Ask HN: Acceptable average tenure per job?
What is an acceptable average tenure per job? Is it 2 years, or more or less? When I see resumes with a bunch of jobs less than 18 months, I definitely pass on them, but is 2 to 2.5 years per job acceptable? Is this just a Silicon Valley thing? And is staying at a job for a very long period of time (> 10 years) a bad sign as well?
17 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 53.9 ms ] threadYea, fuck people that want to establish a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with their employer right? Every other company in the world is terrified that their employees are going to jump ship, but you apparently think loyalty is a bad thing.
This is an incredibly ignorant and short-sighted thing to do, but I guess if a person is drowning in resumes it always comes down to similar tactics so it doesn't really matter.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Are you opposed to people keeping the same job title for 10 years, or do you seriously think its a red flag when someone works for the same company for a decade?
Maybe my priorities are out of line, but I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my career working at a single company that gives me interesting problems to solve, pays me what I'm worth, and lets me stick around long enough to forget what its like to worry about whether or not I'll be unemployed and unable to take care of my family next year.
Damn straight. I am thankful to have one of those jobs for 17 years now... although I've had different titles as I've been promoted.
I'm a developer and I have no aspirations to be promoted to a higher position. I will not enjoy those roles.
I'm still improving myself every day as a developer, though.
As for jobs held for long periods of time, I look at the roles the candidate played throughout their tenure. Were they an entry level manager for 7 years straight? I would call that a bad sign. But did they join as an associate software engineer and work their way up through the ranks to senior staff over the course of 8 years? I find that an absolutely positive sign.
And if everyone else is dumping resumes for not having the right tenure lengths, then it is +EV (to use a poker term) for you to keep the cvs on your desk and consider them. You'll get the good hires the others missed :-)
Tenures too short? Maybe they delivered a lot of value in 6 months and were ready for a new challenge. Would you not hire a builder to build your house because they did the last one in 6 months?
Tenures too long? Maybe they had lots of challenges and promotions in their last company. Or they really believed in that company and what they stood for, but had to leave for some genuine reason and now they really believe in you.
No, but I'd be hiring a contractor if that's what I was looking for.
That is fine, but it might mean you pay more for your next candidate (smaller pool, supply/demand). Unless you have a 'too many CVs' problem, in which case it is probably as good a filter as any other arbitrary filter.
For example: If I'm hiring a business-development guru, or a new CEO, I'd want to see a track-record of long-term performance and value given to their former employers. Wanting to see 5 years doesn't seem unreasonable in that situation. The value they bring is over the long term, I probably won't see a return on investment from hiring this person until a few years in, so I should make sure they have long-term horizons.
Then again, if I'm hiring a rockstar engineer, I'd be much much more concerned about their overall performance and work-ethic than their longevity (because I'd be happy to have them on the team for however long they want to stick around). If all they want to do is come in for 6 months and crank out some projects and leave, I'll probably still be grateful to have them for that time. Their value is short-term, their value is delivered (and I get a return on my investment) every day, with every commit and every deployment.
I think it depends on how you're framing the value the position brings to the company.
In 6 months, you won't know that your hire is a "rockstar". You'll know that they were opinionated and that they took initiative. You (and they) won't learn about the technical debt, unmaintainability, and latent carnage they left until well after their gone -- which is probably what happened at their prior employers as well.
If they really ever proved themselves to be that great, some prior employer would have paid them mountains in compensation just to keep them around and their resume would probably looked different.
Many people do a quick jump when they've hit the wrong environment, as long as that is not standard behavior it's OK, and even a good thing. You do want to see some ability to stick a good company. On the long side, company matters. 12 years at Google would be very different (especially with role variety) from 12 years (especially without role variety) at a stagnant government department.
It's not only about length, but also depth. if you work as a developer at one place for 5 yrs or so but cannot move up, your market value drops.