Job Hoppers = no hire…Really

Yup I said it, and this is going to be one of my most controversial posts to date. First let me start by saying this is mostly for corporate staffing. We all know that Hiring Managers (HM), HR, and a lot of Staffing Professionals(SP) have a bias against anyone who has had too many different jobs in a given span. Heck there are a lot of HMs, HR, AND SPs out there who will not even look at a candidates if they had too many jobs within the same company in a given time frame. Why? They will give many reasons; it shows they cannot commit, if they were that good they would not hop, etc.

Some of their rational is correct, however for every “hopper” were the above rational is correct there is one where it is wrong. There are in fact legitimate reasons for having to hop. For example; bad luck and having companies go under on you, having a hot skill, gaining experience, looking for the right place, RIFs, career enhancement, etc.

The issue is, as we have read and been told by HRE, ERE, the Labor Department, SHRM and many others, we are in a shrinking labor pool. Candidates are getting harder and harder to find, Can we really afford to be so narrow minded and antiquated in our thinking.

The key is you should not judge a person just because they appear to be a “hopper” you need to find out, and listen carefully as I have used these terms many many times in other posts, you need to find out the who, what, were, how and why for the appeared hopping. If there is indeed legitimate reason for it and the candidate sis a good one, you present it to your HM and take a stand. If we as SPs do not take a stand and try to change this kind of antiquated thinking will continue and we will continue to overlook great candidates, and in this every decreasing candidate pool we are dealing with loosing even 1 can be huge.