Shortly after I left Tyco Electronics and began recruiting in the electronics industry, I presented a candidate for a technical position heading up R&D for a major electronics manufacturer. The candidate held a PhD from a prestigious university and spent 16 years at a single company, progressing through a series of positions with increasing responsibility.
I was shocked when my client asked "What's wrong with the guy? He has been with the same company for 16 years?" The first thing that came to my mind was "loyalty." I was surprised that long tenure with a company was suspect when it came to the hiring process.
Job hopping has become so mainstream that staying with a single company for more than three or four years now needs to be justified with evidence of accomplishments and career advancement, much the way job hopping has had to have justification behind it. Some reports say that the average person entering the workforce today will go through as many as 20 jobs in a career.
It's a trend that was true of male workers from the early 1980s through the late 1990s. In that time frame, the average tenure of wage and salaried male employees over 25 years old fell from 5.9 years to 4.9 years. Since 2002, however, the median male tenure actually has grown from 4.9 to 5.5 years. Over that same period, the median tenure of women grew from 4.4 years to 5.4 years. Tenures of women had also grown in the decade and a half when male tenures were falling, but that is largely attributable to a change in the career mix of women that began to favor longer-tenure professions.
Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork, was quoted recently as saying:
The 1980's and 90's was a period filled with tremendous opportunity, when employees discovered the power of being free agents and the salary advantages of changing jobs. Since the turn of the millennium, though, the economy has been markedly less stable, and employees have been less likely to seek out unnecessary instability by changing positions.
So, somewhat surprisingly, tenures are growing. For employers trying to find top performers, workers staying in their positions longer means simply finding them becomes more difficult. The longer someone isn't actively in the job market, the older and more out of date their discoverable footprints become. LinkedIn profiles go unmaintained. Resumés in databases grow so old they are irrelevant. Romaine notes in the above referenced article:
Finding top talent that isn't trying to be found requires constant surveillance and proactive network-building. There is nothing automated about the process and it's challenging for an internal recruiting apparatus to proactively build a pipeline for key positions that a company may only be hiring for every few years.
I'd like to get EBN readers' thoughts regarding increasing tenure. Are you seeing it in your space? Is it a positive trend? And do you think company in-house recruiters are adept at finding talent not always wanting to be found?
These days even people working in the best of the companies are looking for a job trying to encash their employer's brand name so let the people in medium repo companies be. So if someone hasnt been able to make a switch, recruiter is likely to doubt the potential of the person though it would be unfair. I believe loyalty is something that should be greatly valued if the recruiter is able to assess that not switching a job was intentional. Most people would lie to that so recruiter has to be careful.
Carla, The employment market is forcing people to remain at their current jobs. However, we should on no account assume this is a sign they are satisfied with their current job status or their current employers for that matter. If, and when, the market situation changes, you can bet people will leave in droves.
It is very difficult criteria. It is better to read full resume and find alternate way to judge him and her. Working in one organization for two decades should not at all considered bad.
Certainly there seems to be a reason for considering long tenures as disadvatages. An employer employee relationship depends on lot many things more than work opprtuniites and career advancement. But this will change from case to case basis and certainly there is no single best assessment tool available to recruit a candidate.
In general, I recommend that employers (as well as recruiters) take the time to dig deeper into a resume to explore the story behind the job experiences. It's really only at that point can you understand whether job hopping or conversely long tenure mar or enhance the resume.
Being a job hopper myself, I agree some of the points here. I realize some people still stick to the same company due to being too comfortable with the company itself. Some companies do reward promotions to long-staying staff though.
EBN Dialogue enables and encourages you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Not only editors and journalists, but the entire EBN community is able to comment and ask questions. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats.
Archived Dialogues
Thailand Stages a Comeback Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Euro-Crisis: What It Means for High-Tech Firms Join EBN Editor in Chief Bolaji Ojo and Contributing Editor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday, July 12, at 10:00 a.m. EDT for a Live Chat on high-tech and Europe's economic difficulties.
Microsoft Surface: Potential Winners & Losers What are the implications for the electronics industry supply chain of Microsoft Corp.'s decision to launch its own tablet PC? Join industry veteran and EE Times' systems and OEM expert Rick Merritt on Tuesday, July 3, at 12:00 pm EDT for a Live Chat on this subject.
Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
Where are these people? Are universities properly preparing the next generation supply chain professionals? How do train your existing workforce for these new, demanding positions?
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges.
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