

More Workers Start to Quit - _delirium
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264432377146698.html

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csmeder
This is probably in part due to increased percentage of workers taking jobs
they didn't want (but needed) durring the recession.

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angstrom
Looks more like musical chairs; the economy stopped and everyone grabbed a
seat. Although, I switched jobs in November 2007, August 2008, and December
2009. It seems if you have a technical degree the job outlook hasn't really
skipped a beat.

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lambdajack
You switched jobs three times in three years? It sounds like you voluntarily
changed jobs. Was that the case? If so, are you concerned about marking
yourself as a job hopper?

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angstrom
No. Successful projects don't look bad. If anything I hope it helps me stay
clear of companies that would assume otherwise and fail to contact my former
bosses used as references. I stayed 4 years at the job before those 3. My
current job I told them up front in the interview I planned to stay for 2-5
depending on the amount of growth. Honesty seems to go farther than loyalty
IMO.

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btmorex
Let me preface by saying that I haven't been in a position to hire someone.

However, I think switching jobs a fair amount can even be a benefit. It
depends on what your references say. If they really think highly of you, it's
not only a good reference, but also says that you really impressed someone in
a short amount of time. In other words, you learned what was needed and were
productive very quickly.

Now, you can certainly argue, "why would I hire someone who will only be here
a year and half?", but if that person is a great person, they're going to
produce more than a lot of people would be in 2 or 3 years.

Maybe, I'm just biased and think that the best people like to change it up a
lot to keep things interesting.

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lambdajack
I'm replying to both parent and grandparent comment. I'm really trying to be
helpful here and not rain on your parade.

Do you expect to find a job in the future by submitting your resume? If not,
then you can happily ignore what I have to say.

I run part of a growing software operation. As part of my current role, I've
looked through well over 500 resumes to fill a variety of positions over the
past few months. This isn't my primary task. This is just one of my many
responsibilities. As such I have to develop filters to assess a resume to see
if we are going to phone screen or pass. If we don't have strong filtering,
then we would wind up overloading our staff with phone screening. They won't
have enough time to do their "real" work. So we need to err on the side of
caution and accept false negatives and skip over some capable folks because
they fail a filter. Is this fair? no. Is this a reality? Yes. There is only so
much time in the day. I'm not going to overload my staff and I don't want to
spend my own nights reading resumes and holding phone screens.

So although you are a unique and wonderful snowflake who may be on the far
right of the performance bell curve, if you've hopped from job to job, I won't
really know why by looking at your resume. I will just see a red flag that you
might be a flake, you might get scared at commitment or have poor staying
power when the going gets tough, or you might have trouble getting along with
people. Your 2 page resume is probably not going to address those concerns. If
your resume is much longer than 2 pages, I'm going to find an excuse to mark
pass on it to for a variety of reasons (but that is another story).

I'll give your resume the 2-3 minutes attention I can and mark pass and go on
to the next resume.

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anthonyb
Your filter sucks. Not from a fairness point of view, but from a you're-not-
doing-your-job-very-well point of view.

In my experience, length of stay doesn't correlate accurately with technical
skill at all. It's often quite the opposite - 3-5 years of experience at
BigCo. with lots of TLAs means that you couldn't find a better job elsewhere.
Ditto if they've worked 12 months in a crappy PHP shop and couldn't hack it.
If someone's worked 3 jobs in 3 years, with growing responsibility in each
position, and a mix of technologies, that's generally a good sign.

I've also seen awesome programmers, with crappy resumes (ie. badly formatted,
with all of the good stuff at the end). If you're filtering on anything other
than "do they sound like a good/great programmer", then you're missing out on
some good people. Try other mechanisms, like networking and code screening if
your workload is too high.

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mgkimsal
"length of stay doesn't correlate accurately with technical skill at all"

They're not _looking_ for technical skill - at least, not as a primary factor.
They're _looking_ for people who will stick around even when things get
crappy, will put up with internal political maneuverings, people who will grit
their teeth and deal with annoying coworkers and will tend to stay even when
there's better short term offers.

For the company this is a win on a number of levels. Less cost of retraining
new hires and the lost productivity that comes with new people entering a
shop. Less need to get institutional knowledge out of people and in to
documented systems. Freedom to experiment with new directions, because if
things go south, they'll have a 'loyal' team who will stick around anyway.

These aren't necessarily good _or_ bad, just how it is.

So, keep that in mind. Companies often _are not_ looking for top-notch
software skills, but a 'whole package', and they'll way often settle for 'good
enough' on the whole package, even if it means average software skills.

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anthonyb
Except that it's a false economy, and rarely works that way in practice.

Either you have decent technical talent, or the dead sea effect. If your
workplace is mediocre, and you're good - you'll leave. The only people who
"stick around when things get crappy" are the people who have to - either for
life reasons or because they can't find a better job anywhere else.

Your company might win in the short term, but once you've gone too far down
that path, you'll start losing and never recover.

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robryan
Could also be that employees took advantage of the situation, laying off
people and working the remaining ones harder, who couldn't just quit because
their prospects elsewhere weren't much better.

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btmorex
I definitely get the feeling the tech job market is transitioning. I should
say that the market never really died, but there was a noticeable slowdown
during the recession (you could find a job, but not necessarily the exact job
you wanted at the salary you wanted).

Just in the past month without looking for a job, I've had about three sort of
"prospects" get thrown at me. I decided to interview with one place and
actually have an offer right now. On the other hand, I feel like their offer
is pretty low and I'll probably decline so maybe some employers are still
stuck with a mentality from 6-12 months ago (Admittedly, I have the luxury of
already having a job that I can stick with).

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tom_b
Same here. Definite pickup in recruiter spam as well.

Hard decision coming re: lifestyle freedom vs tech challenge and career
growth.

Hopefully, the more general job market will be picking up.

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devin
Where I work this phenomenon has been spurred by the company using the
recession as an excuse to cut benefits, low-ball employees on salary, and deny
performance-based raises.

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ilcesco
I'm an underpaid massive corporate's cog, dealing with stuff I have no
interest in. That's why I'm gonna quit and start something on my own.

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hallmark
Congratulations - I did that two weeks ago and feel nothing but great for
making the decision! If you're capable and have some bridge money, just make
the jump and don't look back.

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noelchurchill
I suppose this is good news.

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gvb
...for unhappy employees. It is very bad news for employers that are starting
to reap what they sowed.

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patio11
Much like the cratering in housing properties, I prefer to look on the
positive side: if markets didn't occasionally send signals that bad ideas have
negative consequences, we'd have no incentive to improve our (broken) systems.

If your company is built on your employees giving you salaryman-like loyalty
and on you treating them like expendable interchangeable cogs, your company
urgently needs market feedback.

