That's nonsense. There are a lot of reasons that a first (or any) job isn't a fit, and a whole lot of them aren't caused by the employee's negative traits.

Just to name a few: the job description didn't match the actual job, overbearing managers, overbearing coworkers, uninteresting work, a better offer elsewhere, changing interests, or - just like OP - the employee feels like he would grow his talents better elsewhere. I have been in the same situation and employers have understood and respected my decision.

Those are exactly the kinds of answers a quitter would give though. "Oh, my managers were overbearing." "Oh, I wasn't interested in the work."

This career's not easy. This career's not always fun. There's strong personalities all over. Sometimes the going gets tough, how do I know this person's going to get going or just get gone?

Yeah. My baseline assumption is that people need 1-3 years after graduation before just getting their heads screwed on straight--there are definitely exceptions to this, but not as often as the average 24 year-old would have you believe.

Spending less than a year in the first job would be a red-flag for me, and it would take the candidate offering some very persuasive reasons for having left for me to give the serious consideration.

To be fair, it does happen. I interviewed a kid once for what would have been his third job, and he had a six month stint on his resume for his first job, so I asked and turned out the company went bust, so that's totally fair.

But "I wanted to do something cooler" isn't going to cut it, because how do I know they won't find something cooler six more months down the road.

One friend suggested putting a reason for leaving on anything shorter than 1 year. That way, you can actually say that the company went bust :D

So why is it OK for a company to "fire fast", but it's not OK for an employee to fire a company fast? Wouldn't you see a company that fired an employee before a year as a quitter?

Where did I say it's ok for a company to "fire fast"? (unless the person is an absolute fuckup or refuses to shower or creeps on people or ...) Hiring and onboarding take a lot of resources,

If the environment is hateful and you're going home in tears every night and hitting the grolsch a little too often then yeah you gotta do what you gotta do, but that's how things are.

You didn't say anything of the sort; I apologize for sloppy writing. I had in mind the general asymmetric attitude we in society hold about employers and employees, and the lean, move fast mindset that gets a lot of attention here on HN.

We generally look more closely at employees who quit or are let go quickly, but we don't treat the involved companies with the same level of scrutiny.

It's hard to actually do that, because employers don't provide a company resume at the interview that details the list of employees that they've worked with, and the accomplishments related to those employees that show off the company's skill and responsibility. I also don't recall ever seeing a company give references to a prospective employee; at best, a candidate might get some cheer leading from a colleague who's a current employee.

That's silly. New grads have even less information to pick companies and industries than they do to do the job. It's really common for a new grad to get stuck in a bad job or a bad fit simply because at that age you don't really know what you want.

If you have someone who makes it to 35 and doesn't have a stint more than a couple years, then you have a quitter. But it's really common for new grads today to have 3-4 jobs in their first couple years out of college, then a longer stint of 4-5 years as they find their footing.

I left my first job before a year at an extremely large software shop. It did not kill my career; just accelerated it.

The most important thing at any job in software is to always feel that you are improving as well as contributing to the organization's goals. The latter is often true, but the former is your part of the bargain. We are fortunate to live in a world where employment is high and you can and will find a job where those two needs are met. Take advantage of that because no matter how "great" of a culture the organization that employs you has, if they don't offer you constant improvement and opportunity, you are at an economic loss that can affect your career much more than it will affect their future.