How To Explain Job Hopping in an Interview

Welcome to roadmap to the executive suite podcast, a place where we talk about accelerating your careers all tailored to the ambitious woman. We're here to have fun, feel empowered and get actionable steps to get you closer to your dream job and salary, no matter where you are in your career. I'm your host, Claudia Miller, Athena, career coach and corporate trainer who helps ambitious women get the jobs they want, almost getting them up to $100,000 in salary increases. I've been featured in Forbes MSNBC, and Business Insider put me there Top Global list of top innovative career coaches, and the creative 90 day job offer program where I teach career driven women like you my proprietary strategy on how to land a job you love in less than 90 days, all while getting 30 to$100,000 in salary increases, no matter if you're just starting in your career, or you're ready to pivot into the executive suite. My clients have been able to move to the next step in their careers successfully pivoted into new industries without having to take a pay cut and broke it into management without any prior experience. I'm coming to you with a new episode every week on Thursdays with mindset job search, interview skills and sound negotiation advice with actionable strategies you can implement today to help you get ahead in your career. Now let's get started with this week's episode. Hi, today we're going to be talking about how to explain job hopping in an interview. And I get this a lot especially when I get on calls with potential clients or current job seekers. So I'll be talking a little bit more about how to explain job hopping in an interview. And I'm also going to share a sample answer my client used that got her several job offers. If you don't know me, my name is Claudia Miller, and I'm a Career Coach for women in tech and corporate trainer. Since COVID, my clients have been able to get jobs within 90 days or less. And on average, my clients get 56% in salary increases. So that translates to anywhere between 30 and up to $100,000 in additional earned income. Due to my clients success. I've been featured in Forbes, MSNBC, and Business Insider put me in their Top Global list of top 23 innovative career coaches. All right, so let's talk a little bit more about job hopping. Now, one of the things that I hear, especially as a career coach is I get both sides of the story. I hear clients that maybe have been in their role, or maybe at their company for so long, that they feel that the employer thinks that they're too much set in their ways. And therefore they are not sought after, or maybe they don't want to be hired because of that, because I've been at a company for so long. Now I also hear the other side, which is what we're going to talk about today where a lot of my clients who you know, classify or perceive it as job hopping, feel a lot of guilt and shame around it, and fear of what are they going to think that maybe I'm not serious enough, or that I wasn't doing a good job, or companies were letting me go and fire me left and right, like what are they thinking, and it's always negative. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about first, before we even dive in on how to handle the situation, how to bring it up in an interview, is to really change your belief and mindset around job hopping. So here's what it means they are to win, actually, there are more multiple sides of one story. So what I mean by that is, you know, one of the things that I've seen, especially for you know, top sought after candidates, you know, the ones working at Google, Pixar, Disney, Apple, like these really great professionals out there, they're really great at their job. They're constantly being poached by the competition. So they're sought after their skill sets are desired in a marketplace. So they're always trying to steal employees from the other competitor, because they're so talented. Now, you wouldn't see them or classify them as job hoppers, you probably see them as lucky or they must be nice, that companies just want you and they're trying to steal you from other companies and they're offering you really great pay. That's how you would perceive it. Why because we position them as top sought after candidates. We didn't say Oh, they've job hops, or they went, you know, two to three jobs in the last three years. And if you look at some of these really great candidates out there, sometimes they are in those rolls for one or two years, and then they get poached by another company. And this is why a lot of these companies now have created the golden handcuffs, just so they can retain their top talent by keeping them by giving them a lot of stock or other perks and benefits that it makes it really hard for them to leave. So this is a strategy companies have used in order to keep that challenge because they do tend to leave. They want to stay competitive. They're always up for new challenge. And companies are always after them so they're always happy. Every offers left and right. So let's change that mindset that you have around job hopping. And what that looks like. And honestly, since COVID, more companies have been more understanding and seeing different types of jobs and companies in the candidates resume. With everything happening. As you all have seen, there's been companies that have closed, companies that have done hiring freezes, companies that had to do layoffs, just because they were really impacted because of COVID. And so many other reasons out there. So it's a little bit more understanding now in the marketplace. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But more companies are being more relaxed in what they consider job hopping or how they perceive it, because they probably had to layoff a few people in their company. Or maybe they had to take a hiring freeze, or they just couldn't give promotions, because they were uncertain what was going to be happening in the marketplace. So just note that we're in a better state at this point in time on what is perceived as job Poppy. And one of the things that I wanted to tell you is how you position the story is very important. And storytelling, you want to make sure you prepare for it. This is not a question, if they were to ask you, you know, is there a specific reason why you moved on from three different companies in the past three years, want to make sure you address it from the beginning, you don't want that to be the elephant in the room where you're like, maybe they're going to hear back, address it from the beginning during the interview process, then just know that every story has multiple angles, kind of like what I mentioned, you would have considered that person a Job Hopper because they're just sought after in the marketplace. Or maybe that person that's just been in that role, or that company for so long that now they feel like they're just not wanted in the marketplace either. Well, that's another story. So we need to change our stories in order to change our results in our output. Now, I'll be shared quickly, first on like example of a client that actually used during their job searching. But I just want you to know that when it comes to job hopping, it really does matter. And it does make a big impact in your whole entire job search process. If you always have in the back of your mind of, they're not going to want me because I've been job hopping, I've had so many different roles, or I've been at so many companies for a short span of time, they're not going to want me it's really going to leak into your interviewing skills or your interviews overall, it will impact your confidence. And because of it, you will either get zero job offers, or you are just gonna get an offer with a very low pay, because you didn't come across as confident because the whole time you're thinking, they're going to ask about my job hopping or the different types of jobs that I've had. So here's an example of what it should look and sound like for a client. So right now I'm going to give you an example, this client was in the marketing space, I think they had been within three years, they had already been in two different companies in two different types of roles. And now they're looking to move from senior manager to like a director level. So at first, this guy was worried that they're gonna think she's a Job Hopper or that worked at two different companies that she took on a lateral move. And then all of a sudden, she wants to jump into director. So she felt like she wasn't good enough. And she had that fear based around, you know, her situation. So we worked on it together. And we were able to see the benefits of her being two different companies. And you want to remember, sometimes being a different companies in different roles gives you a competitive advantage. And what I mean by that is, if you work at two different types of companies, you probably learned two different types of processes. Your network has expanded, maybe you learned something, what works and doesn't work, maybe different customer segmentation, or who the specific clients or products were. So your knowledge has expanded because of it. So there is value in you being a different companies, or different types of roles within your career. Now the question is, how can we position that to our advantage that makes us stand out from the competition and gives us an upper edge over everyone else? So here's an example that we came up with from a client. And I'm reading it right now because I want to make sure that I capture the story. But what she said is, as you can see, I was a senior manager at x company and that allowed me to take on a leadership role where our customer base was in the US. I then went to y company and took a lateral but this time I wanted to focus more on international market, specifically in Latin America. I knew I wanted to be in a global director role and strategically moved into these roles and companies you see in my resume to give me the skill set and insight to be successful. In a global director role, because of it, I now have a BNC, which are the top three skills they were looking to hire for in that role. You see how we portray the story. It was very intentional, it was strategic, it was methodical. And because of it, it all tied together. Now that's positioned me to be the best candidate for this global director role, which is both overseeing North America and Latin America within these two different customer segmentations. That is, how she positioned herself and her background and her work expertise during the interview. And she addressed it from the beginning, when they told her, Tell me about yourself, she brought a head on first. So that way, it wouldn't be the elephant in the room throughout the whole interview process, the interviewer can get a fully understanding of what happened, and then move forward. So it is all about how you tell the story. And it is important, and you also need to believe in yourself. So that's why I always make sure that my clients feel comfortable and that it's aligned and feels true to them. Because I want that confidence. And being able to understand it. That is a true story to be able to come across during the interview process. And again, positioning it as a competitive advantage that will help them stand out from the competition. So if you want, you can share stories, and I'll give you feedback on the first few posts and tell you if you need to improve it or if you already nailed your story on job hopping. And if you need more help with how to tell your story, during the interviews and become a sought after candidate to schedule a complimentary career strategy, call with me to see if my program 90 day job offer will be a good fit for you. Like I said, it's a step by step job strategy process on how you can get started in your job search and land a fulfilling job within 90 days or less, while increasing your income and on average, it's around 56%. So let me know if you have any questions. And I want to hear about your story on how you're going to reframe your job hopping in your past experience to make it now see and positioning as advantage and as something positive that now the employer gets to benefit from because of your expertise. Have a great day. Did you know I have started 100% free Facebook group dedicated to make a job searching easy for career driven women and help them master their interviewing, networking and start negotiation skills. And we're doing free weekly trainings covering everything from how to sell yourself to increasing your salary by 30% minimum. Plus you'll be in there with a network of other ambitious women. So make sure to join us by texting us the word join 28449951523 And we'll see you there