How does your CV look? Do you have several jobs that you have not been in for more than a year? If so, alarm bells can ring for recruiters when they see it, but that’s not always the case. I recently spoke to a good friend who works in HR in a medium sized accountancy firm and she shared with me some acceptable reasons for being a serial job hopper:
You’re still young having completed full time education in the past few years. It may be the case that you have been trying to find your feet and you’ve gone into some jobs in the hope that you find ‘the one’ only to be left disappointed. This can be ok, as long as you can explain why that those jobs didn’t fit and why you believe that the job you’re applying for would be more suitable.
Logistical reasons – perhaps you’ve had to move house to a different area because your partner was offered a new post.
Redundancy or other external reasons that you had no control over.
Whatever the reason, as long as you have a reasonable explanation, a recruiter is likely to accept it. If not, then it could be difficult for them to gloss it over.
Perhaps you have been job hopping because you’re still searching for that elusive ideal job. As I’ve mentioned, this might be ok, but not when you’re 35!
If this is you, then the good news is that you should have some clarity about what you don’t want from a job. But now is the time to take a step back and focus on gaining a greater understanding of yourself rather than using the trial and error method.
A good starting point is to take a good quality, detailed psychometric assessment. This will help you to identify your known strengths as well as the hidden ones that you may never have tapped into before. This assessment will give you job and course suggestions but the key thing is to focus on what it says about you. A Career Coach can help you to make sense of the report when you receive it and this is strongly recommended.could indeed be something that you could explain to a recruiter should you get an interview.