beware the job hopper

Beware the Job Hopper

Job hoppers are people who switch jobs every 18 months. I see their announcements every day in my LinkedIn notifications.

“I’m happy to share that ….” (they’ve just been hired for their 3rd job in 5 years).

They tend to be B-Players. Not always, but it’s very common in my experience.

These job hoppers can be very charming. They have the most polished resumes. They are very slick at answering questions and selling themselves in the recruitment process.

They know how to package themselves and be very persuasive because they get a lot of practice going through the recruitment process every 18 months.

But here’s how it typically plays out if you hire this person (based on my observations).

It can take 3 to 6 months of onboarding & training to get someone fully productive in a role

Then another 6 months for the manager to realize the new hire can’t perform and is actually a B-Player

And because most managers don’t address poor performance soon enough, it can take another 6 months for the manager to build up the courage to remove the B-Player from your business.

Or the job-hopping B-Player leaves just before the 2-year mark to find another job because they (rightly) suspect they are about to get fired.

I often see this with sales and marketing roles, where performance is easily quantified, and B-Players get fired or job-hop every 18 months or so.

Watch out for the B-Player job hopper!

Slow down the hiring process. Perform extra background checks. Get them in for another interview.

To protect yourself, consider employing them on a short-term contract first, to see how well they perform.

Unless the job hopper can provide 3 past managers as references who are gushing with praise for the candidate, and swear to you that the person is an A-Player who simply outgrew their past roles, I would be very cautious.

When in doubt, conduct extra due diligence on the job hopper candidate. Don’t rely on the references the candidate puts on their resume either. You choose who you want to speak with.

The most valuable information you can get about a candidate is to speak directly with their previous managers.

And you must insist on this!

No manager references = no job offer. It’s that simple

If you want to learn how to conduct reference check interviews with their previous managers properly, and avoid making common hiring mistakes, check out this video excerpt from my “Hiring A-Players” management training course.

Until next time …
Stephen