In your opinion - How long does the average employee stay at a position?

There are metrics out there that break this down, but I was interested in your own experiences.

It seems for management on up, people stay quite a bit longer, 3 - 10 years sometimes. Whereas analyst, engineers etc I see leave much sooner on average.

Currently where I am at, I've seen BI analyst move from 7 months, 10 months, 2 years and 3 years. That was the duration in these particular instances.

I'm LinkedIn with quite a few of you as well and I notice that on you LinkedIn I see a lot of < 1 year efforts on your resume, this is me as well. Not usually consecutive but sprinkled throughout the history time line.

It really does seem like hopping is becoming more and more excepted.

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scaredoftests

Sometimes, the contract gets cancelled or modified or funding is greatly reduced so layoffs occur. That is my story. At my present job, I have been there for 1.5 years. I hope to stay another 3 years.

NetworkNewb

I think you'll see alot of people on here not staying at places long because it is usually hard to move up quickly staying at the same company. It's not the company's fault, there usually just isn't the positions/openings/opportunity to promote people quickly internally. And the people on here are, for the most part, are people who are focused on bettering themselves. And staying at the same position for a long time just wouldn't make sense.

Lexluethar

Depends on the situation and person. Don't leave to just leave (some people do this) - leave for a reason whether it's because you are unhappy, want more pay or want to move positions.

Generally Engineers leave sooner because they are probably moving on to higher positions. Not sure the article you are looking for, but realize there is a very large portion of IT are contract based, so every 6 to 12 months the contract is up and they move to another position.

Personally I move for a reason. Was at one company for 7 years, then 3 and now i'm on my 5th year at my current company.

revbox

15 years if you get complacent like me.

Remember kids, don't be like me.

DatabaseHead

@Revbox - That is along time. I worked with a guy who came into the help desk ~1999 - 2000 and was there when I was working it in 07. He was still there after I left. I just can't imagine staying in the same role for that long. But if the job is good and so is the pay why not.

beads

For IT in general its body politic to or have moved roughly every 18 months to no more than 5 years. Reason being is your going to miss out on working with different interesting technologies when your fighting the same battles for too long.

Well, all those constant contract opportunities don't help but to program many of us into that mindset as well. Personally, I need to look at different tools in order to stay interested in the field anyway. Complacency is a career killer in security and for the lesser extent IT as well.

- b/eads

revbox

@DatabaseHead - pay is decent for my state, I live in a rural area and don't want to drive to the capital city (where most tech jobs are), and I was a lazy slacker. In my 30s now, got married, and grew up.

JoJoCal19

My history since working in IT has been 1.5>8>8mo>1.25>10mo (putting in notice Friday). That stretch after the 8 years seems bad but every job I've gotten has been people coming after me and I've actually more than doubled the income of the 8 year long job with this new offer I received. I can say that I am done moving jobs and will not voluntarily leave the new job. It's the income I've always had as a goal, it's working in my strength (GRC) but will expose me to cloud security, and is with a company that I can go anywhere and do anything with. And oh yea, it's fully remote. So I'm set. I'll always keep my knowledge in other areas relatively fresh (cloud, technical security, pentesting) but honestly if I never move on from this role then so be it.

CIO

My general rule is to stay at a position for a least a year. My work history has been 1yr>1.6yrs>2yrs doing general tech support and for the last few months, I have been studying/labbing in order to get into network security.

alias454

I have been at my current company for almost 6 years. During that time, I have held four titles, which amounted to three different jobs, under six different bosses officially.

TechGromit

DatabaseHead wrote: »

[h=2]In your opinion - How long does the average employee stay at a position?[/h]

In the same position? Or same company? If you work at a good company, which are increasingly difficult to find, I think people tend to stay longer, maybe not in the same position, but with the same company. I work for a major utility, good pay, great benefits, I wouldn't give it up for a few lousy thousand bucks to work somewhere else. Besides, in a big company, new positions are opening all the time. I'd rather look for opportunities within my own company before looking outside.

tmtex

I worked for a place for 10 yrs, many places laughed at me saying they would prefer someone who has jumped around and had more "Different" experiences.
My last place I probably would of stayed at forever. Reserved covered parking, huge office with fridge, conference table, white boards and nice view of planes landing at DFW airport. Also could of worked at home when I wanted, come/leave when I wanted. It was a great 3 yrs until the company was acquired and majority of IT was laid off.

alias454

tmtex damned if you do, damned if you don't. To be honest, my current longevity has me worried. I currently like where I work but am afraid if I stay too much longer, I will be seen as some kind of slacker who isn't "growing" my career. I honestly, think I could stay here until I retire if I wanted but the thought of working at one place for another 25 years is scary too.

Danielm7

tmtex wrote: »

I worked for a place for 10 yrs, many places laughed at me saying they would prefer someone who has jumped around and had more "Different" experiences.

We want someone who jumps around a lot, until we hire you, then we'd like you to stay forever and never consider leaving.

DatabaseHead

@Danielm7 lol +1 Rep

TechGromit

tmtex wrote: »

It was a great 3 yrs until the company was acquired and majority of IT was laid off.

This is why it's important to get certifications and keep up with technology. It's easy to get complacent when you have a good job, in a decent company, but you never know when life will throw you a curve ball. You need to be prepared just in case.

kohr-ah

Until there is nothing else to learn or me to gain from it.
If the company isn't willing to grow and change then I am not willing to stay. Average is 2 - 5 years.

JoJoCal19

TechGromit wrote: »

This is why it's important to get certifications and keep up with technology. It's easy to get complacent when you have a good job, in a decent company, but you never know when life will throw you a curve ball. You need to be prepared just in case.

This. It's perfectly ok to be comfortable and not want to change. But I always recommend keeping a secondary set of skills/knowledge and keep up with certifications. Keep the resume looking good in case you have to look for a new job in short order.

Chitownjedi

I am in a situation where all parities involved thought 2-3 years would be best for both sides. However I have had some shorter stints less than 10 months because I ended up at a places that had bad management or culture, and I just wasn't trying to deal with nonsense when I'm living, eating, and dying to provide as close to exceptional quality as I can.

If this position ends up going 18 months Id be happy with it, but I really want to be able to at least start experiencing 3-5 years on average, as I get older it just seems like anything less than 2 years is too jarring for my big picture.

DatabaseHead

Interesting information

I'm in a role now where my title doesn't align with my responsibilities but the growth here is tremendous. In all seriousness I could stay here 5 years and still be growing it's ridiculous.

I've been in this role for ~2.5 years and like others have stated would like to remain for 2.5 more. What I like about the pay structure is you get what you put in, well at least sort of.

Normally you get a 10% bonus but if they feel you are killing it they can kick it up another 10%. That's pretty big.

Svoboda

Danielm7 wrote: »

We want someone who jumps around a lot, until we hire you, then we'd like you to stay forever and never consider leaving.

Funny how that works, eh?

UnixGuy

alias454 wrote: »

.. damned if you do, damned if you don't....

That's the truth of the IT world. Hiring managers are opinionated and everyone thinks they know the just the perfect amount of time that you should spend in a company.