Movers and Shakers: Why you shouldn't discount a job-hopper when hiring

I always try to be open-minded when interviewing. We rarely judge a book by its cover at Tiger, and when it comes to interviews, we won’t judge a candidate by the tenure on their CV until we’ve met them in person and understood their story. This approach has never been more important as, post-recession, we continue to see a steady decrease in tenure and a steady increase in market movement.

Clients will often instruct us to only send candidates whose experience reflects a minimum of three years in their current role and/or no visible fluctuation in CVs. They want to see staying power, commitment and loyalty. While I agree with the theory that previous experience often dictates future behaviour, in today’s unpredictable market is it ever that black and white? Unfortunately, some of our clients have missed out on some seriously great talent simply because they’ve refused to look outside the square.

Aside from redundancy – which isn't necessarily always performance-related – candidates are choosing to move sooner rather than later for a whole host of reasons. Of course as Recruitment Consultants, we pre-screen and thoroughly interview all of the candidates we work with. Usually, our sixth sense (once we’ve dug a little deeper) leads us to truly understand a candidate’s motives for moving on. I’ve often found that some of my favourite and most exceptional candidates don't have the template-CV my clients dream about. Some of the below reasons for leaving are more valid than you might think:

Salary increase