How should I respond when asked in an interview, "Seems like you've hopped a bit from job to job. Is long term not your thing, or are you just super popular?"

This is not an unusual career history. In fact, it's pretty good. No back-steps, nothing less than 6 months, no obvious got-fired cases, no reputation problems. One impersonal layoff is not a big deal, and your job tenures are shorter than average but not at the extreme. Let me pick this out: In hindsight, I believe I was overly-eager, overly-ambitious and immature; I was too focused on the 'new' and the 'better' and 'higher-paying' than realizing what growth opportunity and great people I had in front of me. Don't view it that way. That's ridiculous, and it only hurts you. You should feel absolutely no guilt about this. Did you steal? Lie? Hurt people? No, you did not. You left an at-will employment relationship on your own terms. There's nothing wrong with being "overly ambitious". It's not a virtue to linger around a company, in a mediocre role that increasingly fails to make sense with time, for 8 years. You can't let people throw guilt on you for being a "butterfly". I doubt that any of these companies made any above-board efforts to keep you, so you left. If they're not willing to let you advance as fast as you are learning, then what else are you supposed to do? They fucked up by not seeing what you were capable of doing, and thereby not allowing you to graduate to a better role. This happens in most companies. "Familiarity breeds contempt." They got used to having you around and took you for granted and didn't bring you along as fast as you could go. Personally, I hate the "job hopping" stigma. Management holds all the power, so there are only 3 pieces of leverage an employee really has: Leaving a job, usually for a better one. Telling others not to work there (disparagement, or "bad-mouthing"). (Extreme cases.) Suing an employer for wrongful termination, constructive dismissal, or harassment. Employers have created a game where all of these tools are despised. People who do (1) too often are "job hoppers", and those who use (2) and (3) can become unemployable, even though there are plenty of cases where these are the right things to do. It's ridiculous. There are a lot of terrible companies and negligent managers out there and if someone tells me that he's had 4 jobs in 6 years because none of his employers did a decent job of keeping him, I'm inclined to believe him. So what do you want to say? You want to make it clear that each of these jobs were logical next steps. You didn't run away because you were about to be fired or had made enemies, and you aren't the flaky sort of person who gets bored every 6 months and needs a new environment. Use the term "project-focused" to describe your career. You actually like to finish things. You get things done. (That's rare in the corporate world. Not only are there a lot of people who are constitutionally incapable of shipping, but there are plenty of managers who, on account of risk aversion and inconsistency, make it extremely hard to do so. The person who can actually finish something is uncommon and desirable.) The consequence of getting things done is that you start looking for harder and more interesting things to do. This is an understandable narrative. You're not some careerist social climber who will change colors for a 5% raise, but you are improvement-focused and constantly seeking challenges. Now, it's happened in the past few years that this has involved moving to other companies. That's also understandable: there isn't a lot of interesting work to go around in most companies, especially at junior levels. Don't put it so baldly as, "They weren't giving me interesting work", because now you're getting into internal politics, you sound entitled, and it raises questions. Just say that there didn't seem to be anything available that was as interesting as the project that you moved on to. If I were to come up with a model response to this, which you should adapt to your own history, it'd be something like this: "I've had a project-oriented career. I would love to spend 10 years at one company, but I learn fast and I often become frustrated when there is no room to grow. I've had some interesting projects and done great work on them, but often when I finish one, I've found that the next step is sometimes in another company. If that weren't the case, I'd gladly stay with the same company." Then discuss the specific transitions and why each one was a step up. If there's a step down (possibly a layoff, or a bad choice) and it's obvious, then call it "a mistake". You made a choice, and it was the wrong one, and you've learned from it. Never use the words "layoff", "fired", or even "quit". You were a high performer who always received strong reviews (even if that wasn't true, it now is) and you left one job and moved to another.

I think the outline you give in your question details is perfectly reasonable. You had one  lousy position anyone would leave, one that you outgrew, one successful exit, and one layoff. As long as you have a valid reason to leave each one (or for it to leave you, as it were), and you're showing a steady upward trajectory, you can just say what you said above.

The worry behind such a question from an interviewer is that you will run away from them quickly as well. But the question makes sense as well: hiring managers (at our best) want to understand the story that your job moves tells.  Judging from your account of your job hops above, the story here is: "I'm looking for opportunities to work on tough projects with cutting edge technology, and I expect to be paid well for my hard work."  Unless this current guy you're applying to wants someone who wants to slack off on yesterday's technology, answering something along these lines should pique his interest. In any case, figure out what the story is that their career moves tells, and tell them that story.  If it's a good story, you can't miss.

I can give the answer given to that exact question by a co-worker. It's an informal translation from french, henceforth it's not the exact wording, but you should get the idea: At first I worked for an IT Service reseller that sent me to perform short term contracts to customers. It occured to me that going through an intermediate was useless and I started direct contract negotiations with end customers, I earned more money and had eleven missions of 2 to 6 month length for a 4 years period. I learned much that way, but now I'm looking for another kind of job more long term. Of course the explanation can be different for different people. But 11 missions over 4 years still looks like quite much to my eyes. Anyway that was not the slightest problem for him to answer that.

Have you actually been asked something like the question in your example? Being at a job for 1 to 2 years and then moving on doesn't seem abnormal to me, at least in the software industry.  Startups come and go, they get acquired, etc.  If I were looking at a resume and saw some job hops like that, I might inquire about it, but wouldn't be overly concerned.  The way you described it in your comment seems perfectly reasonable to me. I'll put it this way.  If I saw someone who seemed really smart & talented, and they had changed jobs in the way you describe, I'd happily hire them.  Maybe it would be off-putting to hiring managers who work at companies where most employees spend 10+ years there.  But that doesn't sound like what you're looking for anyway.

Honestly. Don't look for canned responses. It seems like you left for good or acceptable reasons. What companies are watching out for is: - career hoppers who are trigger happy about switch jobs, after an immediate pay bump and whatnot; - people who run from solvable problems rather than facing them. If one falls into one of those categories it's a wasted investment from the company's part. It takes time, on average, for a professional to ramp up and be productive. Leaving before paying off is seen as a BadThingâ„¢ for good reasons. It's dishonest and unfair to tricking the company into believing one is a good investment when one is not. Note: not everybody who falls into those category are aware of it.

While the sarcastic note that accompanies this question is unique to the specific interviewer you spoke with, the question itself is not. Job hopping today is not uncommon. In fact, the average American worker stays at his or her job a mere 4.4 years on average. Younger workers’ stays are even shorter; the average is fewer than three years. But that doesn’t make those involved in the hiring process feel more at ease about hiring candidates who tend to leave jobs quickly. After all, it costs a great deal to hire and train new employees. Your response to this interviewer’s question should be something along these lines: While I am a great person to have around the office, my people skills has little to do with my lengthy resume. I left my previous positions quickly for a variety of reasons. For example, I left my job at XYZ company because it was acquired by “Big Company,” and I decided helping build startups, like your company, is my passion. Also offer to provide more detail about why you left your other positions quickly, but keep it positive. (Don’t say you left your first job because your pay was terrible.) And remember, whether your next interview is in person or is a video interview, keep your answers short and sweet and engage in two-way conversation.

Hiring managers who ask questions like this usually use it as a defense mechanism thinking that a candidate who has short tenures at different places means that s/he could be a flight risk. While that may or may not be true, candidates such as you need to realize that it is just as much up to the hiring manager to do what s/he can do to keep a candidate as well as the other way around. Once you hear a question like that, the best approach is to explain in the best possible light that you provided significant value in your relatively short period of time there (provide tangible examples as well), moved on to bigger and better things and are looking to find a place to call "home". Remember, this is not the time for you to bash your former company or your boss -- even if your job was the most boring job ever, your boss made Leona Helmsley seem like Mother Theresa and the like, you will be the one who comes off poorly. From there, I would ask the hiring manager to explain why s/he felt you were a job hopper and why s/he felt that way. Not only that, I would go so far as to ask why you should work there? Remember, it's important to remember that a job interview is meant to be a two way dialog. If your prospective boss can't do that, then trying to convince her/him that you are the right candidate is a futile endeavor. Think about it, even if you are hired, you already are already have one strike against you. This is never a good thing, which generally means that you may have to go through the same stress again in relatively short order. Good luck!