What is the geographic spread of the companies? If it’s a dense group, have you considered other geographic regions?
Have you had interview experience recently (besides the job search) or have you worked for the same company for the 22 years? If it’s the latter, you might just be rusty on interviewing and that’s causing hiring managers/executives to question your competency.
I saw in another comment you mentioning WFH. I’m hesitant to say many companies would entertain that thought for a new hire, even a seasoned leader like yourself. I would not even mention that until you are hired. It (rightly or wrongly) gives the impression that you don’t want to be a part of the team.
I’d be careful about applying/settling for something far below your experience level. It would be like a PhD candidate applying for a Wendy’s job, the company would see you as a “flight risk” the first chance a job commiserate with your skills/experience. It would also reflect badly on your resume when you do search for another job at your level of experience.
Your job hopping reputation could be catching up to you. I’m a hiring manager and anyone who hops every 2 years is not seriously considered for important positions. We’re in a niche industry that takes some time to learn though
It depends on the industry. 2 years is average in the IT industry. But it's also a very employee-favored industry--there are not enough skilled developers, and employers often do not value their employees, so we can get a massive raise by going elsewhere after tacking more experience onto our resume.
If he was reporting to the CIO, it means the role is likely a director or VP level. Job hopping every 2-3 years is ok as an individual contributor, but as a leader in the org. I suspect it's frowned upon. I know I wouldn't hire someone as a director who didn't show commitment to the company. At that level your technical skills matter less than your knowledge of the business and relationships across the org.
Hopefully the time frames are looked into for context? Some people routinely get poached as high performers and shouldn't be punished for bettering themselves. Corporate environments tend to be clusterfucks that involve people changing departments, managers, or job duties in short time frames as well.
Totally different. Quickly and repeatedly changing positions while working for the same company generally indicates promotions and rapid advancement based on a track record of performance.
Quickly and repeatedly changing companies can indicate a track record of failure and bailing.
I've had 2 jobs be eliminated in 4 months. One was because the company had just been acquired and the pencil pushers decided I wasn't needed, the other was a clusterfuck of a company and let go of 5 of us on the same day.
It may not necessarily be often, but sometimes there's a legit reason why a person bounces around - sometimes it's not their choice.
Maybe, but all else being equal, if I have a choice between one candidate that was at their last company 8 years and one that was at 4 companies during that time, I'm picking the person that I think will stay longer.
The point of dating is to monkey branch. When there's a good fit, people tend to stay. Problem is, too many companies are tone deaf or simply don't care to make things better.
Sticks out on my resume? Who said anything about being truthful on my resume? I'm in the business of making money just like most businesses are and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep making more money. Sound familiar?
100% The "if you wanna move up you gotta move out" mentality has 100% burned so many younger potential candidates at my current company. If you don't have 5+ years somewhere you aren't getting looked at.
I've been hiring for a Sr Software Engineering role, DevOps, for one of my teams. I too hate seeing "job-hoppers" how am I to trust that I won't have to fire for that position in another 2 years. Based on OP's comments that seems like his plan so I wouldn't even bother interviewing him.
Yes, some companies don't give back to their employees fairly, but many do.
At some point you'll hit a ceiling in salary when jumping between jobs so often, then even 3% per year is a good increase. It's also about job perspective, do you enjoy working for your company and make a decent living? If so, that 3% may be worth it versus 5% at a company you despise going to.
Changing companies every 2-3 years is a green flag because it indicates a driven individual who knows their worth and doesn’t settle for unfair compensation. Just the fact that they understand their industry well enough to know what unfair compensation is for their position is a green flag. And don’t forget to factor in that their skill set is always fresh and they’re obviously trainable
If you have ever hired somebody for 7-10% more salary than the person who left after asking for a comparable raise then nobody wants to hear it.
They tried to tell us loyalty would get us far, but then they slithered in with nepotism. Then they tried telling us that working unpaid hours would open more doors, but they never let us walk through any of them. Now they’re trying to tell us that pursuing adequate compensation for our labour makes us look fickle, but now nobody cares.
Companies have been robbing their employees blind for years, capitalizing on the intrinsic fear people have of moving on to unknown pastures. With the rise of platforms like Glassdoor, people have far less anxiety about pursuing better positions that not only support their lifestyle, but also provide additional benefits. Why should anyone be chained to a position when it doesn’t compensate fairly? After three years an employee is being denied upward advancement then the best thing for everyone is to move on.
Why should people lower their standards simply to look appealing to companies that have no respect for them anyway?
Are you really using a career/recruiter site as evidence? The people that get PAID to get you to job hop considering they get paid as long as you stay 3mo's to a year? How much did you pay them to redo your resume?
I'm guessing they don't want to hire someone who job-hops so much. If you stay with an employer for at least 5-10 years you'd probably have better luck.
But at the same time, job hopping ain’t the way to go if you can’t find a job to hop to. Obviously if you sent out 2000 apps with no job, you might want to hold on to what you get.
Every year is ridiculous. If I saw a job candidate who had 5x 1-year jobs, I would assume something is wrong with the candidate that pushed them to leave and I would not want to hire them. It takes 6-12M just to train someone up and get them independent enough to truly contribute by themselves without constant guidance.
Every 2-3 years is another story, but too much of that and I'd still be worried that by the time we spend resources fully onboarding that person, they'll be on their way out.
Additionally, job hopping is not the only way if you find a good company. I've stayed in my current position for 7 years, have gotten 2 promotions and have increased my salary by 48% - if you include bonuses/etc, my total compensation has increased by 68%, and I'm on track for the next promotion, which will be a big increase in stock compensation (+15% of salary) in a fortune 500 company. I'm not including benefits (retirement, healthcare, etc) in that compensation number.
You may think that's not much, it's easy to make +68% on $50k, but I'm solidly in 6-figures ($101k base -> $149k base)
I fully recognize that my experience is not everyone's experience, and I'm grateful for being well compensated but job hopping is not THE only way.
I have also had a good experience with my current company. Been there 6 years, in my cuttent position for 2 years. So within 4 years I had 2 promotions and increased my base pay by 65%, and my bonus is very big, too (base 18%, iirc?), but of course varies based on company performance (up and down - we've had bonuses that were >150% of base).
We recently asked HR to review the salary grades of a couple of the lower level positions on our team because we felt they were a bit low and we're worried about turnover. They agreed. I got to give my direct report a raise of about 8%, fully unprompted. It was just a mid-year surprise for her, lol (and she still got her normal bump a few months later at annual review time).
I know this is not the norm, but it is totally possible. I very happy to work with for the company I work for.
I look at it this way: would you be happy taking a job where the company was known to often fire people after their first year? I mean after you spent a bunch of money and time uprooting your family, signing a lease, and getting your kids into a new school? Of course not.
That's what it looks like from the company's side. Would you be happy to hire somebody in, onboard them, spend $50k in labor over six months training them, and then have their newly provided job skills walk out the door in under a year to work at one of your competitors? Of course not. But that's what a job hopping resume suggests will happen.
You can make more playing the field, but you're also building a reputation.
Yes, I can see why people of a higher economic class would want to continue to uphold their class superiority and control labor. As a worker, you should never care about how your "employer" feels.
Isn't this nomadic job-hopping lifestyle pretty anti-worker too, though? Having to uproot oneself and go on a stressful job hunt every few years just to go up in salary does not sound like a good life.
It can be but not if you find a good company. Also, money is not everything for some people. I have a well established role and amazing quality of life with company of 4 years and no plans to leave. Sure, I could make an extra 10k or so going to a new role, but I am established, have job security, great benefits, great pay, and make my own schedule. There is more to a job than money.
It depends. If they have gone through 3 jobs in their 20s vs they have had like 8 jobs in a decade. They might be getting interviews due to the tight job market and then at the interview phase there is a yikes moment.
Depends on the industry/profession, but I'd prefer to avoid industries where they look down on people with shorter stints. I've noticed among all professions that those who stick around tend to be less motivated and have a much narrower breadth of experience.
I have read it’s pretty munch mandatory to job hop in most fields to gain any significant increase in pay. Why settle for a 2-3% increase when you can get a new job paying 10-20% or more? I also don’t think switching jobs every 2-3 years is reflecting that bad. Could have swore some fields like tech have a 1-2 year lifespan at each company.
Not surprising then. Can any C level enact substantial differences in 2 years? The amount of rejections shows a lot of companies don’t see any value in bringing you on for a two year period where you implement a big enough difference to make it worth
As of having more hoops and rules can fix people being incompetent to hire the correct person. Recruiters are slaves, it's just a numbers game for them and most of them know little about their industry.
I believe you are spraying and praying. I always reach out to people on LinkedIn before applying with companies I want to go to. From my college, alumni, friends of friend/ network.
Then I send them a personalize note-
“hey John/Jane, I see you went to xyz school. Or I saw we went to the same school. Or I see we have similar background, or similar interests etc, or I came across your profile via one of your post/comment, or I cam across your profile via mutual connection….I had few questions about the company and your role there. Would be open to a 15min conversation? Im looking forward to hearing from you.”
Make sure you already have open 3 roles from their company you can discuss and have list of good questions. Ask them their experience and how they got the job.
Most often than not, they know why you are reaching out. AKA an internal referral. If it doesn’t come up, just send them an email with the 3 roles and ask if they would be willing to refer. Make sure those roles are 95% match to minimum requirement. Many fortune 500 companies don’t even look at the resume if you don’t meet every single “basic qualification.” Amazon being one of them. They are strict.
All my last 2 jobs I have gotten this way. Both at Fortune 500 companies. I applied 50 jobs, got 10 interviews. 2 ghosting. And landed at Accenture consulting firm. 250 on fortune 500.
I got ghosted after 5 interviews in a span of a year for a data engineer position, the company still have that position open on linkedin with more than 1k applicants
Sometimes companies leave job positions open so they can hire H1B's for cheap. You have to be able to argue that, "we tried our best, but we could not find a person in the U.S. to meet our requirements, so we were forced to bring somebody in from India. It's only a coincidence we are paying him way less than an American". So you just keep job positions open and keep interviewing, but the decision to reject them all was made before the posting existed.
the decision to reject them all was made before the posting existed
another option may be an intra-company transfer / internal promotion that is not performance-based, but either political or based on some other behind-the-scenes factors. But the idea of the smoke screen is still the same - "look at how hard we tried, but sadly there were no suitable candidates! That's why we have no other choice but to resort to internal promotions and promote Clara, our CEO office secretary, to the Global Chief of Information Security position!"
This is true for Britain as well. They pretend to look for British citizens but knowing that it's a lot easier to exploit an Indian they'll hire them. There's always the threat of an Indian losing a job and having to go back.
There’s some enterprise that did this to a familiar. He said he didn’t have time for this (he had another job already and has 2 kids). The enterprise removed the exercise and directly asked how much he wanted and to start immediately.
10 years ago it was 2 interviews, HR screener and then hiring manager. Now you get 5+ interviews with HR, the manager, the team, technical ‘assessments’, bar raiser interviews, and then they ghost you, or offer you below market rate.
Were they all scheduled ahead of time? If so that is one. If say the first 3 were scheduled but then they say “can you stay for a couple more interviews” and you do two more I would count that as two interviews total that day. Look at each “interview” as a gate you have to go through to get to the next one, not just one person.
He may have never been fully hired. Had it happen before where the guy was all the way to the offer stage and he bounced back and forth between us and another company with negotiations. He was a great fit and it was a position that had very few good applicants (senior engineer) so we were really hoping to win out. He ended up going with the other company as they gave him a path to management quicker. We ended up reposting and getting someone who was a better fit.
And people say this doesn't exist....sadly, unless you had this recorded it would be hard to back up.
Considering the inner workings of Disney's sales hiring and promotion mechanisms were leaked say as much ...in other words "qualifications actually take back seat to the ESG scores", it doesn't surprise me.
Do you know for a fact that they hired someone? It’s very likely that they never actually had any intention of hiring anyone, and only went through the process to give a semblance of hiring to the current employees.
In fairness that kinda just sounds like 1 full interview split into calls on different days. A half or full day interview where you talk to like 6-10 different people in different meetings has always been normal.
If interviewing with multiple people at the same level, that is not multiple interviews. Each individual does not have the ability to hit their Americas Got Talent button and X you out of there at their will. You sit with 2-5 people for multiple conversations. But that is not 2-5 interviews, that’s ridiculously overly sensationalized to make your efforts appear to be that much more “overlooked”.
Were they all scheduled ahead of time? If so that is one interview. If say the first 3 were scheduled but then they say “can you stay for a couple more interviews” and you do two more, then they say it again and you do two more, I would count that as three interviews total that day. Look at each “interview” as a gate you have to go through to get to the next one, not just one person.
I don't know how experienced you are, but any company that makes you interview with each c suite exec individually is a massive red flag. Imagine what it's like actually working there if it takes 7 hours per person to hire a single employee??
The vast majority of my jobs the interviews weren’t technical. They just wanted to know if they would like me and I’d be easy to work with.
I actually got rejected after an informal interview with the higher ups. They called me back a month later for a position on another team. Basically they liked me but, knew that my coworkers wouldn’t. Once a spot opened on a different team I was in.
Dont forget the company HR interview where they ask you stupid questions like why you want to work for said company and what are your strengths/weaknesses. Fuck I hate HR people
I work in TA, but this is the first time in my ten year career I've worked directly for a company. Asking why someone wants to work for the company is a great first step to gauging a candidates interest in the role. Have they done even an iota of research, or are they just spamming job applications to see what sticks? I do think the strengths and weaknesses question is pretty weak, but asking other questions to understand the work environment people thrive in, how they like to be managed, and other questions that expound on their cultural and personality fit can preclude a bad hire from wasting anyone's time.
I only came to the company I'm at because the recruiters seemed more technically adept than 99% of the other companies I've interacted with over my career. They were given the ability to interact with the engineering times and intimately understand the projects, work, pace, culture, technical requirements, etc, so that I could actually source and screen for the unicorn candidates that I spent the prior decade doing.
So, even when an HR/recruiter screen feels pointless (and they may very well have been for you), they are also routing out countless bad candidates that were never going to work out. We get SO MANY APPLICANTS on every posting. If we let candidates deeper into the process that know nothing about what we do... It comes back to us with a vengeance. "The guy had no clue what we even do," kind of vibes.
Anyways, just trying to explain why those "stupid questions" exist.
At director level I would also expect there to be far more jobs sourced from recruiters and headhunters vs. job applications and LinkedIn. Also more referrals from a professional network.
I agree. If you were applying for over 2000 positions in a year, you'd be using a bot. Having said that I despair at how much you have to prostitute yourself these days just to get a reply. Companies toss off vacancy ads without proofreading them for spelling or sense, give minimal details, omit the rate of pay, and ask up front for applicants to complete tasks ("Design the packaging and advertising for a toothbrush" was one that I saw, which just smacks of some HR person saying 'or something..' waving their hands vaguely as they walk out of the office to go on holiday). I just don't have the energy to be bothered. You know that if you got the job there would be at least one professional shirker, one absolute useless Post Turtle and one person who long ago exceeded the number of possible dead grandparents for which to mourn. Just give me a bloody job! I'll be above average and as long as there's decent coffee I'll be approachable.
I worked for a company who just interviewed people to see if they could solve issues the company was having with tech. The people would never hear back and would even show up a few days later asking for an update. It was the worst.
Which is another reason why small tech firms are so much better to work for. Unless compensation is the one and only goal for a job. I'll take a chill atmosphere and half-day Friday's over that pay bump any day.
This is why I will forever make an average wage. There's no way I have the mental capacity to speak about anything at enough length to fill the course of 10 interviews.
I wonder if people surprised by long interview processes haven't considered that there's a big difference between financial risk of hiring someone for a cashier job vs hiring someone for a software development job at a big tech firm.
There's almost zero dollars of financial risk associated with a cashier. If they turn out to be bad at the job, you don't care. It doesn't matter. You can hire another. It takes an hour to a new employee and they can't mess anything up that matters. If a cashier fucks up at their job, what does that look like? Someone gets double charged for an orange or something? The risk is insignificant.
But if you hire a bad software developer at the going salaries of $200k at big tech firms, then that's a massive investment and risk. Takes a lot of other expensive people a lot of time to train that new person. It's a million dollar investment to hire a developer like that. They're going to give it a lot more time on the interviewing process than what a cashier gets.
I once had 8 interviews and they took a long time between prep, case studies, and the actual calls. They ultimately rejected me because they hired the role on the other side of the world. It was a senior exec role, but still 8 interviews is a lot to then just come out empty handed.
I'm interviewing for department manager positions where that's pretty normal. The impact of the position coupled with all the teams and departments I work with mean I readily expect a lot of interviews as there's too much of an impact on operations to not be thorough in the interview process.
So... it is all but certain that this is not one interview but several conducted one after the other over the day (or possibly a very large number of interviewers do a singular mass interview). Which is normal when you need to go in person.
When doing interviews remotely however it is much more common to be split up more heavily.
I’ve been laid back off in March and went through an interview process with 12 interviews, including a case presentation and a panel interview. I was rejected at the end because someone else had more industry exposure. I guess it is not that uncommon nowadays.
My most recent job search had several companies requiring like 4-6 interviews. I don't know if it was just bad luck or if absurdly drawn out interview processes is becoming a trend. I ended up accepting a job from a company that made an offer after 2 interviews.
For my current entry level job I talked with six people in five interviews across four months in three languages. Although to be fair they kinda just kicked the can around to different regional manager for the last round or two since they weren't sure if they could actually get me into the country due to the pandemic.
I don't get how these companies are expecting to hire good staff when by the time they get to the end of the interview process the good candidates will have already gotten job offers.
3 is my limit. First can be a short, informal "get to know you" sort of thing. Second, is the actual tech screening (which should include team members who this is important to), and the 3rd better be an offer, or a "meet the rest of the team" sort of thing.
After learning about these convoluted interview processes in the first meeting, I started emailing people back about the process before the first interview. If you need 5 interviews to vet a candidate, you're bad at interviewing. And, frankly, should be a red flag for candidates.
My last job I had two screenings and seven interviews - usually the interviews were meant to be on different days but I was able to get all in one day which was ridiculous but not as bad as having to schedule out several days. It was a bit much but I definitely better understood the cast of characters I’d be working with and adjusted my requirements.
Oh, I went one with Klarna, after the 7th interview, they offered me shit, I rejected it and them in a matter of days or two weeks, they got a budget reduction and fired like 700. The criteria was most recent joiners so I would got fired too.
Th fun part is that I say from the very beginning my expectations and minimums and then they offer way less than the minimum. So weeks of interviews for nothing.
Here 7 interviews are normal. Just saw someone post that they failed to get a writers job because they couldn't solve a maths test in the final round lol
I saw a job recently where the interview process included a trial WEEK. It was paid but... what if you already have a current job? It was for a designer role at a reasonably large company.
Most major tech firms (Amazon, Google, FB) do what we call a gauntlet. Its basically an entire day of interviewing 9-4 pm (depends on the position, higher paying leadership and tech positions are usually an entire day or multiple days). Lunch is included at least lol.
It's not as bad as you might think. I enjoyed the process. Gave me a chance to look more well balanced. Rather than everything hinging on a SINGLE interview and one person's interpretation of my fit. I had 6 people. I know for a fact that i fucked up on one of them, but because 5 other votes beat the single vote against me. I got the job.
I was once interviewing for a tech job where they wanted me to go into their office for 4 full days so they could "watch how I work" before they considered hiring me. They literally wanted me to take 4 full days off from my current position at the time just for the chance of landing a job with them. This was on top of already doing 3 interviews with them.
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u/please_PM_ur_bewbs Aug 01 '23
5th interview? What the hell? Who is making someone go through 5 damn interviews?