Well, I've had more than the requisite number of jobs in my adult life (13). I just wish I had one now.

When you're younger it really doesn't matter how many jobs you have. But as you get older I think it matters very much, especially if getting a new job means moving to a new company.

Every time you go to a new company you start off with the least amount of leave time. Day One you have zero vacation time and zero sick time. (When I got laid off at a place I worked at for 21 years I left behind almost 900 hours of sick time. Some day in the future I may wish that I had that.) In addition to having zero leave time, you have to start by accruing the least amount of leave time. I went from one job accruing 200 hours of vacation time per time to another job accruing less than 100 hours per year.

If it's a company where seniority matters, you start off at the bottom there as well. That can have implications for job security in the even of layoffs. It also can determine whether you're working night shift or day shift.

Many companies require five years of service before you're vested in the company retirement plan. If you move too often you may never be vested in any plan.

Depending on the company's health plan, you might even have to find a new physician when you get a new job. So much for "continuity of care."

These also are consequences of economic mobility.

The only problem is that with many jobs you would have to hold ten simultaneously to make a decent living!

In theory, I agree. It is good to have different experiences. On the other hand, my year off between job 5 and the ever elusive job 6 makes me really wish I had the option to keep job 5 for another 30 years. But I think corporate culture isn't allowing it to be the good thing it might otherwise be.

It is really hard to get into places now without already having 5+ years in the same industry. It is also hard getting entry level with a MA. So it is very easy to get into a catch-22. Too skilled for entry level... and need entry level to get mid level. You get bounced out the door, for whatever reason, and you can get stuck outside.

Everything is too automated, and HR people don't like to color outside the box these days and take risks on people. They don't have to. Plenty of applicants for very few jobs. Gone are the days when you can walk in and sell yourself to someone, it is all application forms now. I was told by a restaurant manager recently (for a cook job) that he couldn't hire me until the forms worked through corporate and they approved me. They didn't. Never told him why either.

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I read your linked thing on Tech Writing. Having been a Tech Writing professor for the last 10 years, I'd like you to know 90% of my students were engineers sent by work to learn Tech Writing. The field shifted from an English field to an Engineering field years ago at the entry level. More and more places are trying to make the engineers write the docs as they go, even up to the mid-level now. You may be one of the last English based Tech Writers, a result of an older business model.

Everything changes. That job number changes. I have seen it move from 6 to 10 ( I have books that say 12, as of last year) jobs since I got out of undergraduate school in 1995. I'm not sure if it is for the better for the people involved. There is a lot less upward mobility these days (even diagonal mobility to other companies). We have a lot of flat job level transfers and a huge spike of full time contracting (usually without benefits) in writing (specifically) these days. I don't know if that counts as a job. If we count contracting, (like your temp work) I have had 57 jobs by age 36, and I haven't done half the contracting people I graduated with have done, because I had the teaching gig.

Something is rotten in Denmark... but the job market in the US is worse.

Hmm. I'm not thirty and I've had more than ten (successful) jobs. Don't people get bored doing the same thing over and over again?

Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Traigus, I was very interested in what you had to say about the changing field of technical writing. Is it possible that it's engineers who have to take the technical writing courses while people with a humanities background don't? I ask that for two reasons: 1) Almost all the engineers I've met could certainly benefit from taking a class in technical writing, and 2) Even in my current job (for a large software company with offices around the world) almost all the resumes we see for open tech writing positions are people with non-engineering degrees.

LaRae, I tend to agree with you. Of course, many people nowadays would accept the boredom that comes with doing the same thing for a long time, as long as they are paid to do whatever it is. But I don't think this period will last forever. In a couple of years, I predict most people will be job-hunting not because they must but because they can.

I think the problem is holding 10 jobs at one time in order to make ends meet.

Agreed. I never bought into that staid old corporate mentality about one job/industry/company for long periods of time. I was a big job changer before it was fashionable. I always got the raised eyebrows in interviews, but you know, down the line, I am much better equipped than most of my stick to one job counterparts. I can walk into just about any industry and feel comfortable. I am flexible to pick up just about any new challenge and make a success out of it. I must have ha 10 different jobs before I was 35.

Now I've been a self-employed contractor for over 10 years. Each contract has been different in many ways. I no longer fit into any corporate box, so I am destined to continue to make my own work for the rest of my life I think.

good post and timely.

Sorry, this is going to be long.

The companies have leaned on a lot of schools to make it a degree requirement. My opinion has been formed working in education and helping people get jobs/raises. I mostly taught the night-school sections of Tech Writing at a Community College. So I mostly interacted with returning students or people sent by their companies. I only taught the day sections (mostly 18 yr olds) when another teacher was on sabbatical.

I think a lot of the people who think of themselves as Technical Writers, or even want to be technical writers are from Humanities, but a lot of businesses are trying for the two-fer, by sending their engineers to learn it.

With the advent of centralized systems, a lot of places (especially smaller ones) are trying to get the engineers to document their own stuff as they go. I've had to jump through a lot of technical hoops for contracting jobs over the years. Almost always they would have preferred an internal person with familiarity with their product(s), but didn't have anyone. Sometimes when they found ut they could send people to my CC for a class (not a whole degree), they kicked me out and I got a student the next semester (not kidding).

Most places would like to have someone on tap to do the work, but don't need a full time person to swill all their coffee and twiddle their thumbs ( again mostly smaller places who don't have enough documentation needed to justify even 1 let alone a department of full time writers). Big places and the Govt. have the workload to justify whole depts.

Mostly the Engineers think of themselves as Engineers, and suffer the Tech Writing. So I don't think a lot of them would apply for the jobs. math and English Majors tend not to cross happily into each others classes. Most Engineering fields are doing ok job-wise if you are willing to move, so the financial incentive isn't there either. I have only met 1 engineer (out of thousands of students) who has ever said to me he was thinking about going the writing route, and he was considering it because of a $10,000 a year raise that went with it

Another popular solution has been contracting. Hire someone for 6 months near the end of a project and have them do all the documentation through interviews and whatever the locals have cobbled together (now hopefully with some Tech Writing training as well).... so it isn't a huge mess).

Outside of Software and Government work (often because of Security Clearance issues) full time Tech Writing is going the way of the dodo. Even more so in this economy.

Check out Monster or Hotjobs sometime... Though for a good look DICE.com is a better indicator (because it is highly tech focused).

The requirements for a modern Tech Writing job are usually so specific, it is hard to get into the door without the engineering background, or a seriously long term background in a specific industry with specific software.

I agree though with the premise of your post, having a lot of jobs is very useful... especially so for Tech Writing (audience based documents and all).

I'm just not so sure companies will let us out of our little check-boxes long enough to take advantage of it.

Merely my observations, maybe very different from your end, and I very well may be wrong.

Never tell people you have money. They always want to borrow some. When was the last time someone brought you back a cup of sugar? Get my point?

job mobility is a good thing. it keeps the plebs aware of their status and usually they respond with appropriate submissiveness.

I think the ability to change jobs is a great thing. If you want to stay in one job, that's fine too, but I don't know many who do that. Most will chase a better job no matter where it is. Everyone has gotten the message that job loyalty doesn't exist anymore, that companies will cut you loose on a whim, so why be loyal to them? And it is possible to chase jobs and keep your rank, pay, vacation days, etc.

For example, my father is an engineer. He's never worked for a single company for more than 5 years. In the past 20 years, he's never lost his "rank", either working for a company directly or as an independent contractor. (he sort of switched "fields" about 20 years ago) He's never lost sick time or vacation time - he starts off right where he left off at the last company he worked for. He's 66, happily working a job he got last fall, making very very good money.