Stop Throwing Out Resumes With Short Job Stints

My recruiters brought something to my attention recently, and I want to talk about it, because I think a lot of us are still hiring by a rule that stopped being true.

For years, one of the first things I said when I looked at a resume was: make sure they haven’t job-jumped. You wanted to see five years here, seven years there, nine years somewhere else — proof they would stay with you for the next decade. Times have changed. A lot of our mindsets haven’t.

Here is the reality check: the median time a U.S. worker has been with their current employer is now 3.9 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the lowest since 2002. For workers between 25 and 34, it is just 2.7 years. If your filter is “five-plus years or I’m not interested,” you are screening out most of the workforce.

And in my experience, the reasons behind those short stints usually have nothing to do with the candidate.

Private Equity Bought Their Employer

A lot of small businesses are being sold into private equity right now. When that happens, the controller, the bookkeeper, the HR person often loses their job through no fault of their own — because all of those functions suddenly get absorbed at the private equity level. They could have been phenomenal at their job. The larger company simply already had someone doing it.

They Worked for Small Companies, Not Big Ones

This one is subtle, and I think it is the most unfair filter we apply.

If someone spent 20 years at Delta, they might have held five or six different positions — and we look at that resume and see stability. But someone at a small business cannot move from department to department. There is no other department. To grow their skill set, they have to change companies.

Same career progression. Same ambition. Completely different-looking resume. We reward one and punish the other, and that makes no sense.

Government Funding Dried Up

The government spending changes of the last couple of years have had a real trickle-down effect, and it hit exactly the roles we hire most: HR, finance, and admin. It wasn’t just government contractors — it was everyone downstream of them. Those jobs went away for budget reasons, not performance reasons.

And We Are Still Only Six Years Past a Pandemic

It is easy to forget. Plenty of companies went under or shed employees during COVID, and that is still sitting in the middle of a lot of otherwise excellent resumes.

What I Would Do Instead

I am not saying ignore patterns. I am saying investigate them instead of auto-rejecting.

When you see a resume with several moves, ask what happened at each one. You will usually hear about an acquisition, a layoff, a funding cut, or a small company where the only way up was out. Look at what they accomplished in each role, not just how long they sat in the chair. And notice whether they left for something better or simply got caught in something outside their control.

The Bottom Line

Because of private equity acquisitions, the realities of small-business careers, government funding cuts, and a pandemic we haven’t fully recovered from, a genuinely great employee — especially in HR or finance — may not have held one job for the last six or seven years.

So when a resume crosses your desk with more moves than you would like, I would ask you to slow down before you pass. There are real gems out there without the traditionally long tenure, and they may be the best candidate you see. Don’t knock them out before you have heard the story.

Want help evaluating candidates beyond what a resume shows on the surface? Grab a free 30-minute session with one of our recruiting experts — no pressure, just a clear next step.