And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off) I get the impression They prefer those who stay on the wheel, as they don't have to worry you will just decide you need to take a break from working again.
I’m not American and maybe your HR culture is different, but I have worked in enterprise sized organisations for a few decades, currently one with 10,000 employees and a relatively large HR department, and I’m curious as to why HR would get involved.
If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.
If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.
Yeah and actually some companies allow you to have unpaid time off (like 1 year) after you've been with them for x amount years. Companies know people need a break.
It helps if you take the six months off in the same calendar year, so end job A in January, start looking against in July-August. On a resume/CV, that's invisible! But even ending a job in mid-2018 and then looking in February 2019 didn't seem to raise any eyebrows for me. I just said I got a nice layoff package and spent some time traveling and basically got "must be nice!" in return.
> And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off)
Another myth I see spread all the time. HR departments don't care about this. If they ask, it's only because someone told them it's a thing to be concerned about, and they're parroting what they heard. Make something up if you really feel like you need to address it and are afraid to tell them to fuck off. It's a stupid question that doesn't come from any legitimate business concern. In my 30+ year career, I was asked about a brief gap between jobs only one time, and that was decades ago. If a place actually cares about this, it's a good sign that you should find a job somewhere better. If you're really concerned, just leave the dates off your resume entirely, or at least leave the months off. Who cares about this stuff?
I think you don't mean how much time I take between jobs, but the fact that I quit every so often?
I always ask the same question. How much is too much?
However, that's one of the benefits of working in tech. It became acceptable to change jobs every so often. And it became acceptable to quit to focus on yourself... If you sell it that way.
There's also this time I had a chat with my manager and peers about whether or not to hire this guy.
We wanted to hire him, but we had a feeling he wouldn't stay long with us. He was very entrepreneurial. The conclusion straight away was "it's fine, if he stays with us just 1 year, we already benefit from it". I'm not saying I'm this guy, but it sounds acceptable nowadays.
If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.
If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.