Job-hopping as a salary booster is only effective across specific industries, and many other factors should be taken into account before making a decision.Nuthawut Somsuk/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
The day my résumé began to spill over into two-page territory, I wasn’t proud of the added experience – I was alarmed. Four years after graduating from university I had a handful of short-term job experiences and internships that all felt valuable. But on paper, I knew they spelled out one thing: job-hopping.
While switching jobs several times throughout a career is far more common than it once was, my fears weren’t outdated. The most recent data from recruitment agency Robert Half suggest that executives aren’t likely to hire a candidate who shows signs of job-hopping, which they defined as having roughly eight roles in 10 years.
But in the face of economic headwinds, many young people are ignoring résumé optics and embracing job-hopping as a strategic way to increase their salaries. Among them is 26-year-old Nathan Kennedy of Hamilton, a TikTok influencer who posts videos about financial matters. His recent video, titled How to Skyrocket Your Income, urged viewers to job-hop every two years if they wanted to boost their salary by up to 50 per cent with each move. The video earned nearly 50,000 likes and over 2,000 shares.
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“I don’t think that being scared of how your résumé looks should stop you from making more money,” says Mr. Kennedy, who regularly shares tips with more than 500,000 followers. For him, the job-hopping trend is less about career development than the promise of consistent gains.
“There’s only so much of a raise that a company can give you,” Mr. Kennedy says. “With a new job, there’s more flexibility with the offer, the signing bonus, all that.” When moving internally, it’s much harder to justify doubling your pay, he says.
Mr. Kennedy’s advice isn’t baseless. In fact, Robert Half data show that 42 per cent of Canadian employers increased starting salaries at the end of last year – a potential incentive for those looking to boost their income at a new job. Surprisingly, 21 per cent of the employers who raised starting salaries did not also modify wages for existing staff.
Moreover, the data showed that 51 per cent of professionals with less than a year of experience in their profession were planning to, or had already started looking for a new role in the first half of 2023, mostly driven by a desire to find higher pay.
Nick Rushton, who’s in his mid-20s and switched jobs approximately every two years before settling at his current role, has personally seen the benefits of regular job moves. After studying electronics engineering technology at a community college in Newfoundland, he briefly worked in project co-ordination for a construction company before moving to a telecom company that offered higher pay.
Around the two-year mark, Mr. Rushton decided to rethink his options.
“From a financial perspective, there was no avenue to make more money so that’s when I started looking at what else was available,” he says. His first move to a more technical role came with a salary bump of $45,000 a year plus added benefits and vacation time. Two years later, he moved again, with another pay hike.
Sandra Lavoy, a regional director at Robert Half, says employees should strive for a two-and-a-half-year minimum in terms of job longevity. “There’s a big cost to hiring and training, it takes three to six months – employers might think they’re not getting a return on investment.”
It’s also important to note that job-hopping as a salary booster is only effective across specific industries. “There are roles where you can hop left and right,” says Travis O’Rourke, managing director of Hays Canada, an employment agency. “A Java developer will usually do well, construction is doing well.” But this doesn’t apply everywhere, he says.
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Mr. O’Rourke also notes that employers were more understanding of job-hopping in the past five years. “During COVID, it was normal – everyone had a free pass,” says Mr. O’Rourke, who worries that existing job-hopping trends might not be sustainable in a tightening labour market.
So far, Mr. Rushton hasn’t noticed a reluctance on the part of employers. “My résumé tells a story of continuous progress – I can explain why I’ve made those jumps between my roles, because it’s always been for something better or more technical or more specific,” Mr. Rushton says. He says he has no plans for another move after his last one multiplied both his salary and professional growth opportunities.
But career coaches, who are seeing more employees hop well before the one-year mark in pursuit of a salary bump, cautions job seekers should take other factors into account.
“If your goal is work-life balance and good mental health, I wouldn’t recommend this,” says Miriam Groom, founder of Mindful Career counselling. “It takes about six months to adapt to new roles. When you finally get comfortable, you’re leaving? It causes huge amounts of anxiety.”
Ms. Groom says employees should also recognize that a bigger salary on paper might not mean more money in practice. “Let’s say my hourly rate is $30 and with this other company I got a little bit more per year, but they’re making me work 12 hours a day and weekends,” she says. “A lot of our clients wished they hadn’t left for that extra 10K.”