An article from The Atlantic called “Quit Your Job” caught my attention lately. Its author, Derek Thompson, interviewed Henry Siu of the Vancouver School of Economics about his study on occupations and unemployment over the life cycle. His conclusions are counter-intuitive. First, he noted that “youth unemployment [is] higher because they are more likely to leave a job; (…) not because they have a harder time finding jobs”. Second, he mentions “that young people aren’t any more likely to quit today than they were in the 1970s or the 1980s”.
Until then, I mostly agree with M. Siu’s findings: it is easier to find a job when you are young (although some may have found the opposite) and young men and women have always behaved pretty much the same as always over time. The thing is that some of their older counterparts, with the same historical consistency, are quick to judge them.
However, this study’s final conclusion is harder to endorse wholeheartedly: you will be better off in your 30s and 40s if you previously have tried entirely new jobs. Mr. Siu explains this claim by the fact that “job-hopping is actually correlated with [finding] their true calling”. In other words, experimenting will bring you the perfect match. I disagree with him on that one for the following reasons.
First, my recruitment experience tells me the opposite: job-hopping is one the main reason why applicants are refused. Indeed, an “instable” candidate (i.e. with an average job experience of less than two years per employer) is considered a flight risk. Moreover, when staffing, unrelated working experiences are a synonym of unneeded competencies, a dreadful reality for many job seekers.
Second, my personal observations outside of my work environment suggest again the opposite. Indeed, those who stick to their long time planned career or employer are now, ten years after their graduation and thus reaching their 30s, rewarded with highly valuable positions. Actually, they are the ones that have those manager’s “golden seats” and therefore can jump from an employer to another while cashing in an hefty raise every time. Indeed, once you have won your employer’s trust and climbed the first ladders of an organisation, you are on the fast lane. Finally, as it is clear in any job description, global competencies are usually measured in years: every job description has “a minimum of X years of experience needed” written on it. Moreover, job-hoppers risk being stuck in the endless spiral of “no job because you don’t have experience and no experience because you have no job”. So, as the saying should say: rolling stone gathers no… money.