Leaving job too soon.

This is becoming common practice in the oil and gas industry. People often find better jobs and more pay every 2 or so years as they gain experience in this industry. The same goes for other industries. Pensions don't exist anymore and almost every company offers benefits now. So there is no, real reason, for someone to stay somewhere for a long time unless they are next in line to be promoted or they truly enjoy the company and their scope of work.

 

I use to be old school about this but I have changed my thinking over the past decade........job hopping is more common over the past 10 years, I used to not even look at someone who had multiple jobs in the past 5 years but that's not reality anymore. As Managers, we need to find reasons to make people stay

 

Some of these things do not add up!

 

1.5 - 2 years at a job has been normal for the past couple of decades or so, especially among people under age 35 that haven't yet "settled down" in life (got married, had kids, etc.). Total non-issue, OP.

Many managers would be far more concerned about a person who held multiple jobs for less than a year each, with gaps of unemployment in-between.

BTW, in some fields of work (e.g. the tech industry)...someone who has stayed at a single company for longer than 4 or 5 years may raise more eyebrows than someone that changed jobs every few years. Especially if he/she is under age 35 and has held the same position during that entire time.

 

Commodity trading... sounds like your contacts would be more important than time with a company. Similar to sales. You'll be good.

It took me until my 3rd real job to find something that I truly enjoyed doing. Shoot my second employer I wanted to get the heck out of there after my 3rd day once I learned I screwed up chasing a paycheck.

 

This is off to me. I work in energy commodity trading (in an accounting role) and our traders are young for the most part. "Trading is a young man's game" is a phrase I've heard more than once. Usually they grab recent graduates from a top tier school, put them in a rigorous training program for 3-4 years, then (if they're good) give them a trader role. After maybe 10 years of trading they're moving on to something like market fundamentals or business development or anything that's less stressful.

Of course my experience is only with one particular company so maybe we're the exception to the norm.

 

Job hopping is very common nowadays. Since you're still young, the most important thing is to learn as much as possible at each of your jobs. This way, you're building up your resume, skills, and network. Once you're in your 30s, the world is your oyster Just remember, always keep your word and don't burn any bridges! The energy industry is a very close-knit industry (I'm in it myself) and I know for a fact that people in the commodity trading field exchange info about other traders. You want to keep a clean reputation.

 

I would take the bird in hand. "Hoping to be hiring soon" is not anything to put your chips on. You can also point out to this hiring manager that you have a bonus coming that you'd lose out on if you jumped right away. They might offer a signing bonus to mitigate some of that loss. Now, come April if this other job is offered to you, you can still jump ship and take the job you want. Maybe they'll think you're an ass for doing it, but they'll get over it.

 

I'd be leery of #1. "Near future" can mean a lot of things and overall sounds very vague. If anything talk to them and say you have this offer, give them a chance to get you something more concrete, but plan on taking #2.

 

Agree with this. Go to dude at #1 and say "I got this going for me, and I'll take it if something here isn't certain." Just let them know.

You can also let job #2 know about the bonus and they may offer you some sort of bonus (might not be 10K, but could be something).

 

Agree with the sentiment in here. Take #2, let them know you're leaving 10K on the table to join, and tell #1 about this opportunity now, but to still keep you in mind for when the opening actually does occur.

 

agreed. the hr and management of my company (ngo) is probably one of the worst i have ever worked for. it's amazing i have lasted soon-to-be 5 years. i have never seen an organization that has so many underqualified people in the supervisor/managerial position in my life. some can't even put 2 sentences together without sounding like an idiot.

it's the bad thing about working for a political entity. you get these "political" hires that has the intelligence of an average ape.

 

Some managers suck at training, giving meaningful feedback or providing opportunities to non-favorites. That's why some talented people leave after 1 - 2 years. Less than 1 year is genuinely suspicious because they might be evading a bad review but that's what the interview is for, instead of all those "describe a specific time when" questions.

 

You don't necessarily have to leverage #1 into an offer. But more or less tell them why you're not going to just wait around either. I feel like they'd respect that.