Job hopping is a common topic among white-collar worker communities. How long should a person stay at a company to avoid being negatively judged? Somebody started that conversation on Twitter a few days ago and the originator’s position was that job hopping, which in this case means that no previous tenure lasted more than two years, was terrible. Kelsey Hightower, the principal engineer at Google Cloud, chimed in with his opinion and own experience: he never worked at a place for more than 2 years before Google!
Some of my coworkers have been working here for more than 25 years, but most of them are on the same organizational level as I am, despite the massive difference in tenure. Does that make them less respectable? No! I respect them a whole lot for their knowledge and especially their personality. But I won’t be surprised if head-hunters raise questions on why they made so little progress career-wise over the years.
Kelsey Hightower became the Principal Engineer for Google Cloud, even though he didn’t comply with the conventional wisdom that you need to spend more than two years at one job. Bozoma Saint John was the top Marketing Executive at two different companies (Uber and Endeavor) in three years before being appointed as Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix in August 2020. Her reign at Netflix ended 8 short months later, in March 2021. If even widely successful professionals hop from one job to another, why should younger workers be judged harshly for doing the same?
There are literally countless reasons why relationship between employees and employers can sour. For instance, you may get a good-paying job that promises great career growths yet demands long hours. You have no choice but to quit because you have a newborn and you need to spend more time at home with him or her. You love a company, but the organizational structure doesn’t enable career advancements anytime soon in the next 3 years. Or the work is great, but your manager exhibits grueling micro-management and doesn’t advocate for you.
Finding a job where you can stick around for years is like finding love. You need dumb luck. A lot of things can go wrong and they often go wrong. Plenty of factors need to be aligned for a professional relationship between a company and an employee to last long. But if luck plays a big role in this matter, we should all take that into consideration whenever assessing someone’s working history. Extend more empathy. Ask questions. Give the person a chance to explain the short tenure, why they left the very previous job and what they did despite staying for a short time.
Let’s say a normal person’s career is 45 years long. Staying for two years at a company means you commit 4.5% of that career time, not an insignificant amount. We only live one life. Our time on Earth is so valuable that we shouldn’t waste it to stat-pad a resume. If it’s a pain to go to work or there is no prospect for career advancements and there is nothing that you can do more about it, then leave. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. Perhaps, the new job will lead to disappointment and you will have to jump ships again. But leaving may also give you a chance to find a better employment where you feel content and happy. There is only one way to find out.
To close, I’d like share a famous drawing of Tim Urban.
Minh Quang Duong 
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