Is Your Job Hopping Driven or Disloyal?

To job hop or not to job hop?

That’s the tough career question on many employees’ minds these days. With job opportunities plentiful and unemployment at historically low rates, it’s tempting to search for greener pastures – especially if a new job offers more money or potential for advancement.

But is job hopping good for your career?

Here are a few factors to consider:

The positives of job hopping:

• Earn more money. If your current employer isn’t paying competitive wages, changing jobs is one way to boost your pay. In some cases, your current employer may even counter, offering you more money to stay with them.
• Accelerate your career advancement. Unless you work for a rapidly growing organization, it can be tough to quickly rise through the ranks. Taking a new job with more responsibility fast-tracks your career growth, instantly making you more marketable.
• Avoid complacency. Frequently changing jobs keeps you on your proverbial toes by forcing you to continually: adapt to new environments, forge new work relationships and take on new responsibilities.
• Smart career changes can be viewed favorably by employers. Logically changing jobs within your field to increase your level of responsibility can make you more desirable to an employer. From their perspective, a smart job-hopper brings: experience in diverse work environments, a wider range of job skills, and a broader view of their industry.
• Expand your professional network. When you change jobs every few years, you steadily grow you number of job contacts. Developing a strong professional network is one of the best ways to improve your future employment prospects.

The negatives of job hopping:

• Gaps in your resume never look good. A series of short employment stints punctuated by periods of unemployment does nothing to improve your candidacy for any job.
• Job hopping can scare away hiring managers. Despite the fact that employee tenure has been trending downward for years, some employers still have reservations about hiring job hoppers. In this earlier post, “Is Job Hopping Making Managers Hop Over Your Resume,” we review some of the biggest fears hiring managers have about hiring job hoppers.
• Burned bridges may limit your future opportunities. If you take a job with a great employer, only to leave them months later for a “better” job, chances are you won’t be rehired by that company again.

Want career-building opportunities – without the job-hopping stigma?

Consider the benefits of working as a PrideStaff temporary employee:

• List one employer on your resume. PrideStaff is your employer of record no matter where you work on assignment, so you won’t look like a job hopper on paper.
• Get the variety you crave. Shorter-term assignments allow you to gain exposure to different jobs, responsibilities and employers, without being labeled as a serial quitter.
• Quickly build job skills and your resume. With each new assignment, you get paid to gain experience and expertise.

PrideStaff offers temporary and temp-to-hire jobs with the variety, challenge and career-building opportunities you want. Contact the PrideStaff office in your area to find out more about great local job opportunities.