Pros and cons of job-hopping (From Western Telegraph)

Pros and cons of job-hopping

8:30am Saturday 10th October 2009 in Jobs

Fans of football will have heard of Nicolas Anelka. Currently at Chelsea, Anelka made his English debut when he joined Arsenal in 1997 for a fee of £500,000.

Three years later he moved to Real Madrid for £22.3m before returning to his home club Paris St Germain for £20m and then a further five clubs in as many years in the English Premiership, netting him more than £43m.

This illustrates that regardless of what profession you are in, job hopping inevitably occurs.

It is widely acknowledged that workers in their 20s and 30s will change jobs as many as eight or nine times.

So does this make you an erratic employee? Or does it actually make you a highly-experienced professional and an attractive proposition for any would-be employer?

Paul MacKenzie-Cummins said that according to the latest industry statistics, the latter is probably the answer.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation recently confirmed that there has been a continued growth in the number of temporary positions filled compared to permanent positions, as employers attempt to meet the peaks and troughs in business workloads during the current testing economic climate.

Of course, job hopping suits the employee rather than the employer – one employer’s loss is another employer’s gain.

But with the job market at its most competitive in many years, employers no longer have the luxury of writing people off simply because they have moved from one employer to the next over a period of time.

Instead, employers are increasingly looking to see what an employee can contribute to their company, no matter how long they stay there for.

Job hopping can have its downsides too. Personnel departments in the main dislike job hoppers and a candidate who has had a number of jobs can signal a number of red flags to a potential employer.

Firstly it could be argued that it demonstrates a lack of commitment. And secondly, more worryingly, it raises a level of doubt in their minds as to the genuine reasons why you left a previous employer - can you talk-the-talk but unable to walk-the talk, are you in the wrong career?

The trick is to effectively market your penchant for short-term success and your ability to meet an employer’s need for your skill-set. And as demand continues to outstrip supply, you are equally well positioned to command a higher salary than what you are currently earning.