Hopping, Skipping & Jumping... JOBS

Chic offices, sumptuous pay packages and weekends off: despite such perks, job-hopping is at an all-time high today. Why?

Kalindi Kokal

Pune, August 9:: JOB-hopping, more a trend than a necessity, is fast becoming a way of life for many. The reasons can be many-from improving job contents, better pay packages, more learning opportunities or just a change in work environment.

As professionals try to gain more experience along with better salaries, statistics show that switches are more common at junior and middle levels than at senior levels. “The whole game is about mapping your skills with respect to the job profile,” says Ankur Pandya, senior manager projects at i-flex. With 15 years of experience to his credit, Pandya reveals that he jumped from engineering to corporate finance to IT, only to capitalise on his capabilities and experience.

According to Srikant Prabhu, business head in a leading auto-components industry, “There is some amount of job-hopping, but that is only when the company’s growth has stagnated.” Prabhu, who has switched three jobs, says that the urge to hop jobs came only when his skills weren’t being exploited enough. “My job needs to be challenging because I grow only when the job grows,” he says.

The situation at the lower level, however, is quite the opposite. Professional growth being one of the major factors influencing job-hopping, salary hikes and recognition of expertise also count. “On graduating, it’s all about ‘getting a job’. The experience gained is basic, but necessary,” says Prasad Neurgaonkar, a software professional who switched three jobs over six years, and adds, “But once I know what my capability and capacity of work is, I will look more specifically.” While salaries hike by almost 40 per cent in the IT industry, most professionals say that a 30 per cent hike is an unwritten expectation. “Most of the times, your expertise dictates your salary,” informs Neurgaonkar. T S Ranganath, a telecom professional switched two jobs in three years for a similar reason. Says he, “If my experience is being recognised better in another company, I will definitely move. Of course, better recognition also spells better money.”

“Employees are ready to travel for exposure. But they are always happy if the exposure is available in a familiar city,” says Vaidehi Rege, manager at NSR Placement Services. And, from growth in terms of money to growth that implies climbing the success ladder, jobs are hopped for each of these reasons. “The perks are brilliant in new-age fields like IT and insurance, but who says that’s the situation in the other sectors?” questions Anoop Joshi, a marketing professional. “I switched from a job in cement to one in telecom, because in the cement industry growth is at a negligible rate of 3 per cent. But then again I also hopped a job from one cement company to another, because a bigger company would give me better exposure,” says he.

Location of the job is another element that is a deciding factor in case of job-hopping. “I have had to switch jobs only because the entire office shifted base,” says Pandya, who opines that a favourable and accessible location, always improves the rating of that company.

“The factors that cause job-hopping differ in every field, but the underlying fact is that there is a choice and people want to make the most of it,” says Neeta Baxi, recruitment consultant at TMI Network. Whether job-hopping is favourable to the industry or not, is a question still to be debated, what is for sure is that the trend is here to stay.