[grellas]

I wouldn't be too quick to assume that bouncing around a lot will not have an adverse impact on your future ability to get hired for a good position - while it may not matter in some contexts, it definitely will for many jobs (including the best ones), where an employer will likely want to hire people who will stick and grow with the company.

Repeated hires are a cost and a drain for companies, and employers will definitely consider the intangible of whether you are likely to stay as a non-trivial factor affecting the hiring decision.

At the very least, if you bounce around a lot, you will be limiting your options for many future hires.

This is not to justify the parting shot given to the employee here. But don't lose perspective on this issue either.

[strlen]

I don't think tech employees who are often accused for job hopping deliberately set out to do so. Most would love to find a place where they can stay 5-10 years while learning and doing rewarding work.

The reason they frequently leave earlier is that they are unable to learn, grow and apply themselves at their present place of work, being in a situation where if they were to stay longer they'd be progressively less useful to employers. The reason younger employees sometimes within a year when they're not adequately mentored and instead keep being used _only_ for maintenance work rather than actual development.

Ultimately each hop, each earlier-than-desired departure does give you a better idea of what to look for in your next position (to avoid more hops). It's true that short stays close some doors, but in serious technology companies, hiring decisions for engineers are made by engineers. The hiring manager or company HR may ask you for an explanation of why you've left last several places (and confirm it by checking your references), but it's foolish to pass on a strong developer who made some career mistakes in favour of a weak, but "reliable" candidate. Companies that do so aren't the ones where I'd like to work in the first place.

The more significant risk to leaving early isn't the messed up resume, it's becoming too anxious and jaded, systematically leaving before being able to apply yourself (e.g., during the training process or when working on a starter project), unable to take advantage of mentoring available. Leaving a company with a steep learning curve within six months is foolish, but sticking around for another year when you haven't learned anything in the two years isn't wise either.

[mynyml]

I'm tempted to believe that companies that prefer long term employment are the ones that need to train employees for their specific needs. Companies that make use of transferable skills instead increase their chances of a new hire quickly picking up where the previous employee left. e.g. a web dev, in a FOSS shop that uses well known best practices.

[arach]

> I'm tempted to believe that companies that prefer long term employment are the ones that need to train employees for their specific needs. Great point!

[halostatue]

Or they—like my company—have complex code bases in complex languages (C++) that mean that you're not going to be an effective developer for anywhere from 3 - 6 months after hiring. It has nothing to do with training you for our specific needs, but everything to do with the fact that in a mature codebase there's lots of moving parts that can easily be broken, and there may be older choices that may not make sense because you weren't around when the choice was made.

Candidates with short-term employment backgrounds aren't a problem, per se. We want you to be a long-term employee because you like it at our company and want to contribute to something meaningfully. We don't want to be a short-term paycheque job.

[strlen]

Why not just ask the candidate what makes this job different from the previous ones?

If the answer is something along the lines of "I'll want to gain knowledge of and practical experience with C++, but the previous jobs wouldn't let me work in anything besides Java and scripting languages", it's good indication that are looking for a long-term home and not just a higher salary.