Why job hoppers make the best employees

Saw an interesting article this morning which I can relate to myself. It also help answers question why I keep on moving around. Well, I'll be in my 7th job (since February 1999) this July or 7 jobs in 11 years and 5 months or 11+ months per job. That sounds quite bad, probably because I add up two 11-week stints in 2 banking jobs. Taking those out of the equation, I actually spent 27 months per job. That's not so bad.

Why job hoppers make the best employees?
Because...

1. They have more intellectually rewarding careers.
In almost any job, the learning curve is very steep early on. And then it goes flat. So by the end of two years at the same job, you often have little left to learn. If you change jobs often, then you’re always challenged with a lot to learn — your learning curve stays high.

2. They have more stable careers (this is especially true in Western countries).
The stability you get in your career comes from you. If you’re counting on some company to give you stability, realizing this is scary. But if you believe in yourself and your abilities and treat your career with this understanding, then it’s no problem. You can create career stability — you just have to do it on your own. The way you do that is through networking. Because you can be sure you’ll need to find many jobs in your lifetime, you want network as efficiently as you can.

3. They are higher performers.
If you know you are going to leave your job in the next year, you’re going to be very conscious of your resume — that is, what skills you’re tackling, what you’re achieving, whether you’re becoming an expert in your field. These issues do not generally concern someone who has been in a job for five years and knows he’s going to stay another five years. So job hoppers are always looking to do really well at work, if for no other reason than it helps them get their next job. You can’t job hop if don’t add value each place you go.

4. They're more loyal (hmm???)
Job hoppers are generally great team players because that’s all they have. Job hoppers don’t identify with a company’s long-term performance, they identify with their work group’s short-term performance. Job hoppers want their boss to adore them so they get a good reference. Job hoppers want to bond with their co-workers so they can all help each other get jobs later on. And job hoppers want to make sure everyone who comes into contact with them has a good experience with them; it’s not like they have ten years on the job to fix a first impression.

5. They're more emotionally mature.
It takes a good deal of self-knowledge to know what you want to do next, and to choose to go get it rather than stay someplace that for the moment seems safe.
It takes commitment to personal growth to give up career complacency and embrace a challenging learning curve throughout your career — over and over. And it’s a brave person who can tell someone, “I know I’ve only been working here for a month, but it’s not right for me, so I’m leaving.”

Read the full article from BNET.