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The “Less Than 1 Year” Rule for Jobs Needs to Go
People are more than their résumés
I was just reading Tim Denning’s recent story on how he wasn’t hired because he was at one job less than a year. That lit a fire in me. In college, I had a teacher who said, “Always stay at a job for one year, minimum. Less than one year looks really bad.”
She had worked for two employers over the last 20 years. Which is great! But that’s not the way things work anymore.
Millennials tend to job-hop, but it’s not because we can’t settle down. Employers no longer value longevity. The 401(k) has replaced the employer-funded pension. After the economic recession in 2008, many people lost their jobs, and learned the hard way that companies have no loyalty to their employees, seeing them as expendable. Often, the only way to get a raise is to switch jobs.
So why do employers balk if someone had a short bout at a job? After all, a year is a long time, and a lot can happen. Seasonal work can end. People may have to move. Layoffs can occur, hitting newest employees first.
And, sometimes, a job is just horrible, and people would rather leave for greener pastures than stick to an arbitrary guideline, and be miserable.
