What Leaving a Job Says (and Why What Appears to be “Job Hopping” Might Not Be What You Think)
Note: This blog post is from my Drafts archive, but never published. I’ve encountered far too many people who need to hear this, so……
Practically everyone reading this has left a job before. Each time, you had your reasons. For those who have been in the professional world for an extended length of time, one of the things that comes with this history is a trail of jobs that have been left.
The phrase some people use to refer to this is “job hopping.” Consider this take from the folks at Indeed about this topic:
“Job hopping refers to the practice of holding multiple jobs in a relatively short time. Frequent job changes, once seen as a cause for concern on resumes have become more common in today’s workforce.”
As mentioned in the Indeed article on this subject, frequent job changes are often seen as a red flag. At one time and depending on the field, this could be assumed, but that isn’t the case today. Some people leave a job, because of a promotion or raise that awaits, because of the environment they were working in (i.e., it’s too toxic), or because the new role offers some type of rare opportunity. Basically, short stints deserve more investigation.
If you check out my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that I have a lot of short stints. I’ve also been in the field for just over three decades, so someone who’s just starting out will appear to be more committed to a single employer or two, but that’s comparing apples to oranges. I also once read an article that likened the years a UX professional remains at a company to the way a dog’s age is calculated in comparison to human years. Hence, a short stint is equivalent to a longer stint in a different discipline.
Some people leave companies for the wrong reasons, but some people leave companies for all the right reasons. To help provide some insights about short stints not being what they appear, here’s a list of reasons someone left an organization. As you review this list, I challenge you to ask yourself what you would have done if you’d been in the same situation. Ready? Here’s the list:
- Discovering you’ve been baited and switched;
- Learning one of the parallel hires had applied to your job and being subjected to abuse by the same individual during your tenure;
- Receiving little to no support from leadership (despite being successful in spite of);
- People were constantly stealing your ideas AND trying to set you up to fail;
- Someone said you were hard to work with (even though you never worked with them) and tried to cast aspersions and assassinate your character (even though you did nothing wrong);
- Your boss tells you that they don’t like conflict and this manifests itself in the worst way possible as they stand by passively while you’re subjected to constant bullying and gaslighting by other managers on a team;
- Too many people in leadership don’t understand what you do and keep trying to “transform” your role into something it’s not;
- Finding out you were hired based on the “butts in seats” mentality, but people aren’t interested in what you bring to the table;
- Being mobilized against by unqualified people to keep you from getting a promotion, simply because they don’t want to be held accountable for anything remotely close to your level of expertise;
- The company knowingly hires an extreme racist (that demonstrated who they were during the interview) and did nothing to offset the discriminatory behavior you’re being subjected to (NOTE: They DO acknowledge and apologize when you leave);
- While providing consulting services to a client, you discover they’re looking to build their UX operation in-house and have plans to end the agreement they have with your employer (i.e., your team is about to go bye-bye);
- Your level of expertise threatens leadership who demonstrates such regularly and works harder to fabricate detrimental scenarios to make things harder for you than they do working for the success and health of the team.
I know these might seem very high level, but you can simply imagine what these factors would evolve into and you’ll either closely decipher what happens or will be close in your deductions. For those who can’t (or might just be curious and would like to hear more), I’ll expand each of the scenarios with accompanying questions for each. This will help with the associated cognition:
- Would you be tremendously offended if and when you learned you received a formal offer for a position only to learn you’ve been baited and switched? You ended up in a lesser role, for less money, less responsibility, AND an abusive leadership team on top of all this. Doesn’t sound promising, does it?
- How would you feel if you learned someone else who was interviewing for your job is now reporting to you AND giving you grief at every opportunity, trying to sabotage your operation (in hopes of defaulting into your role)? Would you feel confident and secure remaining in that role?
- How comfortable would you be in a role where leadership constantly demonstrates they have absolutely no intention of supporting your person or position AND they refuse to acknowledge your accomplishments despite their ongoing neglect? Wouldn’t you feel a bit betrayed and curious about your options?
- Imagine being in an organization where people are always asking for your input, but you learn that quite a few of downloads you’ve been freely sharing have been presented to people in leadership as their ideas and recommendations with no attribution or crfedit being given to you. To up the ante a bit, let’s say a manager tells you that you don’t need to perform certain tasks on a project only to learn that the same person reported your supposed neglect of said tasks to senior leadership. It turns out the person deliberately gave you the false directive. You were being set up and when you provided evidence proving that you didn’t perform the tasks because you were instructed not to, you were reprimanded and the conniving person’s ill deeds are overlooked. Do you think it makes sense to remain in such an organization?
- Can you imagine being in a position where someone imagines things about you, goes to management about their imaginary/delusional mindsets as if they were accurate depictions of what happened, and seeks to assassinate your character based on said delusions? It turns out the manager who received the false report is happy to entertain such, because they consider you to be a threat to their position. How would that make you feel? Would you feel confident and secure remaining in this organization?
- How comfortable would you be in a role where you’re constantly being bullied by other members of your team, and the leader you report to won’t lift a finger to stop it AND is actually empowering the behaviors? Would you stay put or would you start applying for other jobs?
- As a UX professional, one who is counted on for thought leadership and to be a change agent, how would you feel if you were constantly being pressured by stakeholders and leadership to abandon your ethical responsibilities as a UX practitioner and just become an order taker?
- What would you do if you learned that from the time your job posting went live, nobody ever intended that you’d be allowed to function as a true UX professional? You’re only there because the CEO heard it would be good to have a UX person on the team. Would you have a bright outlook?
- How would you feel about staying in a company where several people in UX leadership conspired to keep you from advancing your career simply because your experience is far beyond theirs, they have expressed how they don’t want to be held accountable to your level of expertise, AND they don’t want to be viewed by executive leadership in comparison to you? To make matters worse, you also learn that nobody that’s mobilizing against you has more than TWO months of UX experience. They barely qualify to be entry-level UX practitioners, let alone being in leadership, and know absolutely nothing about doing the work, helping junior practitioners grow, or managing UX maturity.
- How would you feel about interviewing someone who held some extremely intense discrimination- and supremacist-oriented views, demonstrated such during the interview process, you informed leadership about what you observed, but the person was hired anyway? Of course, after being hired, that person took their acceptance as a “green light” to behave in such a manner and subject you to abuse on a daily basis to the nth degree. Would you stay there?
- What would you do if you worked for a consultancy, learned they had plans to build a team internally and jettison the agreement with your employer? Would you recognize the writing on the wall and start planning your exodus or decide to ride things out? Also, in the process of the yet-to-be-announced transition, the company is ramping down their engagement with your team, telegraphing the end of the current arrangement. Could you blame a person for leaving? Would you stay?
- Picture a situation where you’re one of six managers on a UX team. You’re the senior practitioner in the org. A couple of the other managers embrace you, but the others constantly engage in microaggressions against you. The microaggressions become more frequent and advance to the degree that the hostile team members start working together to provide false reports against you. One of them even says before the team that they’d like to become the head of the department someday, knowing that you are the one obstacle in the way of that goal. Microaggressions intensify. You notify leadership about what you’re experiencing. Not only do they do nothing, but they deny the group is capable of such AND start doing things to show their support of the people behind the ill behavior. You can guess how this ends. Does it make sense to stay?
Do these explanations help digest the message? If you were in one or more of these twelve situations, would you start looking for another job? Couldn’t blame you if you did, right? Making a decision to leave a job based on any one of these scenarios makes a statement about the person who departs. It also makes a statement about the leadership that produced these environments. Based on what the person or persons in these scenarios did, can you blame them? What does it say about those who would decide to stay? Considering the fact that you’re not supposed to talk about a past employer in a derogatory manner and considering the examples I just gave, wouldn’t you be more concerned about a person who continues to stay in an environment like that as if nothing was wrong?
Deciding a person left jobs based on being subjected to these is not only a failure to empathize but a crime against such an individual. It can also be a crime against the hiring company. Why? Because people assumed to be job hoppers, many times, are the diamond in the rough that holds the keys to moving a team light years ahead. By overlooking and discarding such individuals, the companies that make the heady assumptions are doing themselves a gross disservice.
Remember, leaving a job says something about an individual. It’s just that only certain folks are able to hear what’s being said…. accurately. For those who hear and understand, engaging with supposed job hoppers to learn their true value proposition, the teams they lead will gain a tremendous advantage. Truth be told, when a fully and truly qualified person moves around frequently, it could be a sign they will treat everyone on your team with the utmost respect, just as they do themselves.
Casts a completely different light, doesn’t it?
Managing Your Response to Workplace Maltreatment
Someone may be wondering when it is okay to remain at such companies. Well, challenging scenarios happen everywhere. It’s practically impossible to avoid them entirely. Any time these things happen, but you have good leadership, that serves as the proverbial glue. Good leadership is EXTREMELY hard to come by, especially for those working in UX. Good leadership allows you to be transparent and forthcoming. Good leadership is often aware of and will work to help manage or counter abusive situations. Good leadership is the reason to stay.
The key determining factor overall is manageability. If you’re in a situation where you frequently encounter maltreatment, you need to evaluate how manageable the situation is. I recommend doing the following:
- Rate the job on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst.
- Try to avoid letting emotions drive any decisions.
- List out the reasons behind your ratings.
- Identify those who TRULY support you and give them a rating (same as before), listing the reasons behind your ratings. NOTE: If you can’t speak with them freely, they should not be listed with this group.
- Consider the amount of intrinsic satisfaction you get from the role.
- Evaluate the long-term prospectus of the role OR how it fits into your short- or long-term goals.
- Compare all your findings.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that the situation is manageable? Document the reasons you feel this way.
- If you have a person who can serve as a LEGITIMATE sounding board, share some of your thoughts with them and evaluate their input.
This exercise in critical thinking will help you think more clearly and avoid being overrun by the rush of emotions being generated by what’s happening to you.
If you decide to leave a job, understand the risks associated with that departure (i.e., how departures, especially if there’s a string of them, can potentially damage your personal brand). As many are learning, moving around is not as taboo as it was once thought to be, but everyone’s not informed on such matters and are quick to default to the archaic mindset.
Conclusion
You may be wondering how a person could be subjected to such much intellectual and emotional violence. Why would someone do such things to another person? What would a person do to trigger such behaviors from their peers? That’s an easy answer. We live in a day where people wear self-doubt like a badge of honor. We live in a day where people are quicker to tear someone else down instead of laboring to be their best selves—being more willing to punish those who commit to continuing learning and personal growth and achieving excellence in their craft. We live in a day where inferiority complexes abound. When these factors are present, the person who excels becomes a target and the resulting hostilities are the order of the day.
Anyone subscribing to heightened levels of excellence can and will be subjected to the aforementioned maltreatment, even more so if they are part of a marginalized group. As for me, I choose excellence, the mastery of my craft, and ownership of my state and personal trajectory, EVEN THOUGH I know what awaits because of these choices and the associated actions.
In closing this topic, here are several additional takes on the subject — all helping illustrate how those appearing to be “job hopping” should not be demonized. Collectively, these articles also help provide a healthier and more holistic set of perspectives on the topic. Here’s the list:
- Why Job Hopping Is Going To Continue For The Foreseeable Future (Forbes)
- The Case For Job Hopping (BBC)
- What Is Job Hopping? (Pros, Cons and Considerations) (BuiltIn.com)
As indicated in several articles, the discrimination against those who appear to be job hopping is already trending downward. That which was once a taboo act is no longer being viewed by some as a “red flag.” Accordingly, it’s time to shelve the assumptions about and cynicism associated with supposed job hoppers… permanently. Everybody deserves more and those who appear to be job hopping aren’t always what one thinks.
Remember, one’s frequently leaving a job could be saying something great and something one’s organization needs to embrace. Now, let’s close with a statement from Megan Lieu and the folks at Leadership Club. “Toxic workplaces are NEVER worth the paycheck.” Nobody should be ashamed for respecting themselves enough to depart from such organizations.
About Dr. Darren
Dr. Darren Hood is a 30+-year UX practitioner with a broad professional footprint across B2B and B2C operations and holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership. In addition to serving as a UX manager, individual contributor, and freelancer in the business world, Darren is serving or has served as an adjunct professor at Michigan State University, Champlain College, Brandeis University, Lawrence Tech University, Kent State University, UCLA, and Harrisburg University. He is also one of the authors featured in “97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know.” He also regularly speaks at conferences and mentors people worldwide.
You can hear more from Darren by visiting the KaizenUX Medium blog landing page, the KaizenUX YouTube channel, or by listening to The World of UX with Darren Hood wherever podcasts are available.
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