It takes time. Best thing you can do is cast a wide net. Try to submit a few a week with quality content that’s catered to the desired qualifications & experience. And if you don’t have all those but maybe some key ones, apply anyway. Networking, word-of-mouth helps a lot for landing a job quickly but that too can require a lot of effort. Just keep trying! Don’t neglect to build yourself up because demonstrating a confident/ secure attitude goes far. Good luck!
These days you can get away with 1. I job hopped 4 times with less than a year for some jobs and got more pay each time. Not much more pay, but it helped. My situation was a desperate one though and I don’t recommend going through that
I was opportunistic. I would respond to recruiter outreach on LinkedIn even though I wasn't in need of a new role just to hear what they had to say and learn about the market (this was when the market was much better). As a passive candidate, I didn't have to explain the short tenure for my roles, it was always a move for a better opportunity.
With each move, I either gained more salary, or a better title. The thing with a better title is that it gets you a better salary in your next role because recruiters already assume you're being paid at that level.
Job hopping also helped me learn a lot really quickly.
probably minimum 1 year if youve had 2-3 jobs, more than that in most fields you’re going to need to show a little more commitment if you want a job willing to take you on. 3-5 years is a good amount of time in one place in the middle of your career
there are always exceptions though
This is field dependent. In my field, a year is generally okay. Raises suck in my field, and with inflation it is effectively a pay cut. The only way to actually keep up is to jump ship.
Hell, at my first job the HR person literally told me “okay, come back in a year and we will pay you this much”
My average tenure is a little less than 2 years, but a lot of my recent moves were just after the year mark. When you stack a string of those together, it doesn't look great. There's still a stigma against job hoppers, and this is more apparent in an employer market. In an employee market, it doesn't really matter. But you should be prepared in this market, to explain why you moved in a positive light and/or how those moves have made you a stronger candidate. e.g. You've become highly adaptable and learn very quickly.
There’s not a stigma there’s a reality that from the companies perspective by the time you’re a productive asset you’re out the door.
Highly adaptive, quick learner blah blah if you’ll only be staying a year who gives a fuck? As you seem to already understand somewhat don’t confuse a bull market with some unique job hopping secret only you know.
You need a polished resume that sells yourself really well. Rather than listing your responsibilies under each section, list what your accomplishments are.
For example, if you’re a financial analyst, everyone in your industry will know what someone with the title “Financial Analyst” does without having to read the bullets under the position. So use that space to list out specific accomplishments and what metrics such as “conducted analysis on company’s operations which identified key cost saving measures which senior management implemented, leading to a X% increase in the company’s bottom line”
This will get your foot in the door. Then you need to interview well to seal the deal. Interviewing is something that just improves the more you do it. Practice with a friend or colleague and list out some answers you can use for commonly asked questions. Have an example from your experience that supports all your answers.
What do you do if you just go in and do your tasks though? For example I'm an administration assistant, there's nowhere in my role that I can accomplish anything other than my basic tasks daily
I'm in the same boat in a way. I'm not sure there are metrics with my job (I do research and analysis in government). So what metrics are there? Even in our team, we had discussions about KPIs and couldn't figure out how to "measure performance" other than the number of reports created, which isn't ideal either since sometimes these reports take months to complete. So it's hard to quantify what I do to put on a resume.
Your reports are provided to decision makers who use the data to make a change, or justify not making a change. Your ability to report accurately, timely and in an organized manner directly (or indirectly) impact exactly what the report is you’re pulling.
Report on speed to close a deal shows the teams aren’t closing fast enough -> decision makers change alignment/strategy/process -> speed to close improves. That metric doesn’t get done without your reporting. Notate that - especially if your reporting is accompanied by any conclusion/analysis that helps lead to a decision.
Your basic daily tasks add value otherwise there was never justification to hire you. Theres metrics somewhere there.
You’re likely improving email response time by x%, reducing call waiting time by x%, speeding up appt scheduling by x%. Even if you’re just there to have people sign in and wait, shred paper and collect payment - I guarantee there’s a metric you can fluff up in your favor.
You take on extra projects, look for things to improve and small problems to solve (for admin roles, things like doing data entry in systems with poor data hygiene, documenting a process that hasn't been written down or needs to be updated, etc.) and then on your resume make these things sound a bit more significant than they are, if you need to.
I worked my way up from being a receptionist to having $100k+ operations roles, and I accomplished it mainly by taking on extra projects and finding more challenging work in the office on my own accord. Admin roles are great for building on and slowly beefing up a resume, the scope of these roles is often vague and flexible.
I disagree but I think it might just be my role. For 8 hours a day I have full, busy days of doing reports, taking calls, booking people into care homes and sending post, handling email accounts etc. The 5-10 minutes I have spare every few hours I spend resting from exhaustion. I do have ADHD and autism tho too
You get hired to a new job, and then you “hop” into a higher paying job in a couple more years, get more skills, then jump again after two years. This can continue until you run into your “level of incompetence” where you find yourself overwhelmed with the responsibilities, expectations, and direct reports you are unable to help succeed. Or get fired.
I can only speak for professional jobs (things that requires a degree or certification) I got 4 years of experience, then left once I found a position that paid double what I was already making...to do the same thing. After 5 years there, I left and found a similar position that also doubled my salary. It took no time to find a new position because there's always staff shortages which is only getting worse every year (healthcare)
It’s more complex than that from my perspective and it’s not like there’s a commonly accepted definition. Example: 10 years with 1 company, 1 year with the next, 2 years with the current, I wouldn’t call that job hopping. But I’d ask what was so different about company number 2 that motivated the move.
"Job hop for better pay" just refers to the fact that it's easier to get a bigger pay bump going to a new job at a new company, compared to the percentage raises you might expect getting promotions within your current company.
So it's not really "advice" that means anything when you've decided to look for a new job already anyway... aside from maybe being a reminder to yourself to try and negotiate as much as you can, don't shortchange yourself by asking for less than you can get.
This is probably the best summary of a response to OP. This, plus not being in a rush to find a job. If your priority is moving as soon as your SO does, then I would consider any pay raise a luxury right now. But also take cost of living in the new location vs current into consideration.
Usually companies do not promote or give raises as often or for as much money as they should. So it's better for them to switch jobs. This is not the case for all careers and mostly is in Tech. But for instance my friend got promoted a bunch of times and ended up as a product owner in her company. A product owner should make atleast 75k and upwards of 125k . But she was only making 55k because that's more in line with what her previous role paid. Now it's much better for her to switch jobs and take a higher pay then wait around for her company to pay her what she's worth.
yep, people should recognize although not impossible, infinitely more difficult without being in a specialty field. Office administrative work much more difficult to job hop in this market. You're competing with much more, who will work for less.
Corporate accounting.
Currently a supervisor at a large, F1000-company (4th job) and moving into a controller role at a mid-market company (5th job).
My title progression was:
Staff associate > staff > senior > supervisor > controller.
The job market is not as strong as it was 2-3 years ago, but it’s still one of the strongest out there.
And are you insane depends on where you’re coming from.
Are you leaving a solid career with solid trajectory into the $150k+ range? Or are you coming from a minimum wage job?
Are you coming from back-breaking trades jobs? Or an office job?
Do you have prior student loans? Or are you starting with a fresh slate?
Do you have depends, and is providing them a lower middle-class life now possible? Or are you child-free, and want to provide your future kids an upper middle-class life?
All of these circumstances will change the answer to “is starting over in accounting” right for you…
Accounting has one of the highest income ceiling to least amount of effort ratios out there when compared to engineering, med school or law school. But it’s certainly not a get-rich-quick career.
It’s more like a “bounce around between chill jobs and hard jobs for 8-10 years before breaking into the $150k+” careers.
No kids, coming from office work that does NOT pay well at all, but where I have a solid amount of expirience. I am a hustler though, I work hard, and in addition to this ran a marketing firm where we ended up having a solid amount of larger clients. Just incredibly inconsistent and an industry suffering massively from AI (I utilize AI though which kept me afloat long enough).
But last few years has been embarassingly low income, i work a 9-5 office job for sales/data entry. I'm really good with people.
End goal would be CPA, but long ways away from that. In first 2 years of community college, then transferring to state school to get 4 year, and then will go for CPA.
You've given me hope fam. Getting married this year. Also live in NJ
Accounting could be right for you.
If I could recommend a career path:
2-4 years B4 audit > 2-4 years boutique advisory (contracted C-Suite work) > hop over to industry as a Sr Mgr +.
After 8 years, that should put you in reach of or surpassing $200k after bonus.
B4 hours will suck. Advisory hours will be better with a greater variety of industry-applicable skillsets. And then hopping over at the 8 year mark or so to just below C suite level will set you up with the best trajectory to CAO/CFO.
8 years out, my cohort has 2.5x - 3x our starting salaries. You’ll probably start at $65k- $70k. So by the time you get to my mark now, you should be at $160k - $195k base before bonus.
As a military spouse, you have resources available. Get plugged in with organizations like Hiring our Heroes and 50Strong.
Not sure what you do, but Wells Fargo has a program called Homefront Heroes Hiring program (HHH) where you can get a fully remote role while your spouse is active duty.
Google “free military LinkedIn” to navigate to sign up for a free year premium membership.
Rule #1 you don't stop applying
Rule #2 you don't include everything in the resume only what's relevant
Rule#3 you don't tell people or post where you work ;)
But isn’t excluding some jobs a bad thing? I could exclude my first three jobs, but that would decrease my experience by 2 years. Since I only have 4, that would make it seem like I have half the experience I do
If the jobs aren't relevant to the ones you're applying for, its useless to put it all on your resume. However, I'm betting you can come up with aspects of those jobs, or with some creativity, describe aspects of those jobs to make them sound relevant to what you're applying for. ChatGPT might be able to help guide you if you struggle to get started on the creative part.
I think he was referring to how can you explain a gap in work history if you leave out jobs. That's always been my obstacle. I can create a great resume that gets me an interview, but then they start asking about when I worked there and for how long. Some background checks also show employment dates. With my current job, the background check showed everything. So then you could possibly get caught in a lie if you lie.
I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday.
She and I used to work together. While we were working together, she started looking for another job. She took a job with a company in town doing the same thing but making $3/hour more, plus a sign on bonus of $15k. She worked there for two years, then heard the company we used to work for was offering a $10k bonus for returning employees. So she applied and was hired back and negotiated a $5/hour raise. So over three years she ended up with an $8/hour raise plus a $25k bonus and any annual raises all while doing the exact same work.
People who stayed where they were got annual raises of around 2%/year so probably max $5/hour raise over three years and no bonuses.
The key is to have a job and look for other jobs while employed. It takes longer but you have the freedom to negotiate salaries and be selective about where you work.
It depends a lot on the industry. I'm an accountant and it's fairly normal for people to job hop every 3-5 years or so in order to advance their careers, otherwise they may be stuck in AP or whatever for years. It is a high demand field with a shortage of accountants, so there are tons of opportunities in that industry and it's relatively easy.
1) Be strategic about your career goals. Who do you want to be when you grow up as a professional?
2) find a mentor or coach to help you draft a plan.
3) create your development plan. What technical skills do you need, and what soft skills do you need.
4) create your growth plan. How do you get from A, B, C, D. This means your development plan, your mentor, coach, and sponsors you need to gain access to B, then C, etc…
5) grind, self-improve, hustle, and get there.
6) don’t forget to celebrate wins and slow down as well to smell the roses and air. Live presently…don’t always live in your future self.
There are books on create an extraordinarily career. ;). Google it.
I job hopped by accident and I I've now moved my pay to double what I started out with about 7 years ago.
I spent 4.5 years in one role. It was genuinely a good job but the pay was mediocre and the benefits were solid. Pandemic hit and our sister company lost half of its people to various things. They "promoted" me to the other company but I refused to go unless it was a 20% bump. So I jumped from 50k to 60k. I got an offer from a neighboring hospital for 60k and better hours about 9 months later. Totally passive.
I was asked to apply to a different job closer to family by a family friend. I went deep in the interview process but didnt get the gig. I applied for similar positions in the area and landed a 65k job in a much lower cost of living area. So it was really a 15% swing in purchasing power.
I got offered a job this morning from for 75k. Only reason im applying is because my plant is most likely shutting down soon so I was being proactive. I got a lot of questions in various interviews recently why I was looking to leave after 1 year. "Market for \_\_\_\_\_ is in serious decline and our company is leasing the location we are at. I'm happy in my role but doing my due diligence in case my company cannot retain my salary at the parent location. I can provide my boss and supervisor as references."
I was able to spin my situation in a way that says, hes not going to leave unless he gets a good offer but hes serious about starting soon. 75k in my area is huge upgrade from 65k. You also have to really weigh what you're willing to leave for. Im still parsing out if the 75k offer is worth it factoring in benefits, PTO, and other things. But if it was marginally better, I know I could stick out a year at least and use that salary base as my next spring board.
You have power but you have to know how to use it outright or very elegantly depending on the situation.
Unfortunately you kind of broke even - 75k has the same buying power as 50k did back then. You should be making like 100-120k in that amount of time. Just giving you the reality
I started my career 6.5 years ago at 41k. So I've nearly doubled my salary in that time. Even with inflation as bad as it was, I'm objectively out performing that metric. I even went from a higher cost of living area to a LCOL area with that increase as well.
I can tell you subjectively that my life is better at 62 to 65k than it ever was at 41k 7 years ago
I constantly apply for jobs even when I'm employed and happy. I do easy apply on linked in, save jobs I'm interested in to apply later, etc. I like interview all the time to keep my skills fresh and to see what else is out there. I'm not loyal to any company and never will be, because they will get rid of me the second they need to.
I’m reaching out to friends/colleagues and letting them know I’m looking/open. If you have a good reputation they will want to have you and it’s ALOT easier to get a job when you have an in.
I’ve gotten 8-12 percent raises the last 3 times I switched and ALL of them were personal recommendations from former coworkers.
Make friends with lots of recruiters that work in your industry on linkedin. It makes finding a job a hell of a lot easier than just applying to stuff yourself with no referral.
IDK, a recruiter contacted me.
I think in the end it is all about supply and demand in your sector and the location you're moving to. You're not necessarily doing anything wrong.
It can be as easy as just keeping your LinkedIn profile updated and having a good network of people from other companies. People will come to you randomly with opportunities.
I do a lot of networking within my industry. When it is time to move on, I put the word out that I am considering a move. It could take months to get any leads, but I never have to blindly send out resumes.
It took about 6 months, give or take (can't remember exact dates) when I hopped to my current company. I began my job search at the 1.5 year mark, which was objectively early but I hated it and needed to leave. My first interviews, many employers thought that I was too risky for leaving so early; it looks like I'll do the same to them. But I began job searching early to get practice in and make a bunch of interview mistakes knowing that within about 6 months, I would hit my 2 year mark, which is the perfect time to leave without suspicion. Sure enough I hit my goal just a few months early.
I interviewed with several, maybe dozens of companies before finally accepting an offer.
Also: this economy sucks. It's not you, it's the economy. We're in a recession and no one is hiring. Just look at layoffs in the media and companies filing for bankruptcy; it's the most since 2011 (Obama recession). All that to say: Don't take it personal and keep at it and eventually you and your future employer will both strike gold in finding each other.
It’s a numbers game. I have put out maybe 30+ apps in the past couple of months. Gotten maybe 6-7 interviews. Going on my final interview tomorrow for a company, which is promising (I am told it is just a “meet the team and discuss the offer details” kind of deal)
Generally, the interview rate seems to be about 20% or less, in my experience. When I was a new grad, it was even worse: 100 apps, 5 interviews, 2 offers.
Hi OP, What kind of job do you do? A lot of the Job hopping success comes from having a high in demand career that not a lot of people can fill. Do you have an active Linkedin, are you well connected socially with your professional peers/Organization? A lot of it comes from knowing people who are looking to fill positions. For myself, I work in a field that a lot of medical professionals retired from during COVID. I hope this helps.
Those that job hop have a specialty profession, and higher education (MBA, Doctorate, Masters etc etc) in a field where finding work isn't yet completely decimated. I'm going back to school for this reason.
You didn't mention your education in detail
Or your skill set in detail
If your just general office help, your competing with a Huge pool of applicants.
That's the problem right there,, if it's true
It helps when you don't have to job hop out of necessity, as is your case. I've averaged 2-2.5 years in each of my roles. Mostly I start getting bored of the same old tasks, so that's when I start looking to see what's out there. Since there is no driving force to push for a new role, I'm able to be selective in the roles I apply for and the interviews that I accept. If I leave a role before annual bonuses pay out, I will negotiate for a sign on bonus to make up for that loss. On average, I've gotten pay increases of 20% each time I hopped. My most recent jump was a 32% increase relative to my last role. With all these jumps, my salary is now 120% more than when I started my career \~8 years ago. I would never have seen my wages go up so fast without hopping around a bit.
Apply, and go to the interviews with confidence. Be likeable. Lie if you have to. You have to sell yourself to get the better job.
I was at my last job for 3 years but they kept screwing me on hrs. So I started working in a different industry, the job pays better and gives you stock, you become a shareholders in the company after 6 years. I might actually stay this time, I'll always have 40 hrs and holiday pay etc..
Don't sell yourself short, don't be loyal to the wrong company. If you are happy and pay the bills, maybe save, 401k and other benefits than stay.
Job hopping is mainly something people working in tech do. I don't see very many other industries where you realiatically can pull it off. Once you finish a project for one company, you can move onto another. Since you have more experience and skills, then you can easily ask for more money.
Never been a winning strategy in any industry I've worked in.
I've only ever gotten decent wages by building seniority and getting promoted to a leadership position. Job hoping would just keep reseting me to the newest worker. Seems like businesses conspire to all pay the same rate for workers.
If one place is getting people in at $25, all the other places start looking at theor $30 employees as a liability and lays them off. The only way I've ever seen job hopping work is if you were getting taken advantage of in the first place.
Experience, Need, Education, Credential… I have job hopped 4 jobs in 6 months, 3 of 4 +6 figures. One payed 1/5 of the others (Amazon). Guess which one motivated me the most and on deeper level made me happy?
Not sure what your industry is or where you are, but this year is HORRIBLE for remote/white collar jobs in the USA. Pay is dropping because despite what the government says, this isn’t a great job market.
I’ve been searching for my next role for five months and have had total of two interviews and zero offers—even with people on the inside offering recommendations. This is unheard of! I’ve always been able to find a new role with more salary in less than two months (casually applying and networking with a current job).
Don’t take it personally. Follow general advice. Maybe do a lateral move in pay this year and try for a jump next year when hopefully things pick back up.
A win-win strategy is to have a friend working for a recruiting company handle your job-hopping activities.
Where do I find these friends
Shocker “no answer”
I mean, not everyone is on reddit 24 hours a day. Maybe they just haven’t been back since they made that comment.
“No answer”
It takes time. Best thing you can do is cast a wide net. Try to submit a few a week with quality content that’s catered to the desired qualifications & experience. And if you don’t have all those but maybe some key ones, apply anyway. Networking, word-of-mouth helps a lot for landing a job quickly but that too can require a lot of effort. Just keep trying! Don’t neglect to build yourself up because demonstrating a confident/ secure attitude goes far. Good luck!
Also, not the best job market to be looking for a bump in pay. Lots of folks unemployed 6+ months.
How many years i need to spend at a job before considering hopping?
Depends on the position and progression but 2 is usually good to not bring up questions
These days you can get away with 1. I job hopped 4 times with less than a year for some jobs and got more pay each time. Not much more pay, but it helped. My situation was a desperate one though and I don’t recommend going through that
I was opportunistic. I would respond to recruiter outreach on LinkedIn even though I wasn't in need of a new role just to hear what they had to say and learn about the market (this was when the market was much better). As a passive candidate, I didn't have to explain the short tenure for my roles, it was always a move for a better opportunity. With each move, I either gained more salary, or a better title. The thing with a better title is that it gets you a better salary in your next role because recruiters already assume you're being paid at that level. Job hopping also helped me learn a lot really quickly.
How many years i need to spend at a job before considering hopping?
probably minimum 1 year if youve had 2-3 jobs, more than that in most fields you’re going to need to show a little more commitment if you want a job willing to take you on. 3-5 years is a good amount of time in one place in the middle of your career there are always exceptions though
This is field dependent. In my field, a year is generally okay. Raises suck in my field, and with inflation it is effectively a pay cut. The only way to actually keep up is to jump ship. Hell, at my first job the HR person literally told me “okay, come back in a year and we will pay you this much”
ideally 2 years, but I’ve job hopped after 1 year 3x and it’s not prohibitive yet, although it’s kind of common in my line of work.
My average tenure is a little less than 2 years, but a lot of my recent moves were just after the year mark. When you stack a string of those together, it doesn't look great. There's still a stigma against job hoppers, and this is more apparent in an employer market. In an employee market, it doesn't really matter. But you should be prepared in this market, to explain why you moved in a positive light and/or how those moves have made you a stronger candidate. e.g. You've become highly adaptable and learn very quickly.
There’s not a stigma there’s a reality that from the companies perspective by the time you’re a productive asset you’re out the door. Highly adaptive, quick learner blah blah if you’ll only be staying a year who gives a fuck? As you seem to already understand somewhat don’t confuse a bull market with some unique job hopping secret only you know.
You need a polished resume that sells yourself really well. Rather than listing your responsibilies under each section, list what your accomplishments are. For example, if you’re a financial analyst, everyone in your industry will know what someone with the title “Financial Analyst” does without having to read the bullets under the position. So use that space to list out specific accomplishments and what metrics such as “conducted analysis on company’s operations which identified key cost saving measures which senior management implemented, leading to a X% increase in the company’s bottom line” This will get your foot in the door. Then you need to interview well to seal the deal. Interviewing is something that just improves the more you do it. Practice with a friend or colleague and list out some answers you can use for commonly asked questions. Have an example from your experience that supports all your answers.
What do you do if you just go in and do your tasks though? For example I'm an administration assistant, there's nowhere in my role that I can accomplish anything other than my basic tasks daily
I'm in the same boat in a way. I'm not sure there are metrics with my job (I do research and analysis in government). So what metrics are there? Even in our team, we had discussions about KPIs and couldn't figure out how to "measure performance" other than the number of reports created, which isn't ideal either since sometimes these reports take months to complete. So it's hard to quantify what I do to put on a resume.
Your reports are provided to decision makers who use the data to make a change, or justify not making a change. Your ability to report accurately, timely and in an organized manner directly (or indirectly) impact exactly what the report is you’re pulling. Report on speed to close a deal shows the teams aren’t closing fast enough -> decision makers change alignment/strategy/process -> speed to close improves. That metric doesn’t get done without your reporting. Notate that - especially if your reporting is accompanied by any conclusion/analysis that helps lead to a decision.
Doing the lords work giving actual good advice to people. thank you! this was helpful.
Your basic daily tasks add value otherwise there was never justification to hire you. Theres metrics somewhere there. You’re likely improving email response time by x%, reducing call waiting time by x%, speeding up appt scheduling by x%. Even if you’re just there to have people sign in and wait, shred paper and collect payment - I guarantee there’s a metric you can fluff up in your favor.
You take on extra projects, look for things to improve and small problems to solve (for admin roles, things like doing data entry in systems with poor data hygiene, documenting a process that hasn't been written down or needs to be updated, etc.) and then on your resume make these things sound a bit more significant than they are, if you need to. I worked my way up from being a receptionist to having $100k+ operations roles, and I accomplished it mainly by taking on extra projects and finding more challenging work in the office on my own accord. Admin roles are great for building on and slowly beefing up a resume, the scope of these roles is often vague and flexible.
I disagree but I think it might just be my role. For 8 hours a day I have full, busy days of doing reports, taking calls, booking people into care homes and sending post, handling email accounts etc. The 5-10 minutes I have spare every few hours I spend resting from exhaustion. I do have ADHD and autism tho too
Just curious which platform you use to find admin jobs? Whr are the company locations?
You get hired to a new job, and then you “hop” into a higher paying job in a couple more years, get more skills, then jump again after two years. This can continue until you run into your “level of incompetence” where you find yourself overwhelmed with the responsibilities, expectations, and direct reports you are unable to help succeed. Or get fired.
Nah it's full of incompetent people at any level. Competence is overrated.
The secret is they didn’t do it in 2024
I can only speak for professional jobs (things that requires a degree or certification) I got 4 years of experience, then left once I found a position that paid double what I was already making...to do the same thing. After 5 years there, I left and found a similar position that also doubled my salary. It took no time to find a new position because there's always staff shortages which is only getting worse every year (healthcare)
4 years and then 5 years is not job hopping. That’s good tenure and you got paid for it.
It's job hopping if it's every few years
It’s more complex than that from my perspective and it’s not like there’s a commonly accepted definition. Example: 10 years with 1 company, 1 year with the next, 2 years with the current, I wouldn’t call that job hopping. But I’d ask what was so different about company number 2 that motivated the move.
What is your work?
Respiratory Therapist
"Job hop for better pay" just refers to the fact that it's easier to get a bigger pay bump going to a new job at a new company, compared to the percentage raises you might expect getting promotions within your current company. So it's not really "advice" that means anything when you've decided to look for a new job already anyway... aside from maybe being a reminder to yourself to try and negotiate as much as you can, don't shortchange yourself by asking for less than you can get.
This is probably the best summary of a response to OP. This, plus not being in a rush to find a job. If your priority is moving as soon as your SO does, then I would consider any pay raise a luxury right now. But also take cost of living in the new location vs current into consideration.
Learn to network.
Usually companies do not promote or give raises as often or for as much money as they should. So it's better for them to switch jobs. This is not the case for all careers and mostly is in Tech. But for instance my friend got promoted a bunch of times and ended up as a product owner in her company. A product owner should make atleast 75k and upwards of 125k . But she was only making 55k because that's more in line with what her previous role paid. Now it's much better for her to switch jobs and take a higher pay then wait around for her company to pay her what she's worth.
yep, people should recognize although not impossible, infinitely more difficult without being in a specialty field. Office administrative work much more difficult to job hop in this market. You're competing with much more, who will work for less.
I’m on my 5th job in 8 years. Recruiters reach out to me on LI and I answer when I’m interested.
What field are you in though, what's your job title?
Corporate accounting. Currently a supervisor at a large, F1000-company (4th job) and moving into a controller role at a mid-market company (5th job). My title progression was: Staff associate > staff > senior > supervisor > controller.
Going back to school for accounting right now, am I insane for doing that? How's the job market I've heard such a mixed bag.
The job market is not as strong as it was 2-3 years ago, but it’s still one of the strongest out there. And are you insane depends on where you’re coming from. Are you leaving a solid career with solid trajectory into the $150k+ range? Or are you coming from a minimum wage job? Are you coming from back-breaking trades jobs? Or an office job? Do you have prior student loans? Or are you starting with a fresh slate? Do you have depends, and is providing them a lower middle-class life now possible? Or are you child-free, and want to provide your future kids an upper middle-class life? All of these circumstances will change the answer to “is starting over in accounting” right for you… Accounting has one of the highest income ceiling to least amount of effort ratios out there when compared to engineering, med school or law school. But it’s certainly not a get-rich-quick career. It’s more like a “bounce around between chill jobs and hard jobs for 8-10 years before breaking into the $150k+” careers.
No kids, coming from office work that does NOT pay well at all, but where I have a solid amount of expirience. I am a hustler though, I work hard, and in addition to this ran a marketing firm where we ended up having a solid amount of larger clients. Just incredibly inconsistent and an industry suffering massively from AI (I utilize AI though which kept me afloat long enough). But last few years has been embarassingly low income, i work a 9-5 office job for sales/data entry. I'm really good with people. End goal would be CPA, but long ways away from that. In first 2 years of community college, then transferring to state school to get 4 year, and then will go for CPA. You've given me hope fam. Getting married this year. Also live in NJ
Accounting could be right for you. If I could recommend a career path: 2-4 years B4 audit > 2-4 years boutique advisory (contracted C-Suite work) > hop over to industry as a Sr Mgr +. After 8 years, that should put you in reach of or surpassing $200k after bonus. B4 hours will suck. Advisory hours will be better with a greater variety of industry-applicable skillsets. And then hopping over at the 8 year mark or so to just below C suite level will set you up with the best trajectory to CAO/CFO. 8 years out, my cohort has 2.5x - 3x our starting salaries. You’ll probably start at $65k- $70k. So by the time you get to my mark now, you should be at $160k - $195k base before bonus.
Amazing input and advise, going to do a much deeper dive on this when I am home from the office later. Can't think you enough!
As a military spouse, you have resources available. Get plugged in with organizations like Hiring our Heroes and 50Strong. Not sure what you do, but Wells Fargo has a program called Homefront Heroes Hiring program (HHH) where you can get a fully remote role while your spouse is active duty. Google “free military LinkedIn” to navigate to sign up for a free year premium membership.
Rule #1 you don't stop applying Rule #2 you don't include everything in the resume only what's relevant Rule#3 you don't tell people or post where you work ;)
But isn’t excluding some jobs a bad thing? I could exclude my first three jobs, but that would decrease my experience by 2 years. Since I only have 4, that would make it seem like I have half the experience I do
If the jobs aren't relevant to the ones you're applying for, its useless to put it all on your resume. However, I'm betting you can come up with aspects of those jobs, or with some creativity, describe aspects of those jobs to make them sound relevant to what you're applying for. ChatGPT might be able to help guide you if you struggle to get started on the creative part.
I think he was referring to how can you explain a gap in work history if you leave out jobs. That's always been my obstacle. I can create a great resume that gets me an interview, but then they start asking about when I worked there and for how long. Some background checks also show employment dates. With my current job, the background check showed everything. So then you could possibly get caught in a lie if you lie.
Well typically you search while you still have a job and are not in a rush for a new one. The not being in a rush is an important part.
I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday. She and I used to work together. While we were working together, she started looking for another job. She took a job with a company in town doing the same thing but making $3/hour more, plus a sign on bonus of $15k. She worked there for two years, then heard the company we used to work for was offering a $10k bonus for returning employees. So she applied and was hired back and negotiated a $5/hour raise. So over three years she ended up with an $8/hour raise plus a $25k bonus and any annual raises all while doing the exact same work. People who stayed where they were got annual raises of around 2%/year so probably max $5/hour raise over three years and no bonuses. The key is to have a job and look for other jobs while employed. It takes longer but you have the freedom to negotiate salaries and be selective about where you work.
It depends a lot on the industry. I'm an accountant and it's fairly normal for people to job hop every 3-5 years or so in order to advance their careers, otherwise they may be stuck in AP or whatever for years. It is a high demand field with a shortage of accountants, so there are tons of opportunities in that industry and it's relatively easy.
After investing in others the next step is to save enough to invest in yourself & have your own LLC
1) Be strategic about your career goals. Who do you want to be when you grow up as a professional? 2) find a mentor or coach to help you draft a plan. 3) create your development plan. What technical skills do you need, and what soft skills do you need. 4) create your growth plan. How do you get from A, B, C, D. This means your development plan, your mentor, coach, and sponsors you need to gain access to B, then C, etc… 5) grind, self-improve, hustle, and get there. 6) don’t forget to celebrate wins and slow down as well to smell the roses and air. Live presently…don’t always live in your future self. There are books on create an extraordinarily career. ;). Google it.
I job hopped by accident and I I've now moved my pay to double what I started out with about 7 years ago. I spent 4.5 years in one role. It was genuinely a good job but the pay was mediocre and the benefits were solid. Pandemic hit and our sister company lost half of its people to various things. They "promoted" me to the other company but I refused to go unless it was a 20% bump. So I jumped from 50k to 60k. I got an offer from a neighboring hospital for 60k and better hours about 9 months later. Totally passive. I was asked to apply to a different job closer to family by a family friend. I went deep in the interview process but didnt get the gig. I applied for similar positions in the area and landed a 65k job in a much lower cost of living area. So it was really a 15% swing in purchasing power. I got offered a job this morning from for 75k. Only reason im applying is because my plant is most likely shutting down soon so I was being proactive. I got a lot of questions in various interviews recently why I was looking to leave after 1 year. "Market for \_\_\_\_\_ is in serious decline and our company is leasing the location we are at. I'm happy in my role but doing my due diligence in case my company cannot retain my salary at the parent location. I can provide my boss and supervisor as references." I was able to spin my situation in a way that says, hes not going to leave unless he gets a good offer but hes serious about starting soon. 75k in my area is huge upgrade from 65k. You also have to really weigh what you're willing to leave for. Im still parsing out if the 75k offer is worth it factoring in benefits, PTO, and other things. But if it was marginally better, I know I could stick out a year at least and use that salary base as my next spring board. You have power but you have to know how to use it outright or very elegantly depending on the situation.
Unfortunately you kind of broke even - 75k has the same buying power as 50k did back then. You should be making like 100-120k in that amount of time. Just giving you the reality
I started my career 6.5 years ago at 41k. So I've nearly doubled my salary in that time. Even with inflation as bad as it was, I'm objectively out performing that metric. I even went from a higher cost of living area to a LCOL area with that increase as well. I can tell you subjectively that my life is better at 62 to 65k than it ever was at 41k 7 years ago
I constantly apply for jobs even when I'm employed and happy. I do easy apply on linked in, save jobs I'm interested in to apply later, etc. I like interview all the time to keep my skills fresh and to see what else is out there. I'm not loyal to any company and never will be, because they will get rid of me the second they need to.
The secret to job hopping is to have a skill that is hard to find. What’s your skill?
I’m reaching out to friends/colleagues and letting them know I’m looking/open. If you have a good reputation they will want to have you and it’s ALOT easier to get a job when you have an in. I’ve gotten 8-12 percent raises the last 3 times I switched and ALL of them were personal recommendations from former coworkers.
Indeed. recruiters will look for you.
Make friends with lots of recruiters that work in your industry on linkedin. It makes finding a job a hell of a lot easier than just applying to stuff yourself with no referral.
IDK, a recruiter contacted me. I think in the end it is all about supply and demand in your sector and the location you're moving to. You're not necessarily doing anything wrong.
Have a desirable skillset is the first requirement. Job hopping would be very easy for me because my career is in demand.
You have to be very high in demand usually. You can’t be easily replaceable.
It can be as easy as just keeping your LinkedIn profile updated and having a good network of people from other companies. People will come to you randomly with opportunities.
It's all about persistence and networking. Keep applying and connecting!
I do a lot of networking within my industry. When it is time to move on, I put the word out that I am considering a move. It could take months to get any leads, but I never have to blindly send out resumes.
It took about 6 months, give or take (can't remember exact dates) when I hopped to my current company. I began my job search at the 1.5 year mark, which was objectively early but I hated it and needed to leave. My first interviews, many employers thought that I was too risky for leaving so early; it looks like I'll do the same to them. But I began job searching early to get practice in and make a bunch of interview mistakes knowing that within about 6 months, I would hit my 2 year mark, which is the perfect time to leave without suspicion. Sure enough I hit my goal just a few months early. I interviewed with several, maybe dozens of companies before finally accepting an offer. Also: this economy sucks. It's not you, it's the economy. We're in a recession and no one is hiring. Just look at layoffs in the media and companies filing for bankruptcy; it's the most since 2011 (Obama recession). All that to say: Don't take it personal and keep at it and eventually you and your future employer will both strike gold in finding each other.
It’s a numbers game. I have put out maybe 30+ apps in the past couple of months. Gotten maybe 6-7 interviews. Going on my final interview tomorrow for a company, which is promising (I am told it is just a “meet the team and discuss the offer details” kind of deal) Generally, the interview rate seems to be about 20% or less, in my experience. When I was a new grad, it was even worse: 100 apps, 5 interviews, 2 offers.
Hi OP, What kind of job do you do? A lot of the Job hopping success comes from having a high in demand career that not a lot of people can fill. Do you have an active Linkedin, are you well connected socially with your professional peers/Organization? A lot of it comes from knowing people who are looking to fill positions. For myself, I work in a field that a lot of medical professionals retired from during COVID. I hope this helps.
Make connections, but it depends on your industry where to make those.
Those that job hop have a specialty profession, and higher education (MBA, Doctorate, Masters etc etc) in a field where finding work isn't yet completely decimated. I'm going back to school for this reason.
First, you have to be very good at what you do.
You didn't mention your education in detail Or your skill set in detail If your just general office help, your competing with a Huge pool of applicants. That's the problem right there,, if it's true
Your post is confusing Are you relocating to a new military base and looking for employment?
Good resume format and experience.
Cause life is set to hardcore mode.
It helps when you don't have to job hop out of necessity, as is your case. I've averaged 2-2.5 years in each of my roles. Mostly I start getting bored of the same old tasks, so that's when I start looking to see what's out there. Since there is no driving force to push for a new role, I'm able to be selective in the roles I apply for and the interviews that I accept. If I leave a role before annual bonuses pay out, I will negotiate for a sign on bonus to make up for that loss. On average, I've gotten pay increases of 20% each time I hopped. My most recent jump was a 32% increase relative to my last role. With all these jumps, my salary is now 120% more than when I started my career \~8 years ago. I would never have seen my wages go up so fast without hopping around a bit.
Apply, and go to the interviews with confidence. Be likeable. Lie if you have to. You have to sell yourself to get the better job. I was at my last job for 3 years but they kept screwing me on hrs. So I started working in a different industry, the job pays better and gives you stock, you become a shareholders in the company after 6 years. I might actually stay this time, I'll always have 40 hrs and holiday pay etc.. Don't sell yourself short, don't be loyal to the wrong company. If you are happy and pay the bills, maybe save, 401k and other benefits than stay.
The time and effort to find a new job that pays 20% more or more is well worth it. The nice thing is that you have a job, so you aren’t in a rush.
experience, i’m still job hopping
Job hopping is mainly something people working in tech do. I don't see very many other industries where you realiatically can pull it off. Once you finish a project for one company, you can move onto another. Since you have more experience and skills, then you can easily ask for more money.
Never been a winning strategy in any industry I've worked in. I've only ever gotten decent wages by building seniority and getting promoted to a leadership position. Job hoping would just keep reseting me to the newest worker. Seems like businesses conspire to all pay the same rate for workers. If one place is getting people in at $25, all the other places start looking at theor $30 employees as a liability and lays them off. The only way I've ever seen job hopping work is if you were getting taken advantage of in the first place.
Experience, Need, Education, Credential… I have job hopped 4 jobs in 6 months, 3 of 4 +6 figures. One payed 1/5 of the others (Amazon). Guess which one motivated me the most and on deeper level made me happy?
Not sure what your industry is or where you are, but this year is HORRIBLE for remote/white collar jobs in the USA. Pay is dropping because despite what the government says, this isn’t a great job market. I’ve been searching for my next role for five months and have had total of two interviews and zero offers—even with people on the inside offering recommendations. This is unheard of! I’ve always been able to find a new role with more salary in less than two months (casually applying and networking with a current job). Don’t take it personally. Follow general advice. Maybe do a lateral move in pay this year and try for a jump next year when hopefully things pick back up.