Steady Career Progression on Resume - A good thing?

Colin,

there are very few places nowadays where promotion comes with length of tenure. Changing roles on a steady drumbeat tells me that that's how long it takes you to get good at a role, become bored and need to move on, or show your skills and get promoted. The drumbeat is different for everyone, but tends to be consistent within people's career.

So, there is something to be gleaned from that, but if it's in the 18 month to 6 years range, you're normal. Hiring managers who have been in their own role for a long time tend to see shorter periods as a negative, those who are moving quickly up the organisation tend to see it as a positive. Since you can't change your dates, or the length of time a hiring manager has been in his role, be prepared to discuss why you left each role and why at that point in an interview (although few interviewers will ask if you are in the normal range).

Wendii

Wendii,

Would a hiring manager few negativity on personnel career growth vs what's in the best interest of the company? (IE Company is looking for a stable long term employee vs a candidate that changes jobs (but each job is a step up in responsibility) every couple of years).

Colin,

There are hiring managers who would rather have stable long term employees. I go into recruitment pre-meetings sometimes and they say: we want someone who will stay at least xx years.

The points I put to them are:

*The average person stays in a role between 2 and 3 years, and it's falling.
*You can't predict what changes will happen in a person's life. You might employ someone who you think will stay and their parents or children get sick and they can't work, they might fall in love with someone from another country and move, they might be injured and not be able to work. People just arn't that predictable.
*The department will have changed in 5 years. The work might be different, the business have been bought out, a new senior manager come in and completely changed everything you do. Business isn't that predictable.
*It's better to have a superstar for 18 months than someone who really doesn't perform well for 5 years.
*Given that, let's just pick the right person for the job right now, and not worry too much about whether they will stay 10 years.

As a candidate I don't think you can do much about that, except that know that if they reject you because they don't think you'll stay long enough, it's a staid, boring, old-fashioned business where a dynamo like you wouldn't be happy, and keep looking for somewhere you will be.

Wendii

I believe that Wendii stated it perfectly. Here is my take on this...

This is a great question, one that I brought up in the past. At the time it was stated by Mark that it is a strength as it shows a diverse background. My mentor brought up the fact that it was a negative (being a baby boomer used to life-long employment he was a bit biased) and his argument was that people look for longevity in future employers. I have not seen that come up much (as long as the cycles are respectable, i.e. change positions once every 2-3 years or so) but I would think that it would be something to consider in the event you are training yourself for potential interview questions that you may be asked.

Hope this helps.

[quote="cwcollin"]Should I worry about this looking like a systematic progression rather than the result of my own initiative? [/quote]

Do you really think they're going to notice? You youself "just noticed" this when updating your resume. :wink:

I suspect people who look at your resume will be looking first for a record of accomplishments and results. Then, they'll probably look at the various roles you held to understand the context of those results.

Maybe then they'll spend enough time studying your resume to notice that your progression is in four fairly similar chunks of time - but I wouldn't worry about it.

If your advancement is based on personal initiative, then you have a great hook to frame your answer to the "tell me about yourself" question in an interview!

-Hugh

Once again, HMac nails it superbly. What I have found in my resume is that if I state a bunch of accomplishments that it is more of a non-issue because they will be "wowed" by the accomplishments. Sure, I get the occasional "why did you leave company X" but I find that when I give them an honest, professional answer they never seem to bat an eye at it.