Are You a Job Hopper or a Company Hopper?

Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.

  Career Development  

I worked for three companies in my professional career: Accenture, Microsoft, and my own company, Consetta Group.

In my 11 years at Accenture, I worked on gigs in the oil & gas, food distribution, technology, retail distribution, aerospace & defense, software product management, and outsourcing industries. At Microsoft I worked in IT, corporate procurement, corporate planning, and HR over a nine-year span. I not only got a rich education in different industries and functions, but was able to go deeper in areas I liked.

And it all largely happened despite my lack of planning.

Particularly in my career at Accenture, I mostly took the gigs that were given to me. I really had no idea what skills I wanted to build or industries I wanted to work in. What my experience at Accenture imprinted on me was to stay in a job for about 18 months then look for my next opportunity.

This continued at Microsoft as well as my own consultancy. After about 18 months I would get bored and need a change. Even to this day, I occasionally get an itch to do something different and new.

I’ve looked at a lot of LinkedIn profiles over the past several years. My first inclination is to go to the experience section and see not just where people have worked, but how many companies and how long they worked at each company. This review provides first impressions for me:

1. I am …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.