Most recruiters will avoid talking with or hiring anyone with a jumpy resume, especially in revenue-impacting roles. This refers to someone who has held multiple jobs where they spent less than three years. The risk is too high, and recruiters are hired to make sure bets.
But is this reasonable? A well-respected recruiter I know, who has recruited countless VP and C-suite revenue leaders, has publicly stated that she is very comfortable putting forward a candidate who hasn’t demonstrated significant time in a job. However, as a former revenue leader myself, it will take a lot to convince me that a candidate's short time in job made a significant contribution to a company's growth.
Here are the four things that drive a revenue leader’s success:
- Adaptability: Transitioning into a new job takes time. There’s a reason the most common business plan starts with a 30-60-90 day strategy, and the first 30 days are used for listening and understanding the culture. Many people who leave roles after short periods blame management, culture, lack of product, or other factors. However, as a revenue leader, your job is to adapt to the world around you and capitalize on the situation. The company and CEO didn't hire you to complain about the situation—they hired you to solve a revenue problem.
- Quantitatively Measuring Impact: Too many people (especially salespeople) are talkers. This means they spend time talking about activities or sharing anecdotes, but in sales, numbers are the only thing that count. Admittedly, numbers can sometimes be unrealistic due to pressure from the board or management, which can put revenue leaders in an impossible situation. However, smart revenue leaders use data to influence a change in direction or initiate a potential budget reset. This earns them the trust needed to have more control over major business decisions in the future.
- Influence: If you can’t influence decision-making, you are dead in the water. Whether that decision is around setting budgets or revenue targets, influencing product innovation, or advocating for more headcount, you won’t get anywhere without influence. One of the biggest red flags for me when recruiting is when a candidate complains about a prior boss being unreasonable. Certainly, we have all dealt with difficult bosses, but learning how to navigate different personalities, build trust, and influence decision-making is critical for success in any job.
- Long-Term Vision: The best revenue leaders don’t just think about hitting next quarter’s targets—they have their eyes on the horizon. It’s about aligning your efforts with the broader goals of the business and making decisions that will pay off down the line. You need to understand the market, anticipate customer needs, and position the company to succeed in the long run. Leaders with a long-term vision can navigate tough times and still steer the company toward sustainable growth. Without this forward-thinking approach, short-term wins often don’t last. Revenue leadership is about more than just immediate success; it’s about creating a lasting impact.
Now, there are ALWAYS exceptions to the above. I, too, have left a job after a short time because I made a poor decision in joining a company where I didn’t do enough due diligence on the product and opportunity beforehand. I thought I had done my pre-hire homework, but in hindsight, my excitement about the position and leadership team led me to ignore signals I should have paid more attention to. Everyone makes mistakes, and we all have one or two mulligans in a career. But when we see a pattern of short tenures across multiple roles, recruiters and hiring managers often conclude that the candidate either didn’t perform, lacked the tenacity to manage through challenges, or demonstrated poor judgment repeatedly throughout their career.
We are living in a time where the internet says that job-hopping is more accepted. Simply put, it is not. Success takes time, grit, rigor, and commitment. The best leaders manage through adversity, adapt to change, and influence those around them. Companies would much rather hire a revenue leader with a track record of navigating challenging situations, staying the course to unlock new opportunities, than someone who either rode a wave of success or chose to leave when times got tough.
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