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Ask HN: Three jobs in eight months...am I justified?

4 points by tonym9428 ↗ HN
Long story short, I'm a statistician in the automotive industry who has had a colorful history over the past eight months. Here's a brief review.

a. Laid off from job b. Started two businesses c. Got an interesting job offer and accepted it. One month later, I realized that I couldn't juggle all three things. Furthermore, my venture was doing fairly well d. Fast forward five months, and I'd poured tens of thousands into my two businesses and things had turned for the worse. e. I accepted the first job offer I had and moved to another state. f. Another company offered me a job one month into job two, and it seemed better, so I accepted. g. Have been at job three for one month. It's acceptable, even though they mis-characterized the work responsibilities and I don't think I'll get much out of this job. h. Have sent out my resume just to test the waters and have had some great responses.

For the future, I won't be putting the two one month stints on my resume. But if a company does a background check and finds the job hopping, how do I explain it?

So here is my justification for my behavior. I have a degenerative neurological disorder that impact my walking, stability, and will eventually leave me bed ridden. I have about 6 to 10 years until that happens. Due to these circumstances, I have little patience for staying at jobs that I don't feel are benefiting me or are as advertised. Look, I'm trying to cram a fourty year career into about fifteen years. If a company isn't delivering, I'm going to jump ship. So....am I justified? If I'm not justified, what can I do to counter-act my job hopping.

Also, before to these eight months, I've had two stints at companies for two + years. I'd also note that if I found a good company, I'd stay for as long as I'm able to

3 comments

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jerf
I just wanted to make sure this didn't sink into oblivion with no comment. I suspect that few of us will feel qualified to comment on your situation. I know I don't. I hope you can find someone who can help you talk your way through this.
Eridrus
I would avoid talking about your disorder if I were you; you may feel like it explains your actions, but no-one else gives a shit. I would just say you felt like the role was falsely advertised to you, and be prepared to explain the specifics, people will want to know how big a difference there was that made you leave, especially considering the fact that some amount of drift is expected.

Most importantly though, I would ask if you've tried to talk to your management about the discrepancy and your dissatisfaction. If you haven't, this seems like a problem to me. No-one wants to work with someone whose first instinct to be to walk away rather than try and work things out.

Beyond anything else, I feel like the lesson here is to make sure that you actually want the job you are accepting. Be very specific in what you expect; if you figure out there is a discrepancy you can walk away before you both get burned.

Personally, I've started having bringing up what I want much earlier in the interview process, rather than getting to the end of the whole process to find there is a mismatch between what I want and the company wants so that we don't waste each others' time.

5h
I feel you are justified, but I also suspect you could do yourself a favour by remembering that the interview process is a two-way street.

Are you asking enough, or good enough questions before accepting offers? For the right company be up-front about your reason for leaving, as long as both parties know the role is sufficiently rewarding I doubt you would be classed a flight risk.