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Paul McLellan

How long should you stay in a job?

September 17, 2009

How long should you stay in a job? The answer will depend a bit on your personality. But I think a job is interesting so long as you’re learning a lot and that seems to mean that you should stay in a job about three years. The first year you don’t know how to do the job and your are learning a lot, the second year you are getting the hang of it and by the third year you have become good at the job. But being good at the job typically means that you don’t have much more to learn from the job by continuing to do it. It’s time to move on.

When I say it’s time to move on I don’t mean that you need to move company, although that is certainly one option. If you move to work on a new product you’ll be learning stuff again. If you relocate to Japan you’ll be learning stuff again. If you move from application engineering to product marketing you’ll be learning again.

In particular, if you get promoted your job will change and you’ll be learning stuff again. This is especially acute the first time you are promoted into management. Typically you are the best engineer or salesperson or whatever on the team and so you get promoted. Now you have to learn about management, a subject that previously you may not have taken much interest in. It is an especially difficult transition since your comfort zone is not to do management at all, just do everyone’s jobs for them (after all, you were the best on the team so you are better than they are). It is a hard lesson to learn that as a manager your output is not what you do personally, it is the output of your group. It is not a positive that you did a lot of the work yourself, that means you are not doing a good job of nurturing the people in your group, not training them to be as good as you are.

People will often move on to another company anyway if they are bored since there might not be an appropriate position to move into, or a promotion to be had. This is especially true of new graduates who get fed up with some aspects of the company bureaucracy or culture and move to a new company to escape. However, the new company is typically the same (although different in details). It’s just the nature of companies that they don’t always do just what you think they ought to. The result of this phenomenon is that I think the best value people you can possibly hire are people who have already worked for at least one company and have 3-5 years experience. At that point they are enormously more productive than a brand new graduate, not about to leave because of company bureaucracy, and although they are paid more they are not paid a correct premium. The new graduates are probably overpaid and the 3-5 year people underpaid.

I know mostly about engineering and a good engineer is not 30% better than a poor one, they are ten times more productive. So 3-5 year guy is not 50% better than a new graduate, which may reflect the pay differential, they may be 5 times better.

Posted by Paul McLellan on September 17, 2009 | Comments (21)

November 4, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Confused commented:

I am confused and need to take a decision imediatly. I stayed in my first job for 2 years. The first year a technical support network engineer and the second year a team leader. Then I moved to another company for a network designing job and I took the same path got promoted after 14 months Team leader. Then I moved for a multinational company as Sales account manager, this was during the last year where the economy went really bad and I only achieved 30% of my target so I was pressured to quit and I did. So I took the first job I found (1 month ago) but I do not like the company culture or the pay. I got an offer for another multinational company with an excellent pay and good career path. What should I do? am I concidered as a job hopper?

October 7, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Experience_counts commented:

It seems that this industry - and many others - has decided that the perfect job candidate has 3-5 years experience and is currently doing exactly the work you want to hire them for. Logical on the surface, but extremely shortsighted thinking. Give me the person who has proven time and again the ability to learn the new thing while applying their wealth of experience and getting the job done. They will bring the project in on time while working well with others, dealing with customers, fixing tricky bugs, and mentoring the new guy. That salary is money well spent. Your 3-5yr person might turn into that guy. Or you might have to go look for a new one for the next project.

October 6, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Silly commented:

All the above comments apply to those who want to stay in big companies for a long time. What don't you start your own business and break all the rules? Letting ones fate determined by others is quite pessimistic. If opportunities are waving hands at you, will you still hatch eggs in the same position for three to five years?

October 6, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
tired commented:

It is career suicide to change jobs every three years. Maybe not so bad if you stay in the same company, but even there you develop a reputation as a temporary resource. And it must be an awfully big company to provide that many job change opportunities. In bad economies, you may end up out of a job for months (or even years) and employers assume that you're unemployable. Leaving jobs as soon as you become productive is a profit-killing attitude, just like ruining good engineers by forcing them into management. It's actually better that poor engineers end up in management. Working under them, you have to learn how to put the screws to them.

October 6, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
routing_algorithm commented:

I agree with oldguy. the worst engineers move to management as the overcome their lack of theoretical knowledge with political ruthlessness. If you are confident that your current career in not teaching you anything that you really want to learn pls gte rid of the managers you worked for. Remember their very presence might be hurting your quest for new knowledge. If the job only imparts education on a specific tool and that tool goes of out date in say 18-24 months its better to get rid of that job. Many people I have seen will never broaden their horizons as they learnt some tool 10 years back and they think engineering is all about that tool.

October 3, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Romase commented:

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October 2, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Globals commented:

all good things

September 24, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Alex commented:

What's the big deal in this "learing" matter? I was told by my boss: what you want to do the same work over and over? but the matter the fact, a new task takes 2 months to execute for newbie, while takes two days for somebody already trained. productivity is in the experitise. Another thing is that if you are learning new things all the time, you can not reuse you knowledge, and actually all your learning efforts are wasted. but may be this is good just for resume? and this is the main reason for this "learning"?

September 18, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
spaceguy commented:

The author needs to do better research. In year 2, you learn less, and in year 3 you know the job. Not so fast, my friend. You need yrs 4 & 5 to become proficient at the job. Then you need to teach the newbies how to do the job, thus learning your job even better. I've been in the same field for 20 yrs and still learn. If you're not learning, then you're not trying. You're stagnant and should move on. The only reason for changing jobs every 3-5 yrs would be to get your salary up and that can backfire also.

September 18, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
oldguy2 commented:

PT, old guy and Stimpy: Had to laugh when I started reading this aricle. But you folks brought it back to reality PDQ. "Local EEOC" office? In New York it doesn't matter what you do. One interview _started_ out, "NY is a work-at-will state. That means you can leave any time you like, and we can let you go any time we like; for no reason." I found out later the European owners hire and fire on a regular basis without regard to project continuity or family concerns or anything else for that matter. A shame really. This particular company was well-known locally and in the industry to be very innovative and leading edge before the invasion. Now they're just a slim slice on a big pie chart in Europe.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
JeeShen Lee commented:

Well said.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Stimpy commented:

Moving on to a different company is a luxury only a young engineer can afford ... and it is a strategy that I did follow. Now that I am an old engineer I am hanging on to what I have despite the abuse of management and HR, who would all be delighted to see me go. My advice? Don't get old ... at least not in engineering. And put the local EEOC office phone number on speed dial -- you'll need it. And yeah, the brown-nosers are the ones who climb the corporate ladder. They are also sociopaths who can smile while they kick you in the nutz.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
oldguy is right! commented:

Excellent comment oldguy - I can give multiple examples of the "boss friendly" promotion. I think the best is a guy who by proximity to the office of the boss was considered and won the promotion to managemnt of a project I was on. Needless to say, the project went into the ditch immediately and it was all of the rest of the group's fault. Leadership is 99.9% political and 0.1% technical.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
oldguy commented:

The idea that the best engineers move in management is wrong. It is usually one of the worst engineers (but ruthless , good at politics and "boss friendly") that does. There is no connection to leadership whatsoever.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
panderson commented:

The real question driving one's degree of loyalty to your current employer should be what level of bullshit are you willing to swallow before it's time to seek greener pastures because if you stay with an organization long enough your septic tank of tolerance will eventually get pretty full. And I agree with Atkinson re: keeping the best engineer doing engineering. It's just too bad that often the best engineer in the group gets promoted into management(via the peter principal) when another admin person would probably do a better job managing. Keep the engineers doing what they love. I'm sure that if one is truly an engineer for the pure enjoyment of creating new things or solving complex problems and not just for the money then management would constitute that dreaded walk over to the darkside.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
PT commented:

This concept of a good engineer being made a manager is what is the problem. Successful managers are the engineers who can blow their trumpet and take credit for other peoples work..After all if team work was truly important do you think any one member will be the 'best' engineer? The reality is that 95% of engineers stumble into mgmt and are leading 99% of the engineers into oblivion. The demise of engineering in this country is the direct result of inept engineering mgmt.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
Brendan Atkinson commented:

The best engineer in the group should be kept an engineer. The person that should get promoted to management should be the person with the best leadership potential. That may be the best engineer. Then again it might not be. If the great engineer is a terrible leader then not only does the team suffer, but so does the company and the promoted engineer. This is basic hiring tactics from: First, Break All the Rules; Now, Discover your Strengths; and Stephen Covey's work.

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
WR commented:

So if no one hires the new grads, how will they get 3-5 years of experience?

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
allenbazemore commented:

The solution to the Job problem in US is people should be willing to change. There are lot of jobs in Medical Assistant. Get training and degree in Medical Assistant in few months check out www.bit.ly/440dpp

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
manuelalfaro17 commented:

Doctors are looking for Nurses, too many in this country. There are plenty of demand for nurses, so get a Nursing degree. You can even get one online check out www://bit.ly/HdrTn

September 17, 2009

In response to: How long should you stay in a job?
wannacallitquits commented:

good idea!

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