How long have you been working for your employer?

Last edited by Peter Crisp on Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't understand the idea that people that have been in the same job for more than 5 years lack ambition or it's seen as some kind of negative for a new employer.
As has already been said there are plenty of reasons (new parents or any number of other family related issues) why someone may just stay at a company for a while and what if they just enjoyed the job and the people they work with?

Also wouldn't it be good for an employer to know that someone is willing to stay a while rather than just move again so they have to go through the whole recruitment process again in a few years?

Lastly I see that "mediocrity" has been mentioned and this is a bit odd as surely unless every employer expects to get only the best people and reject the purely mediocre then about 75% of the population will be unemployed.

7 years!

Started as 1st line support for 1.5yrs, then 2nd line for another 1.5years, then software developer for last 4 years.

7 years this June

Same job but 9 years as an external contractor, 15 months now an actual company man.

Been a long decade but it's never felt too similar between promotions and changing products.

Peter Crisp wrote:I don't understand the idea that people that have been in the same job for more than 5 years lack ambition or it's seen as some kind of negative for a new employer.
As has already been said there are plenty of reasons (new parents or any number of other family related issues) why someone may just stay at a company for a while and what if they just enjoyed the job and the people they work with?

Also wouldn't it be good for an employer to know that someone is willing to stay a while rather than just move again so they have to go through the whole recruitment process again in a few years?

Lastly I see that "mediocrity" has been mentioned and this is a bit odd as surely unless every employer expects to get only the best people and reject the purely mediocre then about 75% of the population will be unemployed.

Paragraph one has been answered. It's an indicator, not an absolute.

Paragraph two, the answer is no. If the suggestion was a few months then it would be a different matter.

Paragraph three... if you find it odd that employers will aim to appoint the best people and try to avoid settling for mediocrity then I'm not sure I'll ever manage to convince you here.

There are far too many additional factors to make sensible decisions based solely on a candidates length of service.

A CV full of short hops between employers can be just as bad a sign as a CV showing 10+ years at a single employer. Yea it could be a sign of ambition and motivation to continue progression and improvement, but could equally be a sign that someone struggles to work well with those around them, someone who keeps getting "found out", or potentially someone who is not worth investing in as they'll be gone before you get the benefit from them.

The cost of employing someone in my line of work can be considerable, someone who jumps ship every few years is not going to be an ideal candidate for us.

Agreed. Let's hope no one starts talking about making decisions based solely on lengths of service.

To expand, I would consider very short hops to be more concerning than very long stretches.

Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth. :lol:

I guess the onus would be on the person writing their CV to treat each role with that employer as a separate section?

I've seen people in my work move all over the place - people management, training, systems development, engineering, client relationship management, etc, etc. But still under the same company.

Now if a person stuck to a first line entry level job for 15 years I could see your point. Still people change but I guess you'd then expect something like part time learning to fill that gap? I can totally see your point, the whole point of a CV is to stand out in a paper sift after all. If you as the individual make a bland one that's on you.

Karl is right though you do sound like you work in a black mirror episode.

YouTube

When I was doing employment screening for oracle, dell etc I had to put a flag on any gaps in employment of 3 months or more and quick successions of short roles was seen as suspicious unless it was a freelancer, as well as a pain in the ass to verify they were actually real. A lot of people inflated or conflated their job titles, or simply never had one. Regarding descriptions of what was actually done I sometimes got to the point of getting oral references from CEOs on interns while on hands free - so yeah don't make them up (although I was very surprised they knew anything about them).

The best reference I got was probably for someone working at McCaffee who's boss simply stated "I wish I could clone him". I actually wrote that down for their clearance certificate.

Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor? :dread:

Jenuall wrote:A CV full of short hops

Mine's full of wavedashes

Jezo wrote:
Jenuall wrote:A CV full of short hops

Mine's full of wavedashes

Not even sure if joking

Five years in March. Boss has been good to me - gave me full pay while on paternity leave; paid for my clinical hypnotherapy. I have no reason to leave.

Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Forest is a team that is way better than, uh, (checks notecard)... Derby?

I tried.

Karl wrote:
Oblomov Boblomov wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Forest is a team that is way better than, uh, (checks notecard)... Derby?

I tried.

Karl is now a football expert.

Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:
Oblomov Boblomov wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Forest is a team that is way better than, uh, (checks notecard)... Derby?

I tried.

Karl is now a football expert.

I had to read several pages of The Football League Thread to make that excellent and fluent attempt at football banter so I hope you're happy with yourselves.

Karl wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:
Oblomov Boblomov wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Forest is a team that is way better than, uh, (checks notecard)... Derby?

I tried.

Karl is now a football expert.

I had to read several pages of The Football League Thread to make that excellent and fluent attempt at football banter so I hope you're happy with yourselves.

You are now one of us. Welcome to the football gang. :wub:

Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:
Oblomov Boblomov wrote:
Moggy wrote:
Karl wrote:Whenever you start chatting about the corporate world it sounds like hell on Earth.

Did we ever tell you about the Bradford factor?

How could you forget the time you convinced Karl I was a Forest fan?

Forest is a team that is way better than, uh, (checks notecard)... Derby?

I tried.

Karl is now a football expert.

I had to read several pages of The Football League Thread to make that excellent and fluent attempt at football banter so I hope you're happy with yourselves.

You are now one of us. Welcome to the football gang.

Another soul for the cesspool.

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