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Well, as graduation gets closer, it's time to transition to that first job post-education.
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And when you think about that, what do you expect to get from that job? How long should you expect
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to be there before maybe looking at that next potential position? The term job hopping is one
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that comes into play and can have different meanings for employees and employers. Matthew
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Bidwell is a professor of management here at the Wharton School, and he joins us to discuss the
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topic. Matthew, always great to talk with you. Thank you, sir. Good to see you, Dan.
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As always, great to see you as well. All right, so for those soon-to-be graduates, and I'm sure
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maybe you've had these questions at this time of the year before, what is the expectation that they
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should think about from a first job? You know, I think a first job, it's a starter job. I mean,
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I think if you think about what people are trying to get out of it, it's not the forever job, right?
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It's not the kind I expect to settle down and spend the rest of my life here. I think what you
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want to be getting out of it, you want to be building skills, so learning things that will
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help you get your next role. A really important thing is learning about yourself as well. I think
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it should be a job where you're starting to get a sense of what kind of work you like, what you
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should be pursuing next, and what kind of roles maybe aren't going to work for you. Hopefully,
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it's also a role where you're starting to build a reputation network. I think those early jobs
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really are stepping stones. You hear about the three-year window being brought into play
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in terms of how long maybe you should think about that first job or some people, other jobs as well.
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Is that a fair assessment, that first three years of really getting to understand yourself
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and your work and maybe the career line that you're going down? I'm not sure it's three
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years exactly. I would say probably that the early to mid-20s are a time for figuring out
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who you want to be and where you want to go. I would say that usually means moving around a little
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bit. It's weird. Actually, generally, I don't advocate job hopping. Generally, my message
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to people is employers care about stickability. They don't want people who are always jumping
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around. I think it's important to really emphasize that doesn't apply so much to people at the
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beginning of their career. At the beginning of your career, people expect you to move around
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so much. Somebody in their mid-20s, when they look at resume and say they've already held
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three jobs, they're not going to have a heart attack. If on the other hand, you're in your late
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30s and you continue to move like that, they're going to look at it very differently. I think that
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beginning of the career, moving around is pretty normal. I think you should be much
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less concerned about doing so. There is, to a degree, an expectation from the employer
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that this is part of the mix when you're talking about maybe a first job or a second job,
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but that job hopper term probably does have a negative connotation to it later on in one's career.
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When you hire somebody, it takes a while to get them up to speed. For an employer,
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you're hiring somebody hoping they'll stay. To be honest, even for that first job,
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employers are hoping you will stay sometimes for quite a while. We're not hiring people that we
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expect to leave instantly. If you've done that multiple times, employers will start to get
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nervous. Again, early in the career, they understand people are still trying to figure
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this out a little bit. I think it's less of an issue at that point. With the economy that we
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have right now, does that impact the want to move and this concept of job hopping?
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Yeah, I think it does in two different ways. I think the big thing about the economy we have
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right now, everyone's going on about this low hire, low fire economy. It is harder to get a job
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than it was a couple of years ago, than it has been for most of the last 10 years.
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Sadly, that particularly affects, obviously, new entrants to the job market who are looking for
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jobs for the first time. What that means is probably a lot of people are going to end up
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in a job that's not as good as the one that they might have been able to find in a more vibrant
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job market. We do know, for example, people who graduate in recessions, they tend, sadly,
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to have persistently lower earnings for a while because you start off in a job that's not so good,
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maybe a less well-paid occupation than you otherwise would have got. It's hard then to
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move up. It does mean if you're finding a struggle to get a job, if you do end up with one that's
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maybe not what you would have hoped to get, you do then need to be keeping on searching in the
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hope that you'll then move up. I think it means that it's less likely that first job is going to
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be the one you really want. Obviously, it also means it's harder to move up, and so more of a
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push to look for the next thing, but more of a challenge as well. We've talked about this from
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the perspective of job hopping, but there is also, I would assume, a component of those people who
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maybe stay in a position too long and don't look to make that move faster. What do you say to those
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people? I mean, it's not always a problem, I think. I don't think you want to move for the
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sake of it. One of the things, again, we see in research is there's not generally a strong
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relationship between how much you move and how much you end up getting paid. If you start off
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a poorly paid job, then you need to move to end up in something that's more rewarding,
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but if you start off at a reasonably well-paid job, you don't necessarily need to move. I think
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if you feel your career is stagnating, you're not getting the growth that you want, you're not
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moving up inside the organization, those sorts of things, that probably is a sign that you want
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to move sooner rather than later. I don't think that people need to feel, oh my God, I haven't
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moved, I ought to move, if you're somewhere where you like the work and you're doing well.
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Does AI factor into this as we move forward as well?
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Today, probably not. Coming up, who knows? I'm sure it increases the value of adaptability
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in all sorts of ways. I think employers are looking for their employees to really make
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use of these tools to be on the leading edge. Among the almost infinite range of unknowns
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around AI is how destructive it's going to be of current companies. Are we going to see a lot
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of companies go out of business as they are overtaken by AI new entrants? Don't know. It's
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plausible. In that case, if we see a lot of this creative destruction, it really plays a big
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premium on adaptability. The more that you're at risk that your current job goes away, the more
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you want to be constantly thinking, am I building the skills that will help me get that next job?
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What are the things, I'll finish up on this, that you say to your students about this time
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in their lives, going from college into the workforce, and obviously knowing that every
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student is going to be different, but there are probably some tenants that are probably similar
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just kind of across the board. I think about the career in phases, right? I mean, I think
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there is kind of the middle of your career, actually you're going to do better by finding
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the right place and kind of settling there, staying there, building a career there. That's
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what you're often aiming for. The people who do well are the people who really find that right fit
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with an organization, build their career there. The early stage of your career are about trying
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to find that. And so I think in that early phase, you're establishing yourself, you're learning about
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who you are, what kind of organization you want to work for, and you're starting to build the skills
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and the reputation that will make you attractive. And so it's an important phase in your career,
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but it's probably more than any other time, a phase where you don't want to be too afraid of
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making mistakes. It's a good time to take risks, learn about yourself before you start kind of
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that long climb afterwards. Matthew, always great to talk to you and get your insight. Thanks very much.
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Great to see you. Thank you. Matthew Bidwell, Professor of Management here at the Wharton School.
