posted 13 years ago
Well, I'm a freelancer so my job history is pretty fragmented anyway (around 20 jobs in 24 years!), but your recent history looks OK to me. Of course, it depends on the job market as well: here in the UK I reckon you'd probably be OK, but when I worked in Germany I got the impression they were very wary of people who changed jobs more than once or twice in their entire lives.
But if you leave your current job in 2013, then you'll only have had 2 jobs in 6 years, which in our industry is not too bad. Jobs Six and Seven will have lasted 3 years, which is pretty good from what I've seen of staff turnover in my previous workplaces. And you can probably come up with a good story about why you are moving on (sorry, "looking for a fresh challenge" blah blah) after completing your current project to the immense satisfaction (of course) of your managers, colleagues, friends and neighbours.
As you suggest, it's certainly better to move at the end of a project than bail out in the middle. Will your current boss give you a decent reference, and do you have any other good references from previous jobs/senior colleagues? You could see if any of your old bosses/colleagues will give you a LinkedIn recommendation - not sure it's worth much but some people seem to be impressed by these things.
Probably you need to think about how you will answer the question "why are you changing jobs now?". If you can come up with a positive and plausible explanation, while still allowing your next employer to feel confident you will stick with them, then it may not be a problem. You'll also need to think about how to answer the question "If we give you the job, how do we know you'll stay here longer than 2 years?". Plus you need to cover all the usual stuff about what skills/experience/qualities you can offer them and so on.
Also, be very careful about whether/how you present any negative aspects of your current job: it's much better to put a positive spin on this if you can. Recruiters can get very nervous about criticism of previous employers - it suggests you'll be just as critical of them. So don't say "my current job is really boring and my boss hates me", say something like "I've learned a lot in my current role and I am keen to develop further, but my current role/employer does not offer me the opportunities for longer term career development that I am looking for", for example. And you probably need to persuade yourself whether/how the new job will give you what you are looking for, otherwise you may have trouble persuading anybody else.
Alternatively, you could just switch to working as a freelancer, where nobody cares very much about you changing jobs every few years or what your long term goals are, because they're only hiring you for 6 months anyway!
Good luck.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
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