Job Hopping: Good, Bad or What?

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

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Employers' opinions about job hopping change frequently. In the rags-to-riches dot-com years, from the late 1990 to mid-2001, job hopping was the recommended career-building strategy. If you weren't clearing out your desk every time a better job surfaced, you weren't going anywhere.

But when the dot-com bubble burst, the winds shifted and employers felt that job hoppers were rootless wanderers unwilling to plant career roots. They were migrant professionals who couldn't be counted on. The article puts the topic of job hopping in perspective and offers suggestions about how to use it so it leads to better jobs.

The Silicon Valley Model

In California's fast-paced Silicon Valley, job hopping had been elevated to a lifestyle by the late 1990s. Typically, careers were migratory and job hopping was rewarded as an ambitious means of keeping pace with the trendy computer industry. In fact, workers who built formidable reputations as job hoppers were much sought after by the Valley's big players.

One such job hopping legend held prestigious jobs as a project manager at National Semiconductor Corporation, Apple Computer, Starstruck and Chips and Technologies. He called himself a "start-up junkie" because he had the good sense to work for the major players during their first years in business. He was right. Each of these companies rapidly …

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