I’m of a mind that some HR folks overthink their job, especially when it comes to hiring and looking at resumes. Maybe this is all just a result of needing to sift through and rule out potentially dozens or hundreds of resumes for a single job (and maybe have backable reasons for ruling whittling them down!). But it still seems like a lot of overthink for something you just can’t predict until an interview and you test drive the employee. This tiny mini-rant was inspired by a post over on Jeff Snyder ‘s blog, an excellent blog that combines both security issues and career/hiring issues. I’m not sure I know of another similar blog to his
Though there is no magic length of time to stay with an employer, this HR executive likes to see longevity of 3-5 years or longer with each employer. Within each 3-5 year stay, Mike looks for growth. Growth could be represented by expanded skills, expanded responsibilities, bigger titles, etc.
I don’t really buy into such an approach for tech positions. Managerial or leadership positions, sure. But I think this threatens to shackle technical people with the often superficial trappings of business appearances. With the exception of being let go repeatedly very quickly, I’m not sure I’d read too much into how often someone changes (non-contract) jobs or whether they’re seeing progression or not.
Disclaimer: I haven’t really done much hiring (I helped look at resumes once…) nor manage people. I also fall into the bucket of 3-5 years per job with progression, so this isn’t me bitching about being shorted personally. 🙂