Anupam Mittal backs Gen Z on job hopping, says it isn’t failure but how modern careers are built

Every generation finds a new way to disappoint its elders. For Gen Z, that supposed failure comes with a familiar accusation: they don’t stay long enough. Switch jobs too quickly, and the verdict arrives swiftly, unserious, entitled, unreliable. “Job hopping” is spoken of as a moral flaw. Anupam Mittal thinks that judgment is lazy.

The founder and CEO of People Group and Shaadi(dot)com is not interested in defending short attention spans or impulsive exits. What he is questioning is the assumption that young professionals owe permanence before they have clarity. In a work culture obsessed with loyalty, Mittal is asking a quieter, more uncomfortable question: Loyal to what, exactly? He shared his views through a LinkedIn post.

The mistake of expecting certainty at 22

Mittal’s argument cuts against a deeply ingrained idea that careers should stabilise early, preferably before confusion sets in. But he points out the obvious flaw in that expectation. In your early twenties, you are not meant to know who you are professionally. You are meant to find out.

Switching jobs during this phase is not betrayal. It is experimentation. It is how young people learn what kind of work excites them, what kind drains them, and what kind of environment quietly erodes ambition. Staying put out of fear does not build character; it builds resentment.

The real danger, Mittal suggests, is not movement; it is forcing stillness before understanding.

Why early careers resemble dating, not marriage

Mittal reaches for a metaphor that feels uncomfortably accurate. Early careers, he says, are not marriages. They are dates.

Young professionals are meeting industries, roles, teams, and cultures for the first time. Some feel right. Many don’t. When something doesn’t fit, leaving is not a lack of commitment, it is self-awareness.

There is honesty in this framing. Dating is how people learn what they value. Careers, in their early years, serve the same purpose. Expecting lifelong devotion at the first job is not maturity; it is denial.

The moment when movement must slow down

But Mittal is not romantic about endless motion. His view is not an endorsement of permanent restlessness. Exploration, he argues, has an expiry date.

The early twenties, roughly 21 to 24, are for trying widely. After that, something must change. From the mid-twenties onward, the work shifts from searching to building. That is when commitment begins to matter, not because hopping is suddenly immoral, but because depth requires time.

Staying longer is how professionals learn to sit with consequences, not just beginnings. It is where responsibility replaces novelty.

Why leaders still look for long stints

Mittal is candid about how this philosophy plays out when he hires. For senior leadership roles, he looks for evidence of endurance, at least one meaningful stretch of four to five years in a single organisation. Without it, something is missing. Not ambition, but accountability

Leadership is not about how often you start. It is about what you stay long enough to fix, improve, or finish. Growth, he reminds us, comes from seeing decisions through, including the uncomfortable ones.

A more generous way to read Gen Z careers

What Mittal is really pushing back against is not job hopping, but impatience, society’s impatience with young people figuring themselves out in public.

Careers today are messier, less predictable, and far less forgiving than they once were. Gen Z is not rejecting commitment; it is postponing it until it makes sense.

The mistake is not switching early. The mistake is never knowing when to stop exploring and start owning the path you’ve chosen. In that distinction lies the difference between drifting, and growing.
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