Extract from the chapter “Challenges of the job search- career history”
From: Making Sense of My Unemployment (M.G. Ramirez-Ocando)
Older employees usually stay at the same company for a significantly longer time than younger employees. The average job tenure (the length of time an employee has been in their current or main job or with their current employer) in 2018 in OECD countries was two, six, nine and seventeen years for the 25–29, 35–39, 45–49 and 65+ age groups, respectively.[i] Very similar numbers are observed when considering only Switzerland. The differences among age groups are partly due to the fact that age correlates with the length of exposure to the work environment, and partly due to the differences in the personality and values of each generation. However, I want to highlight that, contrary to popular belief, younger generations do not change jobs more frequently than older generations at the same age.[ii], [iii]Given the fact that several age groups co-exist in the workplace, there are often conflicting expectations about the way career development should progresses. Whereas for some (usually the older employees), staying with the same company for a long time indicates personal identification with the job and commitment to the growth of the company, for others (usually the younger employees), it can indicate laziness and lack of ambition. Similarly, whereas for some (usually the older employees), changing companies every couple of years indicates instability and can raise red flags, for others (usually younger employees), it shows a high degree of adaptability. As a result, a CV listing numerous jobs can be assessed very differently.
The (potential) pros and cons of changing jobs every couple of years are summarized in Table 3.
Table 3: Pros and cons of changing jobs frequently
| Pros | Cons |
| -Wider field of vision and better contact with the outside world -Richer set of experiences -More likely to maintain an ascending learning curve -Larger network -Better ability to deal with situations out of one’s comfort zone -Up-to-date awareness of own market value -Fewer limitations with regard to moving horizontally -Good chance of salary increase | -Could suggest inability to commit to an employer -Could suggest problems adapting or lack of resilience -Could suggest lack of clarity about professional goals -Could suggest that the person gets bored easily -Requires effort -Does not allow the person concerned to see longer projects reach their conclusion |
Although changing jobs every couple of years at the beginning of a person’s career is generally accepted (and also expected to some degree), the frequency of these changes is critical. In general, it is advisable to stay in a job for at least five years, but in any case, it is preferable not to stay for less than two. Taking into account the time it takes for a new employee to become profitable for a company, and the initial investment in recruitment and training, employers are reluctant to hire employees who are likely to leave within a short time. ‘Job hoppers’ are by definition a risk population. This reasoning also applies to people who attend interviews for jobs for which they are overqualified. Employers know there is a greater chance that they will get bored and leave quickly.
According to Swiss government statistics, 67% of Swiss employees in 2018 had stayed at the same company for at least three years. In my age group in particular (25–39 years), the percentage was 56%. These numbers suggest that the average Swiss employer is accustomed to a certain level of time commitment to the workplace.[iv] This fact played against my odds of finding employment in Switzerland. At the time of my job search in this country, I had had experience of four professional roles lasting less than two years and one longer experience of a role lasting less than five years (excluding PhD/master’s and teaching/assistant jobs at the university). In retrospect, I can understand how looking at that fact alone could have raised some concerns. What many of my employers did not know (and I failed to clarify from the beginning) is that all of my professional experiences, except one, were fixed-term contracts. In Switzerland and as of 2018, only 8% of employment contracts were fixed-term.[v] Certainly, some of my contracts could have been extended at the time, but they would have most likely remained fixed-term contracts because that is the traditional type of employment contract in academic research. It took some time to realize that what employers wanted to hear when they said ‘Tell me about your career path’ was an explanation of why I had changed jobs so often. Particularly in Switzerland, where employees are expected to follow a very straight line in their professional path, changing jobs too often (and changing careers: see next section) can be perceived very negatively. It was, therefore, important for me to justify every move clearly and to show that there was a golden thread, an underlying theme, running through all of my moves. In my case this theme was life sciences.
Luke experienced a somewhat similar situation. Given that he had always worked as an IT subcontractor, his CV was full of positions lasting from five months to two years. In order to clarify the nature of his employment history, he added the word ‘contract’ to the corresponding job titles and he grouped his particularly short contracts (those of less than six months) as a single experience. The more clearly the reasons behind job changes are explained, the fewer false and harmful assumptions the employer will make.
[i] OECD, ‘Employment by job tenure intervals: Average tenure’ (2020), available at https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TENURE_AVE#.
[ii] Department of Labor, USA, ‘Employment tenure in 2018’, Bureau of Labor Statistics (20 September 2018), available at www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdf.
[iii] Sarah Landrum, ‘Millennials and job-hopping: What’s really happening and what it means’, Forbes (2 June 2017), available at www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2017/06/02/millennials-and-job-hopping-whats-really-happening-and-what-it-means/#75db53b03fbf.
[iv] FSO, ‘Durée de l’activité dans l’entreprise actuelle selon le sexe, la nationalité, les groupes d’âges, le type de famille’ (23 April 2019), available at www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/activite-professionnelle-temps-travail/actifs-occupes/conditions-travail/contrats-travail.assetdetail.8086552.html.
[v] FSO, ‘Contrats de travail’ (2019), available at www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/activite-professionnelle-temps-travail/actifs-occupes/conditions-travail/contrats-travail.html.
Making Sense of My Unemployment 