Shaadi.com founder and Shark Tank India judge Anupam Mittal has weighed into the ongoing debate around Gen Z job-hopping, calling out what he describes as “career gurus” for shaming young professionals who switch roles frequently in their early 20s.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Mittal argued that frequent job changes at the start of one’s career should be viewed as exploration rather than instability. According to him, early career years are meant for discovering passions, testing industries, and understanding workplace cultures.
“Early in our careers, we’re essentially dating industries, roles, and cultures to find what fits,” Mittal wrote, adding that young professionals should not feel guilty about moving on if a role doesn’t align with their interests.
However, the entrepreneur drew a clear line between early experimentation and long-term inconsistency. Mittal said that while exploration is healthy in the early 20s, prolonged job-hopping later can become a red flag—especially for senior leadership roles.
“When I’m hiring for senior leadership or Level 1 roles, I almost always reject resumes that don’t show at least one four-to-five-year stint,” he said.
Explaining his reasoning, Mittal pointed out that the real impact of professional decisions often becomes visible only after several years. “Year one is about learning, year two is execution, and year three is dealing with the consequences of those decisions—and scaling what worked,” he noted.
Based on his experience as a founder and investor, Mittal outlined a simple career framework — one should explore aggressively and even switch roles, if needed, and identify what they genuinely enjoy when they are 21-24 years old.
Mittal added that when you are aged 25 and above, you should commit to a company or role worth investing in and build depth over four or more years.
He also linked long-term commitment to leadership readiness, stating that aspiring founders and CEOs must demonstrate the ability to stay through challenging phases. “You need to prove you can stay in the kitchen when it gets hot,” he said.
He concluded by emphasising that while it may take a year to understand a job, it takes three to five years to truly understand an industry—“and that’s when you really start to win.”
