Personnel turnover has to be the bane of life as a contractor in the DC area. As soon as you get somebody hired and trained, they’re out the door, taking the life of the project that they started with them. I think the average is less than a year.

I’m really rare. I’ve worked with the same company for 4.5 years. That’s an eternity in the environment I’m in. Granted I took a “little vacation” to “someplace sunny” in 1994, but still, I came back.

There are a couple of reasons that we have such a high turnover rate in the area:

• The demand is high and the supply of good security people is low. That means that the salaries are going up just as fast.
• Because salaries are so high, there is a very sizeable gap between entry-level positions and the top positions. HR raise formulas don’t compensate for this, so the only way to get a good salary increase year after year is to job-hop.
• Key personnel change at your company? No problem, you can very easily land somewhere more friendly. There isn’t much encouragement to stick around and work out your differences.

Like I say all the time, there are 2 job markets for me as a security professional: DC and the rest of the world.

As for why I’ve been at the same place for over 4 years, well, I hop around from project to project and site to site inside the company. In some ways, I’m letting the staffing burn rate make opportunities for me.

• Backhanded Compliments
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• A Little Advice From Mike and Lee
• Milestones
• Taking a Cue From Hermey the Elf