The generation born between 1984 and 2004, also called Millennials, has started to leave undeniable marks in the job market. Until them, the Baby Boomers usually dedicated their careers to one single organization. This is where Millennials are different. They don’t want to settle, and they are constantly changing their jobs. This professional phenomenon is called Job Hopping. Let’s take a closer look at what it is really happening, and how this trend evolved until 2017.
A Closer Look at Job Hopping
The question that most people ask is what happened within a span of a few years that changed the perception of a prestigious career. In today’s world, Millennials are not proud of how many years they stayed loyal to a company. They feel more fulfilled when they are meeting new professional people, like leaders, managers, thinkers, coworkers, and influencers.
The job-hopping trend started at the same time with the burst of technology and social media. This generation embraces the image of a community that asks questions, shares and shapes their opinions within the group. On the other hand, Boomers are considered idealists and their main drive in a career is financial success. So, to them, the field where they develop their career isn’t important. However, Millennials care more about the nature of their careers. They want their profession to be aligned with their passion. The job market has opened up to creative opportunities, and it’s not banking or engineering biased anymore.
Moreover, the structure of the companies has changed too and the efforts the employers have to put in have drastically increased. They are no longer in the position of ordering trends. However, they have to take the pulse of their public first through analytics, social media, and surveys and they usually ask their staff to perform more tasks than the job descriptions mention.
Job Hopping and Employers
Millennials are now making up two-thirds of today’s workforce, but only 45% employees are planning to be loyal to their company. Moreover, employers are looking down at the trend. The HR efforts have increased recently, as they have to cope with the large waves of job hopping adepts.
Employers are experiencing an ongoing process of updating to today’s professional trends. They are resorting more and more to change the files system to a digital one entirely. Moreover, they are adopting entertaining places to offer their employees the chance to unwind throughout the day. However, they are still unwilling to accept job hopping as the new trend in the market.
Whatever the reasons behind job hopping are, this trend is now the new normal. Thus, companies have to adapt to today’s reality and not ignore it. Among employers, there are 43% who refuse to hire a candidate whose resume resembles that of a job hopper.
So, none of the above improvements in the workplace are actually addressing the employees’ reasons to leave. While the financial compensation is still a powerful incentive for workers, Millennials have other ideals as far as their job is concerned such as opportunities to learn, quality of the manager, and the type of work.
Benefits of Job Hopping
Millennials have unlocked a lot of opportunities through job hopping. Here are some of them:
- They are more knowledgeable: due to the advancements in technology and Internet, today’s jobs are more complex than before. A professional marketer, for example, needs to possess a solid body of knowledge based on a large array of domains. Consequently, gaining experience from different jobs is a strategy that will build them a multidisciplinary career.
- A large network of brilliant minds: a job is a perfect environment to meet and network with colleagues and managers from whom Millennials can learn a lot. They also come into contact with different methods of conducting business, earning a multidimensional understanding of their field of choice.
- Discovery of new personal skills and capabilities: a new job requires a new set of skills and knowledge. Millennials need to adapt to their new working environment, which will perfect their fast learning skills, adaptability, and flexibility.
- More money: by becoming more knowledgeable about a field and its branches, Millennials can be a more valuable asset for the company. To continue our example, a marketer that knows how to create a campaign from scratch will bring a more positive impact on the company than a professional well educated in one segment.
Disadvantages of Job Hopping
The new trend of job hopping is far from being perfect. So, let’s take a look at the negative effects of changing the job too often:
- A less secure job: back in the day, job security was one of the main attractions for employees. However, Millennials’ enthusiasm for new types of jobs lands them in an unsafe field. Their history of work abandonment will not be in their favor when the employer is forced to lay off employees.
- Destroy relationships: employers are turning to professional references when they are considering hiring a candidate. Leaving your job by your own will may alter the relationship with the management. Consequently, the former employer might not have a good opinion about a Millennial who left them.
- Lack of satisfaction: people get attached to the products and services for which they invested time and effort. Given the fact that most products have a long life circle, Millennials are not staying long enough to feel fulfilled when the company thrives, and that may cause a lack of professional satisfaction.
All things considered, job hopping is a new trend that is here to stay. Millennials are definitely not repelling the idea of hard work and a stable professional career. On the contrary, they want to learn more about a domain and use their knowledge to innovate it. They are actually the pioneers of the future workplace structure.
