Job Hoppers – To Hire or Not to Hire?

Remember the days when it was normal for someone to work for the same company for 10 or more years?  Those days seem to be a fad of the past.  Now, it can quite often be difficult to find someone who has held a job for longer than 1 or 2 years.

In the past, we would pass over the job hoppers due to risk and the fact that we were able to find other candidates with the skills and solid work history we desired.  Things have changed and many hiring managers are wondering if they should be more open to hiring job hoppers in today’s talent shortage.

Deciding to hire a job hopper is something you must do based on the individual candidate and your instincts.  However, when interviewing a job hopper, there are several things that you must consider.

What is the job?

Believe it or not, many of today’s job hoppers are changing jobs frequently because they simply become bored.  These job hoppers quite often produce excellent results and have outstanding employee reviews, but they just grow tired of doing the same job day after day, feeling a lack of challenge and meaning to their work.

When considering a job hopper for your position, ask yourself some questions about the position you need to fill.

Is it a position that will allow the employee to wear many different hats, continuously learning new tasks? 

Will the employee have a work day of variety by doing different jobs throughout the day? 

Is the work challenging?

If your job hopper is changing jobs simply due to boredom and lack of challenge, these are all serious items to consider.

R.O.I.

Take a look at your job hopper’s pattern.  How often is the job hopper changing jobs – every 6 months, every year, every 2 years?

If you are thinking about hiring a job hopper, you must prepare for the worst, while expecting the best.  Obviously, you would not hire a new employee if you had bad expectations, but if the employee has a history of leaving jobs frequently, it is better for you to be prepared for this and understand that it may happen to you.

Think about your R.O.I. or return on investment.

How long will it take you to train the new employee and what resources will you be pulling together in order to do so? 

How long will that employee need to stay with your company in order to justify the training and resources provided upon hire?

Why?

The most important question you can ask a job hopper is “why?”  Find out why the job hopper left each job.

Did they leave for more money, better benefits, boredom, lack of challenge, relocating?  Find out as much as you can from the job hopper, then follow up with references in order to confirm.

The most important thing you are trying to do here is to ensure that there are no underlying issues with the job hopper’s work performance.

Have you hired job hoppers before?  What has your experience been?  Please share in the comments below.

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