It’s the opinion of HR that preferred candidates have either a college degree and 3-5 years of experience at one company or no college degree and 6+ years of experience. No degree means uneducated and less that 3 years at a single employer, means no experience.

Many candidates don’t understand that in a typical job its takes 2 years before the employer breaks even on their cost to find, hire, train and get you up to speed to do the job. That before 2 years is up, you are a liability, but after 2 years, then they are making money from you, you finally become an asset.

Therefore any employee who quits before two years is up, costs the company money, so if you do that more than once, future companies see you as a job hopper. A “do not hire” person, because your past indicates your future, and its the responsibility of HR to protect the company.

Many candidates will say that they left their prior companies before 2 years, due to no fault of their own, that they were laid off. But you have to realize that the company is losing money by cutting people before 2 years is up. So they only do that if the person isn’t working out for some reason and then it’s their fault.

When candidates ask me to work on their resume and I see that they have left a job before 2 years, and they tell me that a lot of people were laid off, so its not their fault. I ask “did the entire company close or did everyone get laid off?” When they say “no, x% got laid off, and x% kept their jobs!” Well, a company is keeping the people who are contributing more than they are costing, so if you got cut that means that you were costing more than you were contributing, which is your fault.

Not staying late when needed, taking long lunches, or eating outside work for lunch instead of at your desk/company breakrrom, not taking calls on the weekend, never volunteering or asking for more work when you have free time at work.

Other people at work are doing these extras, and you are unknowingly in competition with them when layoffs come, and then its too late to try and to extra work.