Harvard Business Review on Advancing Your Career

Job-Hopping to the Top and Other Career Fallacies

by Monika Hamori

CLIMBING THE HIERARCHY USED to be a reward for loyalty. But in the 1980s, as firms stripped out layers of management, promotions became fewer and farther between. To get ahead, executives started moving from company to company. A 2009 survey by career network ExecuNet found that executives now stay with an organization for only 3.3 years, on average, before moving on. Outside job changes outnumber internal ones by about two to one.

But is it true that switching employers offers a fast track to the top jobs? According to my research, the answer is no. In fact, that’s one of four career fallacies I identified in a study examining how managers get ahead. Understanding the reality ...