Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Will “Throw A Resume In The Garbage” For the Stupidest Reason

An article on CNBC spotlighted “Mr. Wonderful” Kevin O’Leary from the Shark Tank reality TV show sharing his perspective on getting a resume from a candidate who seems to be “bouncing all over the place.” He calls these multiple job changes a “red flag” and talks about how companies that spend significant time and resources to train their team members should treat anyone who has had multiple jobs as a flight risk. This is just plain stupid.

Of course no company wants someone who will leave after just a few months. But why would you want someone to stay in a job that they hate for two years just to punch an imaginary clock? And if you’re the one with the job you hate, why would you want to waste that much of your life suffering? Zappos famously paid people to leave. They wanted to make sure someone who wasn’t a fit didn’t suffer for the long term. It worked out pretty well for them.

Hiring is tough, and sometimes you hire the wrong person. But people who have jumped from job to job might have a perfectly good reason that has nothing to do with professional promiscuity. Maybe they are a caregiver for someone at home and needed more flexibility. Perhaps they worked with multiple startups that went under, through no fault of their own. The point is, dismissing a great prospective employee simply for having “too many” jobs within a span of time is like not reading a great article because it has too many words. Lazy and stupid.