Is it bad to job-hop your way to career success?

Q: In seven years you've tripled your salary and risen from running the copy machine to managing a department -- but you've had to change employers five times. You were just rejected for a dream job at a great company because it doesn't hire people who have jumped around so much. What should you do now?

Nick's reply: You might take credit for your career success and chalk your frequent moves up to "opportunity." After all, the economy has been crazy, and it's everyone for themselves, right? Companies aren't loyal to their workers. Why should they expect loyalty in return? When other companies offer you more money and better jobs, what's not to like?

The fact is, you can hurt yourself by changing employers too often. The reason this new company isn't hiring you is because your value isn't measured only in skills, accomplishments and your high salary. There is value in loyalty, but also in a demonstrated ability to succeed within one company.

Employers haven't exactly bent over backward the past few years to show loyalty to their employees, so many workers consider job-hopping as a kind of payback. But that's not true of all companies. Bear in mind that many of the "hire 'em and fire 'em" stories are a result of the up-and-down nature of the business climate. The behavior of some companies isn't a good indicator of how well (or poorly) companies treat their workers in general. Good companies still go out of their way to protect good workers in down times, and they try just as hard to hire people who are worthy of the limited job security (and career development) a good company can offer.

So don't let yourself be seduced by the idea that job-hopping is either normal or good. Stability and loyalty are still regarded as assets on a resume, and lots of companies will always look askance at five jobs in seven years. There are legitimate reasons for their attitude.

While you may think that three or four years in one company makes you look like a dud, to many companies such stability suggests you know how to navigate and manage your career internally. A lot of jumping around might also suggest you lack diplomacy skills, that you can't handle long-term projects and time-frames, that you're not worth recruiting internally for other tasty assignments, or that you don't know how to "manage upward" for the benefit of your career.

All these factors are considered by many employers. It's not just a question of how skilled you are or how far you've risen in your career. How effective you have been at getting promoted reveals a lot about your ability to manage both your career and your work.

Many headhunters won't touch people who job-hop, no matter how stellar their credentials. Why? Because the headhunter's clients just aren't interested in job-hoppers.

The advice I give job-hoppers is: If you're at a good company now, stay put for three to five years. That might seem counterintuitive in today's economy. "If I've got hot skills, companies want them. If it means taking a chance that I might need to jump again within a year, well, so be it, right?"

I don't think so. Hot skills are important, but companies that seek only people with the hottest, most current technologies under their belts reveal desperation. Any good company that manages its projects properly looks ahead and trains and develops talented workers. It doesn't replace the loyal, talented worker with a new hotshot who may prove unstable.

Establish your career credibility. This might cost you a few job-hopping raises, but in the long run it will pay off as a career strategy. Unless you're ready and able to live the life of a journeyman, with its attendant spells of time "on the beach," two of your most important credentials are stability and loyalty. The best companies may reject a job-hopper as a risky hire.

Copyright 2008. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Nick Corcodilos is author of "Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job" and the host of www.asktheheadhunter.com. He can be reached by e-mail at seattle@asktheheadhunter.com or at North Bridge Group, P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833. Sorry, no personal replies.