years longer than usual? For many people I guess it is, there are so many young people in mid-twenties with already 10 or more jobs they have had.
Before that I was at CV-Online full time for 2,5 years, which during that time grew from a small local startup to the leading recruitment company in Central and Eastern Europe (although I had been one of the founders already from 1996). From 1995 to 1999 it was a bit over 4 years at Stallion, another of my own companies, which although small became and has stayed the leading data security solution provider in Estonia.
I guess it all depends what you achieve during which time. It is easy to have a great impact on a company by just staying 1-2 years there. And you can spend 5 years somewhere and leave the office one day without many changes taking place during that time.
Still when hiring, I rarely choose someone who has been in one job less than 2 years. Shorter than that and you probably have not even got to know the company.
“2 years. Shorter than that and you probably have not even got to know the company.” – that all depends on the complexity of the business, I believe.
For instance: if you work as a salesperson in a rather simple business with short sales cycles, you actually SHOULD already know this business after a few months. If you don’t, I’d say you should almost get fired! And I am sure some companies wouldn’t hesitate to fire someone who’s not productive after 6 months’ trial period – at least if the business isn’t too complex.