What is the acceptable amount of time to stay in a average job before moving onto something better?

Hi All,

So I have recently chatted to someone who has moved two jobs within 12 months. The first was to move out of mid-office to a front office role and the second was because in the front-office, his company was acquired and he didn’t like the merger so moved on to an even better front office job.

My question is - would this not start looking really bad on ones CV? How often would you be able to get away with this? I recommended at least 3-5 years at the next place to rectify the short moves.

Thank you!

As long as there’s a good narrative and forward progress (as in this case) it’s not a problem even though they were short hops although a 1-2 years minimum usually is good. You can usually do it once or twice then you have to settle in though to prove that was the case otherwise it will look bad.

The first change was within the company so that doesn’t really count. You can read that as the other managers observed the quality of his work and were happy to take him on. The second changeover was probably too soon. If he wasn’t getting laid off then what was his real problem? As an observer, I would think the new managers didn’t believe he added value in his role and they pushed him out. It also causes me to question the first move. Maybe he’s untrainable or has difficulty adapting and fitting in? I’m not trying to say anything bad about the person. This is just what goes through my mind. If I had plenty of applicants, he probably wouldn’t get an interview.

How much time did he spend in the first role? Also, if the second change is an advancement or career change, he might get the interview. For example, if he just received his charter and there are no roles that fit his credentials in the newly merged firm; he should seek new employment elsewhere.

He spent around 7 months in the first and 7 months in the second (including notice period).

The merger happened and he did not like the culture of the company acquiring and because it was a multi-service offering company (the new one), he thought they would have channeled his role from M&A into more consulting and therefore left with an IB contract in hand.

So yeah - good for him? But bad for his CV? not sure if i would do the same

It will be fine, this happens a lot early in careers. Non-issue. The only thing that matters is that he needs to stay at this next gig for at least a few years. If he does that then that will mitigate most if not all concerns from the earlier moves. If he doesn’t stay a few years it will look pretty bad, if he does, then his moves will look very good.

Your logic is backwards. A good CV is a tool to get a better job. Why would you pass up a better job (the end result of a good CV) to make your CV “look” better?

To echo others, the job changes are a non-issue assuming he moved to a better role or better company. The issue comes if he was working for a prestigious company, didn’t like the culture, so made a lateral move to a less prestigious company.

Yeah, the narrative matters. You have to explain why you made the move and it has to make sense. You can’t come in and say I went from job A to identical job B because of the culture, I’m going to be skeptical it was you. But if you say job B offered X that job A lacked and it fit my career aspirations which served to lead me to your company Mr. Black Swan, which you can see fits in with this career trajectory and goals then I say, wow, this person is definitely on a path and this opportunity fits that path. It’s all about the story. But also, at some point you do need to settle in and show you can stay at the right position. Assuming his story is legit, then I’d assume that would be his current role for a bit.