Inspired by the LinkedIn Learning course Creating an Alliance with Employees with linked In Founder Reid Hoffman 

A generation ago, people would work for one company their entire working life. No longer, people switch jobs and functions altogether, and Companies don’t usually expect or indeed even want employees to work their entire working lives at their company. 

LinkedIn research found a steep increase in job hopping with each new generation. People who graduated college from 1986 to 1990 averaged 1.6 jobs in their first five years out of school, and just one more job in the following five years. Compare that to people who graduated college between 2006 and 2010, who averaged 2.85 jobs in their first five years out of school.

However at the typical job interview – there is this charade of the Employee saying they want to be there forever and the company saying they want them to be there forever, making these conversations fundamentally dishonest from the start! .

So what should a job interview conversation look like?

What the company should say to the employee is 

“I’m going to invest no longer in your lifetime employment, but in your lifetime employability,” 

And what the employee should say to the company is, 

“look, I know that I may be here for a long time. I may be here for a small number of years. But, either way, I should make my time here transformative to the company, where what I did really matters for how the company evolves.”

Rather ensure  a lifelong relationship between the two. “An alliance” 

“The Alliance is a framework for attracting, retaining and managing incredibly entrepreneurial employees, the kind of people who are gonna drive your business forward and transform it, as they transform their own careers,” Says Reid Hoffman founder of Linked In 

So forget about lifetime employment – the research shows 18-month employment is more like it!

 By both sides refusing to admit what’s really on their mind, it turns their relationship into a transactional one, which often ends within a few  

If the Alliance is adopted, your organization will invariably see an uptick in both employee engagement and quality-of-hire, with employees feeling empowered to have honest conversations with their managers.

What do you think?