How long do you stay in a job?

Skeeter said:
Job jumping is different to rapid progression though. If you jump around in the same role over and over it won't look good, but if you lay it out to look like your moving to higher and higher roles rapidly then it portrays a very different image.
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Exactly this. No interviewer will look down on you for moving into better roles/packages.
 
It depends on what the roles were and why you moved.

Moving jobs for better pay/different roles can viewed as the "easy" way. On the other hand, staying in the same job for several years can also be a bad sign. It very much depends on the role and sector.

1st Job; 3 years
2nd Job; 8 years
Current Job; 6 years

I did a lot of different work for the second job (finance) and only moved on when I was offered something I couldn't refuse (hedge fund), and currently I'm the development manager, after joining as a developer.
 
1st - 4 years
2nd - 5 months (contract)
3rd - 1 year
4th - 10 months
5th - 2 1/2 years
current - coming up 12 years
 
I've had 3 jobs so far...

Job 1: 12 years (moved to job 2)
Job 2: 5 years (company closed)
Job 3: 13 years

I'm being made redundant at the end of the month though I could have stayed and in a higher paying job, but decided it was time to do something else as I've been unhappy for a few years and I'm not money motivated, I'd rather be paid less and be happier at work. Also the redundancy package was above the amount of money I'd have needed to win on the lottery to have made me hand in my notice and look for something else.

A friend once said he was stuck in a comfortable rut at work and he felt he needed to just leave to force him to find something better and he was right there, for people who don't chop and change jobs every 5 mins it's easy to just stay in that rut and redundancy is my spur to do something else.
 
You are being hired to make a difference to the company. As long as you can prove that you have done that, then moving jobs is fine.

Obviously the amount of time this takes varies considerably for seniority, role, and industry.
 
I think that in your early employment history, changing jobs is no biggie as you are trying for a long term career with the right employer.

I went rapidly from banking, through lathe operator in machine shop, van driver, farm labourer, engineers assistant ending up finally in Civil engineering where I have worked since 1974.

My current and last employment being 33 years (at the moment) as a senior design engineer.
 
In terms of "real" jobs

About 2 years, 6 months,1 year, 1 year, 1 year, now about 4.5 in the latest but the last year in a slightly more senior role

I've only ever moved due to effective promotion or the volatile construction industry and companies going bust! Its never been difficult to explain in interviews etc
 
I am contracted to 3 years to be qualified for my first real job. Will see how things are then.
 
1st job from 16 years old I managed 12 years and then jumped ship one day without a job after they were bought out by another company but managed to get fixed up with a company that was my biggest customer within 3 hours of being chucked out of the building and have been with them for 16 years.
 
Been at my current job for nearly 2 years, am casually considering other opportunities right now.

Everything depends on your industry, what you do. If you're a teacher and you move regularly that is perhaps a bad thing, if you are a contract developer then perhaps not.
 
As of next Tuesday I'll have been with my company for 17 years ... in that time though I have had several jobs ...

1. 3 months (trainee)
2. 5.5 years
3. 6 months (would have been longer but there was a restructuring which moved me somewhere else)
4. 5.5 years
5. 5+ years so far

When I come back from some time off in October I'm going to be seriously looking at other available positions, it's a shame as I enjoy what my current job is supposed to be, and was up to the beginning of the year, but the manager we got then is incompetent and this, and other factors, is destroying the whole area at the moment.
 
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