Don’t Job Hop. Unemployment Can Lead to Being Unemployable: Says Bullhorn

If you compare the older generation of workers with the new age younger workers there will be a marked difference in their longevity at the workplace. For the older generation, it is probably the same job that they joined eons ago whilst for the Generation Y, even at this tender age it could be their third or fourth.

A survey by Boston based Bullhorn, a global leader in online surveys, whose recruiting CRM and social recruiting products serve more than 130,000 customers across 126 countries, says job-hopping can be the single biggest deterrent for regaining employment.  If your resume says that you left your job within a year of joining, it sends alarm bells ringing for the interviewer and brings your loyalty and dependability to the workplace into question.

The survey helps identify the causes that may be responsible for the candidate not getting a job. Bullhorn spoke to 1,500 recruiters and hiring managers found that the two biggest impediments for re-employment seekers are an inability to stick to their jobs and secondly, having long gaps in their employment history.

Other things that the study revealed was that the age of the candidate also mattered. Those in the 30s stood a much better chance for re-employment than candidates in their 20s. Candidates in their 50s and 60s would find very few takers.

When you job-hop, it means that you leave the security of a job to enter the vacuum of joblessness. The self-imposed period of unemployment could stretch beyond your expectations and the prolonged unemployment could lead to becoming unemployable.

36 percent of the respondents to the Bullhorn study said that it becomes hard for recruiters to find them a job if they stay unemployed for periods between 6 months and a year. 17 percent said that a gap of even less than 6 months of unemployment makes it hard to land a job, whereas 4 percent said, that irrespective of the duration, being labeled as unemployed was enough to ensure that the tag held true.

Long term unemployment is worse than a crime. Recruiters confessed that it was relatively easier for them to find a job for someone with a non-felony criminal record, than it was to find a job for someone who had been unemployed for 2 years.

Employers assumed that with such gaps in work the worker must have lost touch with the rapid pace of growth and changes at the workplaces and the skills that the worker possesses could no longer be in demand.

Leaving a job of your own free will was at least a case of self-judgment, wrong or correct at least no one else made it for you. Getting fired is a definite no-no and 78 percent of the recruiters said that being fired was the worst possible thing to happen and would seriously negate a workers chance of getting re-employed.
 
Bullhorn founder and CEO Art Papas said that the reason why they did this study was to help workers pinpoint reasons that were holding them from getting a job and help them rectify their mistakes.

“One of the most frustrating elements of a job search is the silence – not knowing whether you’re even being considered for an interview. We wanted to help shed some light on what goes on in the minds of recruiters. Being informed can help candidates avoid certain traps and increase their likelihood of getting a job,” he said.