I would have to say one of the biggest problems that job candidates have today is movement on their resume. Regardless to what skills you possess, or the fact that you passed your CPA exam at the first sitting, clients want to see stability on a resume. They want to make sure if they invest in you that you are going to stay with them and not split for the next passing ship. Whenever we submit a candidate who has been with a company for a short period of time or with a series of companies for a short period of time, we always have to explain the movement in detail and “justify” why our client should consider them. We back it up with references in great detail or we move on.
When you get out of school you should really plan to stay with your first job for about three to five years before making a move. If you happen to have a lot of movement on your resume you need to make sure you can explain the movement to a hiring manager during an interview. If you are one of those job candidates that has a new job every one and half years, well you are going to find the next five years extremely difficult and even frustrating due to the lack of interest companies will have in you.
Now when I was a job candidate back many many years ago, I was the last person to be able to speak about job movement. I had more jobs than anyone I knew except my friend Vinny. Both of us today are self employed and we knew that we would be one day; it was just a matter of time. We could not work for anyone else because we just had that entrepreneurial spirit that wouldn’t go away. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I could be a good employee, well it just wasn’t going to happen. Ceilings are meant to be in a building structure not in personal income.
My suggestion if you fall into the category of “job hopper” is that you need to stay where you are and put a good four to six years at your current job. Suck it up and further your education at night. You can always chalk up the movement as a time of immaturity!