How bad is Job Hopping Really? Vent

Of course I'm sure there's outliers and exceptions but I'd put my money on the stable job history person more often than not isn't getting DUI's and doing drugs. Most people with a stable job history ain't a SAP waiting to happen...

 

I’m in your camp, and everyone is different.

The original question was asked from an employer perspective, and if I was an employer, with a choice of 10 candidates - then I’d pick the most ‘stable’.

I lived in 10 different places in 3 towns growing up till 18, then 3 different places till I bought a house at 21.

In the 20 years I’ve been here, 3 company jobs, owner operator the last 10 years, 3 addresses, the current one for 15 years.

I would hope that if I turned in a resume for a company job today, with 20 years accident free CDL, one company for 10 years DOT history, and one residence for over 10 years, that I would beat out 90% of competing applicants.

I’m still a master at packing and moving houses from my youth, but - doesn’t that get old to people? Having to have a list of 30 jobs in the last 10 years, multiple addresses?

 

Man, someone get this guy a Paxil.

 

maybe I’m reading this wrong but he started driving. You were six years old. You the man ha ha ha

 

Being treated like trash and low paychecks is a choice unless you're SAP or a ex-con..

Don't believe everything on the internet.. Nobody is staying at a bad company, and the next mega or micro-fleet owner isn't going to ask why an experienced driver with a clean dac/mvr/csa left their last company.. I've been "job hopping" the last six years and am still only going to good companies.. I'll be going back to the tanker company I left about two-years ago in four months and won't hear a word about work history.. It's BS by people who mostly aren't even company drivers..

 

I'm not sure your last paragraph is quite accurate for every single driver. I've been at my current spot almost 5 years and it's only gotten better for me. I think whether you get blackballed to lower miles and pay is more contingent to the driver himself. Each company has their MVPs, and each one has their slackers.

 

The term "bad company" is pretty subjective. Maybe some people get treated like trash. Maybe they don't. There are reasons that people stay at companies for reasons you and I will never know. Now you say you work a job til you get bored. Employers do get to the end of their rope. I remember one member on here who kept going to Knight Refrigerated, 6 months or so at a time, then quit to go overseas. He repeated that process over and over again. Eventually Knight said #### you, we're going in a different direction. He was butthurt about it too. He kept touting his record. My personal belief is that loyalty gets rewarded in a big way that is more long term. You may be able to job hop for now, til one of these companies finds a candidate that they feel is better than you, so I wouldn't take that for granted.

 

If it's the driver it doesn't typically take six-months to years for it to start happening..

If someone is at a mega and the DM starts black balling them they can just go to another mega that allows their length of experience.. Saying you have to stay at a company or you end up unemployable in the industry is 100% a lie..

In fact nearly every driver I know away from the internet has left companies months-in before, and they are all now at good companies.. Zero questions asked about why they left..

 

That's good for them, but that doesn't necessarily speak for the lions hare of the industry. You'll always have some outliers that van defy logic. I don't think job hopping makes anyone unemployable. If you gotta CDL, you'll always find somewhere to work. For many folks, it ain't their story, especially if they don't have the qualifications and/or experience that will make companies take a chance on them. A general freight hauler for instance, may not be able to do that. They're a dime a dozen. Add in hazmat, tanker, doubles, triples plus a decade of experience, them a company may get seduced into hiring said driver. It all depends on the company. Some just can't be bothered with spending the money to recruit, court, and get a driver started, only for them to quit. Lots of moving parts to this conversation but I do believe that it makes sense to stay if the current company is meeting your needs. I don't think it's good to change for the sake of change.

 

Not all companies are honest so I can’t fault people for leaving if they got sold a bill of goods to hire on. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing when someone goes to try something they haven’t done before and they find out they don’t like it. But what I can’t understand at all are the people that go from mega to mega to mega expecting the new one to be different than the last one.

Personally, as an employee I’ve had 4 driving jobs as an employee. 2 years at Pepsi, 8 years at the flatbed company, then later on another 2 years at the flatbed company, and 4 months at the job in Hawaii. As you can see things weren’t what I was told they would be in Hawaii so I left.