Job hopping too frequently actually can hurt your career.

I've seen people get passed over because they jumped around too frequently. Hiring people is expensive and a hassle, and nobody wants to hire a person who's just going to leave in 6-12 months.

Obviously that doesn't apply if all of a person's past gigs were contracting work or "contract to hire" type things.

If you don't incentivize me to leave, I won't. And I would prefer to work for an employer who understands that than for an employer who plays on my built-in herd instincts and sense of belonging to get me to stay.

There's a lot of opportunity cost in staying at a job where your salary doesn't grow as fast as the market salary does.

Let's say my salary right now is 100k and that is the same as market. Next year I get a 10% raise, which makes my salary 110k. But the market has gone up 30%, which means my salary should be 130k.

Repeat that another year and my salary is 121k, but the market salary is 169k. By not switching jobs every year, I've just lost 68k in two years. Assuming the same numbers, I will have lost 154k after another year. That is more than my whole salary that I've left on the table just because I don't want to hurt my career by job hopping.

In this overblown example (neither raises nor market growth are that fast, I think) I could afford almost two years of retirement after 3 job hops.

What could you do with two years of free time?

PS: this is why companies give you a 4 year vesting cycle with an exorbitant [potential] upside. They understand this calculation and are trying to give you incentive to stay.

PPS: this is also why employers don't like it when you discuss salaries with your friends. To the point that it's become almost taboo to do so

I more or less agree with you.

My point was that there's a limit to how frequently that can be done. By all means, get a higher paying job when you can, but be aware employers are hesitant when they see somebody who jumps ship every few months, and it's unlikely they'll come right out and tell you that if they turn you down.

If they don't believe in their ability to retain me, then I can reply to the other 10 companies whose recruiters contacted me this month.

Totally missing the point.

If looking at your resume sends the message, "Nothing you can do will retain me," then a lot of good companies won't even bother with you.

Maybe it's their loss, maybe it's yours, but in any case it's an opportunity missed due to jumping around a lot. Debating about it on HN isn't going to change the fact that it happens.

Anyway, I'm just saying, "it doesn't hurt your career," isn't completely accurate. To use your example, maybe it would have been 15 or 20 other recruiters contacting you if you didn't jump around so much.

some people get quickly bored no matter what kind of job you throw at them. IT is currently too geenerous profession and these spoilings are very common these days. good if you have skillset interesting enough for companies to overlook that (nobody is blind nor stupid enough to not notice that at all). or if you can just sell yourself, it doesn't matter how one gets the job. but for anybody looking for more than short term head count increase, with at least a bit of project management experience, what you describe is simple - a big NO, not worth the hassle. If last 10 comapnies failed to retain you for more than a year, 11th won't be much better, would it...

if you are a true born hopper there is perfect way to do things right - self employed consultancy. it's also paid better most of the time.

and btw getting bored too quickly is terrible, terrible personality trait, for any aspect of life.

This has been a pretty constant issue for me. I'm only a few years into my career, but my skills have always grown at a faster rate than my responsibilities (and my compensation). Job-hopping has kind of become the norm – 8 months, then 19/6/11 months each, before this one. I keep stumbling into these great jobs, but I wonder how many times I can bail so early before companies stop believing that I actually want to work there.

Yeah, it doesn't take a brilliant hiring manager to notice you've never stayed at a job longer than 9 months for the last 15 years. SV has a much greater tolerance for it than companies did fifty years ago, but you can still take it too far.

Heh, it hasn't been quite 15 years for me yet, but it's definitely something on my mind. The only thing making me feel better is that the last few job hops have been from being recruited, not the other way around, so people must not mind TOO much yet.