But it’s also in one’s self interest to have a stable relationship with colleagues, being used to an environment, not changing things drastically so frequently.
There is a big, non-monetary cost to job hopping. If life outside of work is not stable, than changing the one constant is suddenly not appealing, even if more money is the reward.
I found that to be the opposite. All of our clients have come to us via word of mouth and all of our initial clients were referrals from past colleagues. Because we jumped around so much we ended up with a very large network of ex colleagues that came to us for help once they knew we were available. As. those colleagues also switched jobs they knew to call us if they needed our help in their new place of employment.
They key is not to stay at one place for a long time but to make an impact during the time you spend there.
This reminds me of Joan in Mad Men where she takes her Rolodex with her when she leaves the company.
It’s your Rolodex/LinkedIn, not the company’s. Also, the relationship between company and employee doesn’t have to be adversarial. A lot of people, and companies forget that.
I appreciate that it worked for you. I don’t want to invalidate your experience. I just want to say that there is a good reason such a large gap exists between the evidence that job hopping is beneficial, and people actually doing it.
I want to point out that a) you have a skillset and job area that is conducive to freelancing and b) that building a network requires networking, which again is something that costs energy and social and communication skills.
These are not a given and should not be treated as a no-cost activity. Especially your last sentence implies a required focus on impact- again, your reward is more money, but there is a cost to doing this at work.