Latest / Job Hopping with Fexingo: Tenure, Loyalty, and the Modern Career Resume / How Job Hopping Reshapes Your Network's Value
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a number I keep coming back to. A LinkedIn study from last year looked at the networks of people who change jobs frequently — say every 18 to 24 months — versus people who stay five years or more. Luna: What did they find? Lucas: The job hoppers had about 40 percent more cross-industry connections. But they also had 25 percent fewer what the researchers called 'deep ties' per company — the kind of connections who would actually pick up the phone at 10 PM. Luna: So it's a trade-off. More breadth, less depth. Lucas: Exactly. And the question is: which is more valuable for your career? I think the answer depends entirely on where you are in your career — and what kind of work you want to do next. Luna: Give me a concrete example. I want to see this play out in real life. Lucas: Sure. I talked to a marketing manager — we'll call her Sarah. She started at Spotify, then moved to a fintech startup, then to a mid-sized creative agency. Each job was about 20 months. When she applied for a senior brand role at a major CPG company, her interview panel was impressed not just by her resume but by the fact that she could name people in music streaming, payments, and advertising who all vouched for her. Luna: She brought a network that bridged three industries. That's hard to replicate if you stay in one company. Lucas: Right. The CPG company was trying to enter the connected TV ad space. Sarah's contact at the creative agency had run campaigns there. That single connection probably got her the job. Luna: But there is another side. I have a friend at Salesforce who has been there six years. He's now running a 30-person team. When he needed funding for a new internal tool, he called three former colleagues who had moved to different departments — they all backed him. Lucas: That's the deep-tie advantage. He built trust over years. Those colleagues knew his work style, his reliability, his judgment. That kind of endorsement is hard to earn in 18 months. Luna: So the job hopper's network is wider but more transactional. The long-tenure network is narrower but more powerful for internal moves. Lucas: And the data backs that up. The LinkedIn study also looked at promotion speed. For internal promotions, deep ties mattered more — people with high-density networks within their company got promoted 30 percent faster. For external moves, cross-industry breadth predicted faster offers. Luna: So if you're early in your career and you want to explore industries, job hopping might actually build the right kind of network for that. Lucas: Exactly. In your twenties, breadth is a bet on optionality. You don't know what you want yet, so having weak ties across different fields helps you discover opportunities you didn't even know existed. Luna: But if you're later in your career, say you're a senior engineer or a VP, you probably need deep trust to execute big projects. Lucas: Right. A VP of engineering who hops every two years is going to struggle to build the kind of cross-functional relationships needed to ship a complex product. At that level, your network isn't just about who you know — it's about who knows how you operate under pressure. Luna: That's a subtle point. It's not just the number of connections. It's the density of shared experience. Lucas: Exactly. There's a concept in network science called 'multiplex ties' — connections that span multiple contexts. You worked together, you served on a board together, you go to the same conference. Those are incredibly sticky. Luna: And those take time to develop, right? You can't build multiplex ties in 18 months. Lucas: No, you can't. So the job hopper tends to have mostly single-context ties. That's fine for getting leads and referrals. But if you need someone to co-sign a risky project or invest in your startup, you need multiplex ties. Luna: Maybe there's a strategic way to job hop that optimizes for network value. Lucas: I think so. One pattern I've seen is what I call the 'hub and spoke' career. You stay at a large company for three to four years, build deep ties, then take a one- to two-year role at a smaller company or a different industry, then return to a similar large company. Luna: So you get the depth from the anchor company, but you also get the breadth from the spokes. Lucas: Exactly. The anchor company becomes the place where you build multiplex ties. The spokes are where you build weak ties that bridge to new worlds. Luna: I've seen that work. I know a product manager who spent four years at Microsoft, then two years at a seed-stage AI startup, then went back to Microsoft as a senior PM. His network from the first Microsoft stint gave him internal credibility, and the startup stint gave him AI expertise that Microsoft needed. Lucas: That's the ideal. He didn't burn the deep ties — he maintained them while adding diversity. Luna: What about people who are serial job hoppers — say five jobs in six years? Is their network just too scattered? Lucas: It depends on whether they're intentional. If they're leaving because they're unhappy or bored, they probably aren't investing in relationships at each stop. But if they're leaving for specific growth — new skill, new industry, new geography — they're likely building intentional bridges. Luna: So the key isn't tenure itself. It's whether you actively nurture connections, regardless of how long you stay. Lucas: Exactly. I've met people who stayed at a company for two years and built deep, lasting relationships because they made an effort. And I've met people who stayed for eight years and knew nobody outside their immediate team. Luna: So tenure is a proxy, not a guarantee. Lucas: Right. And that's what the LinkedIn study really shows. The number that matters isn't years per job — it's the ratio of deep ties to weak ties in your network. Luna: And that ratio is something you can actually measure and improve. Lucas: You can. I'd recommend that listeners do a simple network audit. Export your LinkedIn connections, categorize them by how many contexts you share — work, school, conference, personal — and then look at the distribution. Luna: What should they be aiming for? Lucas: If you're early career, aim for at least 60 percent weak ties across different industries. If you're mid to late career, aim for at least 30 percent of your top 50 connections to be multiplex ties — people you've worked with in more than one setting. Luna: That's actionable. I can see someone doing that this weekend. Lucas: And if you find your network is too homogeneous, that's a signal. Maybe you need to take a project outside your current industry, or join a board, or attend a conference in a completely different field. Luna: It's interesting — we talk about job hopping as a personal decision, but it really shapes your network in ways you might not realize until years later. Lucas: Yeah, and because we do these episodes every day, we hear from listeners who say things like 'I never thought about my network as an asset I could intentionally shape.' And honestly, that kind of feedback is why we keep making them. Luna: A quick honest thing — a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. Lucas: Yeah, we don't run ads, we don't take sponsors. It's just listener support that keeps it going. And if you've gotten something out of the show, that's one way to make sure it stays available for everyone. Luna: No pressure at all. But if it's useful, consider it. Alright — back to networks. Lucas, you mentioned the hub and spoke model. Can you walk through a real example of someone who executed that well? Lucas: Sure. There's a woman I interviewed — let's call her Priya. She started at a Big Four consulting firm for three years. That was her anchor. She built deep ties with a dozen colleagues who later spread across finance, tech, and healthcare. Then she took a two-year role at a logistics startup — completely different industry. She maintained her consulting ties through quarterly catch-ups. Then she moved to a Fortune 500 retailer as a director of strategy. Within six months, she had brought in two of her former consulting colleagues as vendors. Luna: So her anchor network became a source of business partnerships. Lucas: Exactly. And her startup stint gave her operational experience that her new employer valued. She had the best of both worlds. Luna: I think the lesson is that job hopping isn't inherently bad for your network — but mindless job hopping is. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. Be intentional. Build bridges before you leave. Maintain the ones that matter. And know that every move reshapes your network in a specific direction — so make sure it's the direction you want.