I was searching for some tips to explain my career in addition to my usual defense lines of skill set etc.

Generally, I read articles and never respond but this article is so far from the truth, I have to comment.

Good luck every one !

No offense Nick, but what does make you an expert on what Managers think ? by the way who are these managers any way ? What is the job of these managers? Isn’t it to maximize their companies profit with decisions that yield the most?, perhaps the correct human capital.
I am one of those managers that happened to have hired two people in recent past with similar career history as mine, and they are proving to be great. If they decide to leave after some time, good luck to them but while they are here, if they are performing at the level I demand, I am OK with it.

My advice to people is go for the best and stop listening to these so called “Recruiting” / HR experts. If you have skills, they will hire you. Just remember, the companies will not keep you when they don’t need you either! It goes both ways and We (the real managers) understand that.
Off course if you are an administrative level person, you don’t have much to market and stay at the job that you have!

Career coaches and resume advisers teach people to hide the fact that they’ve bounced around, but it doesn’t work. I made it clear that people jump either of their own volition, or because their employers have screwed them.

My point is that a new employer won’t see that distinction. That’s the reality. If you march around looking for a new job while pretending someone’s going to “get it” and realize it wasn’t your fault, you’re screwed again.

I offered two suggestions. I’ll repeat them, because I think you’re so angry that you’re missing the point. Both suggestions are up to you — not to the next employer. You must decide to do something to help yourself.

1. Forget about resumes. There is no way to hide job hopping. So don’t rely on that dopey piece of paper that screams, “I may be a problem.” Rely instead on developing and using solid personal contacts who will strongly recommend you. Make that your “foot in the door.” Not the resume. A strong referral is more trusted by a manager than a resume. It’s the best way to get over the hump.

2. Lay down a record of stability. This means, pick the next company carefully. Extra carefully. Your recent experiences may not be your fault, but the system is gonna make you pay for them anyway. So choose thoughtfully. Make sure where you go next will help you establish a credible record.

You can F me all you want. That doesn’t change the perception of employers. Only you can change that. And crying over your experiences and getting mad at me won’t help. My job is to be pragmatic, and I try to offer concrete suggestions.

Or you can try to come up with one more clever way to hide your job hopping on your resume.

I’m seen as a “job hopper” according to my resume. This so called hopping? Within the last year a lay off (lost a government contract, damn that deficit), another one that lost their contract to do home appraisals with Bank of America, a job that I was promised would become full time after a month that never did (and therefore had to leave rather than lose the roof over my head), a store that closed just before my one year anniversary because the owner wanted to change careers and didn’t want to bother to sell the place first…

Because of this, I can now only get phone sales jobs that plan to get rid of who they hire in 90 days or less just as “business as usual” (and so they don’t have to put you on the health insurance).

But you just keep assuming the worse of people in my position and lose out on getting a good employee who has had to be a “jack of all trades”….just because they’ve had the misfortune of working for a bunch of screw-up employers.

In his free on-line e-book titled, The Recession-Proof Graduate, (http://charliehoehn.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/recession-proof-graduate1.pdf), Charlie Hoen suggests grads 1) Get some real skills, 2) Identify prospective employers, 3) Propose that you do short projects for them, for free.

Your article helps make the case against this tactic… thank you. Such a collection of short projects will just look like job hopping on a resume.

At Humongous Shortage of Work, (http://www.HumongousShortageOfWork.com), Kotow Shergar explains all the ways Charlie is wrong. And he does it without even wasting his time reading Charlie’s book.

Now, you too, can avoid wasting your time reading it.

Thanks for the additional reasons to not work… Lots of different work on your resume will just look bad.

Len

Plus, the days of gold watches and pensions are long gone. A friend of mine lost her father last year to a massive heart attack. He was stressed because his employer had decided to lay him off after nearly 30 years of work and had doubled his workload for the last few months before his layoff date. No significant severance was offered. When he died, the company found a technicality and tried to screw his family over on his life insurance. This is a major US company that most readers here will have heard of, but I won’t name it–not because I think they’ll track me down and sue me, but because it’s not about the company, it’s about the modern workplace environment. Loyalty isn’t expected from employers, so why should employees walk loyally right off the dock into shark-infested waters?

I was laid off from a dot-bomb (love your term) where I had loyally worked unpaid overtime every week and had weeks before my layoff (not a lot of weeks) been told by the CEO personally that he’d give me a raise if he had the budget and that he couldn’t possibly be more satisfied with my performance–and that I had, verbatim, “nothing to worry about” and was “essential to our team.” A week after they laid me off they offered me my job back with a 40% salary cut and more responsibilities tacked on.

I could keep giving examples, but my point is this: These days, a loyal employee is a stupid employee. If you want a drone who works their 40 hours, gets their paycheck and is happy that way until you later lay them off, hire a loyal person who never job hops. If you want a smart employee who constantly learns more about their job, wants more responsibility, takes on extra work without being asked, and expects to be valued in return, consider the job hoppers–at least, those of them whose past hops have successfully landed them more money and more responsibility, and whose past employers speak of them in glowing tones.

Further, I found it repulsive that you referred to a fellow writer in your field in such crude and unkind terms. I know you’re a headhunter, but that doesn’t mean you have to embody the worst stereotypes in the field! If I were ever in a position to choose between working with you and Penelope and had only her job hoppers post and your response to base my decision on, I’d pick Penelope in a heartbeat, because she didn’t feel the need to personally insult a colleague in her post.

Having read other posts on your blog, I know you’re a blunt guy but not an intentionally cruel guy, yet I think this post was out of line and turned a difference of opinion into a personal attack.

I agree with your buddy as everything you said benefits the employer while giving little value to the employee. If you don’t want to worry about job hopping offer the person a long term contract or adjust their salary to be competitive in the market. Otherwise you are saying nothing more than, I want you to work long term and be a good employee and give up your liquidity in the labor market but keep the option to let you go at any time. . . sorry but no thanks.

-Jeff