IT white-collar workers often joke about themselves as "exchanging their lives for money before 40, and exchanging money for their lives after 40". Many IT professionals also lament that "white-collar IT workers are actually IT laborers." A survey shows that nearly eight out of ten IT white-collar workers suffer from various pressures brought by work, including physical and psychological ones. Under the high pressure at work and in life, many IT white-collar workers have experienced job-hopping.
"On one hand, the current job has too much pressure, so we jump jobs to increase our income and make ourselves feel more balanced psychologically; on the other hand, this industry still has a lot of opportunities. A good IT professional will be poached by different IT companies, and job-hopping is a common phenomenon," said Xiao Zhou, who works in technical development at a well-known e-commerce company.
Xiao Zhou told reporters that his company ranks among the top five in the national e-commerce field, so competition inside the company is also very intense. "If you don't perform well, you might get fired by your boss. Therefore, many young people come to work at around 9 in the morning and go home at around 9 in the evening. At home, they just sleep, with little leisure time."
In interviews, reporters also learned that Beijing and Shenzhen are currently the core cities of China's IT industry. Due to its capital advantage and many prestigious universities, Beijing has the most outstanding IT professionals in the country. Therefore, not only do many famous domestic IT companies set up their headquarters in Beijing, but also many foreign companies transfer their IT departments to Beijing. "The reason for doing so is that IT talents in Beijing are excellent and capable, yet the labor cost is lower compared to abroad. So these companies transfer their technical divisions to Beijing and establish a separate technical development center," an IT veteran told reporters.
Thus, facing the work pressure within the industry and numerous job opportunities outside, IT white-collar workers regard job-hopping as commonplace. Many young white-collar workers change jobs after working for one or two years, and some even shorter. The reporter once saw someone say on Weibo: "These days, if you work in IT and don't job-hop, you're a fool."
Huge Pressure Beneath the Halo
As one of the industries with the highest income today, the IT industry has always been seen as a premium industry. Although there have been many claims about the bubble of the IT industry this year, IT work is still considered a decent job by many. However, most of the time, outsiders focus on the industry's halo, while those working in it feel more pressure.
A media comment put it this way: "The biggest thing is the pressure. Pressure is like an incorrigible rogue, a nightmare that won't go away, a long-distance race longer than forever. It destroys the spirit of IT practitioners, making them frustrated or irritable, helpless or depressed, hurting others or destroying themselves."
A website surveyed the most concerning issues and pressures for IT white-collar workers, and the results showed that the biggest pressure does not come from "marriage and love problems" or "solving hunger and survival problems." The top three pressures are "work pressure", "mental health", and "interpersonal relationships", accounting for 57%, 50.6%, and 37.4% respectively.
An insider said that the IT industry was previously seen as a high-income, high-recognition industry, but now the halo is fading, and the psychological gap of IT workers has shaken their initial motivation. In this industry where PCs are sold as cheaply as cabbages and programmers are used like laborers, self-confusion torments the once idealistic IT white-collar workers.
A survey conducted by Computer World among 293 employees from over 20 companies, including Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Baidu, Kingsoft, and Inspur, found that the white-collar class in companies generally feels career exhaustion; irritability, discouragement, and other negative emotions prevail; due to prolonged work pressure, they are suffering from insomnia, headaches, and other physiological pains; some individuals even exhibit extreme behaviors such as "binge eating" and "long walks."
Another survey on the psychological state of IT white-collar workers showed that despite being numb to work, 41.4% of respondents still believe that "work has never reduced my decision-making ability"; 23.5% "are very likely to accept their appearance," and 42.4% choose "somewhat can accept their appearance"; in the survey on "their work ability," 8.2% choose "very satisfied," and 55.6% choose "somewhat satisfied."
Why Do IT Workers from the 80s Generation Jump Jobs?
Because the history of IT industry development is relatively short and belongs to a new-born industry, many IT workers are relatively young, and the post-80s generation is not only an important group but even the backbone force of many IT companies. However, when facing pressure, the mentality of the "post-80s" has no particular advantage because they are young, and their psychology often faces various challenges.
In a network blog article, the reporter saw: "When the work of the post-60s and post-70s generations is relatively stable now, the post-80s are gradually growing up from newcomers in the workplace and can handle tasks independently. Unlike their predecessors who pursue stability, the post-80s are not content with the status quo and often choose to job-hop due to reasons such as salary treatment and development space." Thus, "choosing to job-hop" has become a distinct feature of the post-80s in the IT workplace.
In a survey targeting post-80s white-collar workers from 27 companies across various industries such as law, finance, IT, advertising, and logistics, the turnover rate of post-80s IT white-collar workers was nearly 100%. Another survey showed that the willingness to job-hop among IT professionals in the computer hardware, internet/e-commerce industries reached nine out of ten. Half of the IT professionals felt "development bottleneck," and forty percent were "dissatisfied with their compensation."
Reporters learned in interviews that due to the successful listing of many Chinese IT companies in the United States in 2010, talent competition in this field became extremely fierce, and high salaries were frequently offered. Many IT companies tried all sorts of methods to attract talents, focusing on both how to recruit and retain them. Ultimately, it boiled down to high salaries and favorable working conditions.
An IT manager with 15 years of experience told reporters, "Last year, a master's graduate from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, with merely one year of work experience at Baidu, asked for a monthly salary of 15,000 yuan, which was unimaginable in the past. Many old IT professionals spent ten years moving from a monthly salary of two or three thousand to ten thousand, but now due to talent competition, even young people dare to ask for such a price, and importantly, many companies are willing to hire them."
High-level IT management talents are even scarcer. A human resources manager of an e-commerce company said, "It's very difficult to recruit an e-commerce supervisor now, either because of high prices or insufficient qualifications, and it's also hard for the company to retain people. Once they accumulate some experience, they start jumping to higher-paying companies or get poached by other companies, causing the company's labor costs to rise and the game rules to be disrupted. Indeed, under the temptation of high salaries, few people can remain unmoved."
Although on the surface, the frequent job-hopping in the IT industry seems to be concentrated on reasons such as pressure, salary, opportunity, and talent, in an industry where the post-80s generation is the main force, the deep-seated cause of high-frequency job-hopping may be closely related to the youthfulness of the industry itself. Some analysts pointed out, "On the surface, the IT industry differs greatly from traditional industries. The IT industry is one full of passion and calls for enthusiasm. Its rapidly advancing technology ensures that there are no venerable experts in this field. It never excludes the young; as long as you're willing, you'll be on the same starting line as others. This might be one of the reasons why job-hopping is so prevalent in the IT industry."
Job-Hopping Should Not Be Only for Salary
The last two months of each year, as the year-end approaches, is also the busiest time for IT professionals to job-hop. In a fall job fair held in Beijing in October, whether it's IT companies or the IT department of a certain company, they are all in urgent need of talents. Among the various job seekers at the fair, there are many "experienced professionals" who graduated years ago, and IT job seekers dominate.
However, many IT professionals job-hop solely for the sake of salary. According to a survey by 51job on "job-hopping in 2011," 69.1% of job hoppers are seeking better pay, and 31.4% hope for a raise of 50%-100%, while 16.7% expect their salary to double or more.
Career experts from 51job believe that frequent job-hopping solely for a raise is actually a slow destruction of one's career. Only by learning truly core skills in the same position and then enhancing one's value through job-hopping is a responsible behavior towards oneself and the company. Experience does not equate to expertise, and having only a price tag without substance means you are destined to experience another brief and failed job.
An IT professional said, "For IT white-collar workers, job-hopping for salary is a normal phenomenon, but it is also necessary to accumulate work experience and strengthen professional capabilities. The IT industry updates very quickly, and practitioners must keep learning new knowledge to avoid being eliminated. When necessary, it is essential to attend IT training courses during free time to maintain competitiveness."
Regarding IT professionals' job-hopping, an industry expert gave a "four-step" suggestion: First, prepare fully. Before job-hopping, carefully consider and comprehensively analyze your strengths and weaknesses, thinking about whether you are suitable as a technical talent, sales talent, or management talent. Second, design your current career positioning based on your life plan, i.e., your career goal, such as whether your next step is to become a senior programmer or a project manager. After determining your career goal, the critical step is how to achieve your career positioning. Finally, choose the right target company and position according to the improvement of your own strength, aim accurately, and strive to hit the mark.