Job Jumping: Navigating today’s shorter stays
Posted 5/20/2025
By: Paul Pompeo
As a recruiting firm in lighting, electrical, and controls, every day our team speaks with hiring managers and human resources professionals in our industry. As the conversation turns to candidates’ backgrounds, the length of time candidates stay at their companies often comes up and an interesting dynamic arises: Many people (particularly hiring managers) feel that today’s candidates have much shorter tenures than 10 to 15 years ago. Employers bemoan what they frequently refer to as “job jumpers”—candidates that have roughly 1 to 2 years, on average, for their last three job stays. There is a reason for employer trepidation when hiring someone with very short job stays. There is often truth to the statement “Past performance is indicative of future behavior,” and depending on who you ask, it is said that it takes 6 months to a year before an employee truly becomes profitable. So, it is understandable why many employers cautiously approach the hire of a candidate with a track record of job jumping.
We can expect these shorter stays to most likely continue for the foreseeable future
What appears to be happening is that although the average job tenure overall does not seem to be significantly lower than previous years, as Baby Boomers are retiring—and Gen X employees will soon follow—the majority of our workforce will comprise Millennials and Gen Z, who have a history of shorter job tenures.
What are the options for employers? While there are no simple answers, I would like to present three tips that may reduce the chances of a bad hire when interviewing those whose résumés include shorter job stays.
1. Inquire about their reasons for leaving their previous jobs. Couch the question in an open-ended way to encourage candidates to elaborate. Carefully listen as they describe how/why they left each position. Is there a pattern? Are employers leaving your candidates more than candidates are leaving their employers? How do they talk about each of their former employers? Negativity and blaming former companies is a red flag. Geoff Smart’s book Who? The A Method for Hiring recommends the use of these two follow-up responses to your candidate’s answer: “How’s that?” and “Tell me more.” If a candidate becomes defensive or speaks negatively about a previous company, you’ll be glad you asked before making a hiring decision.
2. Dive deep into checking references. Conduct a series of detailed reference checks with your final candidates. Wherever possible, reference checking should be conducted by a third party. As an employer, having a company representative call a reference might prompt them to respond with a bland or overly positive reference just to help the candidate get the job. Because they know the candidate, they are often reluctant to share any “non-glowing” information about the candidate, which may be details worth knowing. If possible, do not disclose the name of the company to the reference to keep things confidential and allow the reference to speak freely during the conversation.
3. “I” versus “We.” One of my previous columns dealt with a subtle technique during interviews that I first saw in Business Insider; it involves listening to the way candidates talk about their achievements. Somone who is aware and proud of their specific accomplishments will often answer your question in the first-person singular, “I”. Those who answer most questions with “We” may not have quanitfiable achievements in which they played an important or leading role. The best candidate will often use a combination of first- and third-person phrasing, which indicates someone who is proud of their individual accomplishments yet also enjoys working in a team.
In the future, will Millennial and Gen Z candidates end up staying at their companies for longer periods as they move into the later stages of their careers? It’s hard to predict, but we can expect these shorter stays to most likely continue for the foreseeable future.
Why Do Candidates Seem to Have Shorter Stays than 10 Years Ago?
The “dot.com boom” (also known as the “Internet bubble” or “tech boom”) of the late 1990s until the early 2000s refers to a time where Internet-related tech companies attracted significant attention from venture capital firms and other investors. During this time, there was a hiring frenzy by these companies, resulting in the best and brightest being recruited from multiple industries (including lighting and controls) with promises of huge financial paydays. The majority of these firms were short-lived, but some of the best senior managers in our industry can point to a 6-month to 2-year period away from industry around that time.
The “Great Recession” of 2007 to 2009 was a global phenomenon and the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression nearly a century earlier. There were substantial layoffs among many companies, which abbreviated the job stays of countless lighting professionals during this time.
The post-Baby Boomer generational shift is also a factor. According to offboarding services provider Kept, “…a noticeable shift has occurred in employee tenure, particularly among Gen Z and Millennials, who tend to spend less time with employers compared to previous generations.” Kept adds that the average Baby Boomer worker had an average job stay of 8.25 years. Gen X workers average about 5.2 years per position, with Millennials and Gen Z clocking in at average tenures of 2.75 and 2.25 years, respectively. For a variety of reasons, Millennials and Gen Z often tend to have a very different concept of work/life balance than their predecessors.
Candidates: Why You May Want to Stay a Little Longer
It’s been discussed here (and elsewhere) how the 2000s has seen progressively shorter job stays for many candidates. But there are also reasons why you should consider sticking around, even though the immediate benefits may not seem obvious. Candidates with 3 to 5 years per company, on average, are often the first candidates employers review. In their eyes, they see stability and often feel that a longer-stay professional is the better bet. The candidate who demonstrates the ability to stick with it at each company often seems more dependable to hiring managers, executive recruiters, and human resource managers. Is that always the case? No, but as the saying goes, “Perception is reality”—at least often it is in the case of someone viewing your résumé.
The short-term win of securing higher salaries by switching jobs frequently is offset by the fact that staying longer at a company significantly increases your chance of a promotion—bringing a raise and increased responsibility. Listing a promotion on your résumé is very attractive to employers, and that new position frequently ends up being more satisfying jobwise. If you’re a high-performer, employers often are willing to invest more in you if they feel you will be staying for a while.
