Does Your Resume Make You Look Like a 'Job Hopper'?

Hiring managers understand that today's economy has people changing employers more often than used to be the norm. But there is a point where a pattern of job changes begins to raise suspicions that an applicant is an unreliable – and undesirable – 'job hopper.'

It's impossible to give a hard and fast figure as to what number of job changes or what length of job tenure starts to make an applicant look like a potential problem. Expectations vary from industry to industry and even from person to person. Your career situation will affect perceptions of job hopping, too. There will be different expectations for someone who's just finished college than there are for someone who's been in the work force for six years.

But it's safe to say that you may have an image problem if your resume shows two or more recent jobs that lasted less than 18 months each. In the absence of any other information about you or your job history, a hiring manager will wonder why you left those jobs after such a short period. Are you unwilling to make the effort to adapt to a work situation? Do you get easily bored? Are you leaving jobs before you can get fired? Are you simply not serious about your career?

The way to counter potential concerns about your employment history is to be upfront about your experience.

• Use your cover letter to put your past employment in context. You don't need to apologize for leaving past employers, but you can say something like, "having experimented with different career paths in the health care field, I have found that my true passion lies in helping people to understand their health care choices, and I am very excited by this chance to work with you as a health care communication specialist."

• You can use your resume to put certain information in context, too. Some positions are temporary by nature. If that's the case with some of your past work, say so in the description of your job duties – for example, "planned and executed a year-long strategic communication campaign to raise awareness among seniors of upcoming changes in Medicare coverage."

• If your job tenure was cut short because your employer downsized, went bankrupt, or was merged into another firm, you can slip that information into your resume, too: "Ensured timely and complete transfer of client accounts to new responsible office following merger of ABC into XYZ."

• You can also use your resume to highlight non-career activities that demonstrate your reliability and commitment to long-term projects. This would be a good reason to mention that you have been an active member of your neighborhood association for the past X years and played a leading role in getting the city to install a stop light at a problem intersection.

• Be prepared to handle interview questions about your reasons for leaving past employers. Take care to explain why you wouldn't expect this job to turn out like the last two or three. Remember, you want to persuade your interviewer that you are not only a qualified and likeable candidate, but also one capable of bringing some benefit to the organization – and that includes staying around long enough to merit the time and resources the company invests in your training and orientation. And who knows – this just may turn out to the employer that is the perfect fit for you, the one that you'll be happy to make a years-long commitment to.

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