How many career changes will you have by age 50?

I heard recently that the average person will make a job or career change eleven times by the time they reach the age of 50.  If we make the broad assumption that many professionals start their careers after college when they are 22 or 23 years old, that is a job change nearly every 2.5 years.  There are many ways to pick apart this data, but today I simply want to explore one idea - is this a good thing or a bad thing that on average a working professional makes this many job changes by the age of 50?

Let's start with why it may not actually be such a bad thing.  First of all, how many college seniors do you know that are absolutely convinced of the career path they want to take?  I would argue that it is a very low number.  So perhaps this data is skewed because an individual might make 6-7 of those changes very early in their career as they figure out what they want to be when they "grow up".  Then they settle down and after the age of 30 they only have a couple of job changes.

Another reason why it may not be so bad is that an individual might participate in a leadership training program where they spend time in several divisions before finally being pegged to an executive level role.  In the insurance industry for instance you could spend time in underwriting, claims, administration, and much more before finally moving into a higher level management role.  But sitting in each of those chairs early in your career, you will better understand how to manage the overall operation.

Now the downside of frequent job changes is that at first glance your resume may look like you are a job hopper.  That is one of the worst titles you can be labeled with as a job seeker.  You will often be overlooked in the in interview process because it may show a lack of commitment.  If you are a victim of some downsizing or other circumstances that are not performance-related, be sure to list those somehow in the body of a cover letter or even on your resume.  List it as "reason for job change" or something similar.  That gives the reader an opportunity to have an objective glance into why you have made those changes.

Another potential downside/pitfall of frequent job changes is that the individual may have been chasing money, especially earlier in their career.  Some people think that making changes with only money in mind is actually a wise career move.  I believe that it is a terrible idea as it is bound to catch up with you at some point.  I have even spoken with candidates in the past that it backfired so badly that they are now making less money than they were 8-10 years ago.  Be careful what you wish for if you are only chasing dollars.

The bottom line is that regardless of whether you think this is an astounding statistic, you must be prepared for both realities if you find yourself in the middle of the pack on this bell curve.  My professional opinion is that a candidate with fewer job changes and longer average tenure will always trump someone who has had four jobs in the past five years.

Would you agree?