Latest / Job Hopping with Fexingo: Tenure, Loyalty, and the Modern Career Resume / How Job Hoppers Build Better Professional Relationships
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this assumption that job hoppers are bad at relationships. That if you leave a company every two years, you're burning bridges, you're transactional, you're just using people for a reference and then moving on. Luna: Right, the stereotype. And I think a lot of hiring managers worry about that — they see short tenures and assume the person can't commit to a team. Lucas: But the data actually suggests the opposite. There's research from organizational psychologist Dr. Heidi Grant — she studies how trust builds in professional contexts. One of her findings is that repeated introductions in low-stakes settings actually accelerate trust more than long-term co-location does. Luna: Meaning the job hopper, who has to introduce themselves to new teams more often, might actually get better at building trust quickly. Lucas: Exactly. And if you think about it, someone who stays at one company for ten years has a network that's heavily concentrated — most of their contacts are inside that one firm. But a job hopper over the same decade might have worked at four or five companies. Their network is distributed across multiple organizations, multiple industries. Luna: So it's not just about breadth — it's about resilience too. If that one company goes through layoffs, the long-tenured person's network takes a hit. The job hopper's network is diversified. Lucas: Yeah. And speaking of diversification — before we go deeper on that, I want to mention something. If you find these career strategy conversations useful, and you want to help us keep the show ad-free and independent, listeners have been supporting us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to say 'this matters to me.' No pressure, just a heads-up that it's there. Now, back to networks. Luna: Yeah, and I think it's worth noting that the support really does help us keep the focus on substance over ads. So thank you to anyone who's contributed. So Lucas, you were saying about network diversification — do you have a concrete example? Lucas: I do. I spoke with a marketing manager — let's call her Sarah. Over eleven years, she worked at seven different companies, average tenure about eighteen months. She kept a spreadsheet of every colleague she'd had a meaningful project with. When she needed a recommendation or a new lead, she could reach out to people across seven different org charts. Luna: Seven companies. That's a lot of introductions. Lucas: Right. And she said the key wasn't just adding people on LinkedIn. It was doing something intentional after leaving — she'd schedule a thirty-minute coffee chat with each close teammate within a month of her departure. Not to ask for anything, just to say 'I valued working with you, here's how to reach me.' Luna: So she was proactively maintaining the relationship before it had time to fade. That's a skill in itself. Lucas: Exactly. And there's classic sociology here — Mark Granovetter's paper on 'The Strength of Weak Ties' from 1973. He found that people are more likely to hear about job opportunities through acquaintances, not close friends. The reason is that your close friends tend to know the same people you do. Your weak ties — the people you worked with briefly, the former colleague you only met at a few meetings — they have access to different information. Luna: So job hoppers naturally accumulate more weak ties. They're building a network that's actually more effective for career mobility. Lucas: Yes. And the interesting thing is that job hoppers often worry they're damaging their reputation by leaving. But if you handle the exit well — with a proper handoff, a thank-you note, and a genuine offer to help — you actually strengthen that weak tie. The person remembers you as someone who left professionally. Luna: I've heard the advice to write a handwritten thank-you note to your manager and key teammates when you leave. Does that actually matter in an age of Slack and email? Lucas: It matters more, I think. Because it's unexpected. When I left my last job, I wrote three notes — one to my boss, one to my mentor, and one to the junior analyst I'd been training. My boss later told me she kept it in her desk drawer. Years later, when I needed a reference, she remembered that gesture. Luna: That's a small investment for a big return. So what about the fear that you'll burn bridges if you leave after a short stint? Is that overblown? Lucas: I think it depends on how you leave. If you ghost your team, drop a two-line resignation, and never look back — yes, you'll burn bridges. But if you give proper notice, train your replacement, and stay in touch, most managers will respect your move. In fact, some will even become advocates because they see you're ambitious and intentional. Luna: There's a flip side too — the long-tenured employee who stays but becomes complacent might actually have weaker relationships. They stop making new connections, their network atrophies. Lucas: Right. There's research from the Harvard Business Review a few years ago — they found that people who stay at a company for more than five years tend to have fewer cross-functional contacts than someone who's been there two years. Because the new person has to meet everyone, while the veteran stays in their silo. Luna: So the job hopper is almost forced into a more proactive networking posture. They can't rely on history. Lucas: Exactly. And there's another practical angle: job hoppers are more likely to offer to be references for their former colleagues. Because they know how valuable a reference from someone at a different company can be — it signals that your reputation travels. Luna: I've been asked to be a reference for someone I worked with for only nine months. At first I hesitated — I thought, 'Do I know them well enough?' But then I realized I could speak specifically to their work on one project, and that was more credible than a generic 'they're great' from someone who worked with them for five years. Lucas: That's a key insight. A reference from a short stint can be more detailed and more memorable because it's focused on a concrete achievement. A ten-year reference tends to blur into generalities. Luna: So what's the practical takeaway for a job hopper listening right now? How do you build relationships intentionally across job changes? Lucas: Three things. First, when you leave a job, don't just send a LinkedIn request to everyone you worked with. Send a personalized message to the ten people who mattered most — mention a specific memory, offer your contact info, and say you'd love to stay in touch. Second, schedule a follow-up coffee or call within 30–60 days after leaving. Third, proactively offer to be a reference for at least two people from each job. Luna: And for the people who worry that it feels too transactional to 'manage' your network that way? Lucas: I'd say it's only transactional if you're only reaching out when you need something. The key is to give before you ask. Offer to make an introduction, share an article, or just check in to see how they're doing. Over time, that builds genuine goodwill. Luna: I think there's also a generational shift here. Younger workers are more comfortable with frequent job changes, and they're also more intentional about networking. They see it as a skill to develop, not a burden. Lucas: Agreed. And one last thing — the research on weak ties has been replicated in the age of social media. A 2022 study from LinkedIn's data science team found that people with moderately sized networks — not the biggest, but the most diverse in terms of industries — had the highest promotion rates. That's the job hopper's sweet spot. Luna: So it's not about collecting contacts. It's about having contacts across different worlds. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're a job hopper, you're already building that diverse network organically. The question is whether you're being intentional about maintaining it. Luna: I wonder if the rise of AI tools will change this. If we have AI assistants that can draft personalized messages and schedule follow-ups, will relationship-building become even more automated and maybe less genuine? Lucas: That's a good question for a future episode. For now, I'd say the human touch still matters — a handwritten note, a thoughtful recommendation, a sincere check-in. Those are hard to fake. Luna: Fair point. And maybe that's the real edge for job hoppers who do it well — they prove they can build trust fast, and that's a skill that transcends any single job. Lucas: Exactly. So next time you update your resume and see those short tenures, don't think of them as gaps or instability. Think of them as nodes in a network that gets stronger with every move. Luna: That's a great reframe. And a good place to leave it for today.