You open a resume for a Senior Controls Engineer.

The technical skills section looks fantastic. They list Rockwell Studio 5000, Siemens TIA Portal, Ignition SCADA, and Fanuc Robotics. They have worked on beverage lines, automotive assembly cells, and pharmaceutical packaging.

Then you scroll down to the "Work History" section.

• 2025 - Present: Company A (6 months)
• 2024 - 2025: Company B (8 months)
• 2023 - 2024: Company C (9 months)
• 2022 - 2023: Company D (11 months)

Your internal HR recruiter has likely already flagged this as a "Do Not Hire." They see a pattern of instability. They see a candidate who lacks loyalty. They see a flight risk who will take your signing bonus and leave in six months for a dollar more an hour.

In many industries, they would be right. In accounting or marketing, four jobs in four years is a major red flag.

But in industrial automation, this assumption is dangerous.

By automatically rejecting this resume, you might be throwing away a "Super-User." You might be rejecting a highly skilled "Mercenary" who has successfully commissioned more machines in four years than your internal staff has commissioned in twenty.

The gig economy hit manufacturing long before Uber existed. There is an entire subculture of elite automation engineers who chase projects, not careers. They are the "Road Warriors" who fly in for a plant launch, work 80 hours a week to get the line running, and then fly out to the next challenge once the boring maintenance work begins.

This guide will teach you how to decode the automation resume. We will show you how to distinguish between the toxic "Job Hopper" (who leaves when things get hard) and the high-value "Contractor" (who leaves when the job is done).

The Profile of the Toxic Job Hopper

Let’s start by validating your fears. There are absolutely candidates you should avoid. The "Toxic Job Hopper" creates chaos, drains training resources, and destroys team morale.

Here is how to spot them.

1. The "Grass is Greener" Narrative When you ask this candidate why they left their last three jobs, the answer is always external.

• "The boss was a micromanager."
• "The drive to work was too long."
• "They didn't give me the raise I wanted."

They are chasing comfort. Industrial automation is uncomfortable by nature. It involves loud noises, weird hours, and high pressure. The Toxic Hopper leaves the moment the pressure spikes.

2. The "Mid-Project" Exit Look closely at the dates on the resume. Did they leave in the middle of a major capital project? If they list "Lead Engineer for New Paint Shop Launch" but they only worked there for seven months, that is a red flag. A paint shop launch takes eighteen months. Leaving at month seven means they likely quit during the hardest phase of commissioning. They left their team stranded.

3. The Skill Stagnation Despite having five jobs in five years, their skills haven't grown. They are doing the exact same entry-level PLC troubleshooting at Job #5 that they were doing at Job #1. This indicates they are jumping to reset expectations because they cannot perform at a higher level.

The Profile of the Elite Contractor

Now let’s look at the candidate who looks the same on paper but is actually a superstar.

The "Elite Contractor" or "Project Engineer" views employment differently. They are not looking for a 401k match or a gold watch. They are looking for technical complexity and overtime pay.

1. The "Mission Accomplished" Narrative When you ask this candidate why they left, the answer is about completion.

• "The line hit 98% OEE and passed the Site Acceptance Test (SAT)."
• "The commissioning phase ended, and the role transitioned to maintenance support. I wanted to build the next machine, not maintain this one."

This is a valid reason. High-level creators get bored with maintenance. If you have a chaotic startup environment, this is exactly the person you want.

2. The "Start-to-Finish" Timeline Look at the dates again. Do they align with typical project lifecycles?

• Job A (9 months): This aligns perfectly with a single machine install.
• Job B (18 months): This aligns perfectly with a full production line launch.

If they stayed until the SAT was signed off, they didn't quit. They finished.

3. The Agency Paper Trail Often, these engineers are not actually employees of the companies listed. They are employees of a staffing agency or a system integrator, but they list the "End Client" on their resume to show industry relevance.

• Resume says: "Controls Engineer at Tesla."
• Reality: They were a contractor employed by "Generic Staffing Corp" working on-site at Tesla.

This is not deception. It is shorthand. They want you to know they know the Tesla spec.

Visual Clues: How to Scan the Resume

You don't have to wait for the interview to spot the difference. There are visual clues on the document itself that reveal the nature of their employment.

The "Contract" Parentheses Smart contractors know that job hopping looks bad. They will usually label their roles clearly.

• Controls Engineer (Contract) – Ford Motor Company
• Project Engineer (Consultant) – Amazon Web Services

If you see the word "Contract," "Consultant," or "Project," give them the benefit of the doubt.

The "Project" Section vs. "Experience" Section A traditional employee lists chronological employment. A contractor often lists a "Project Portfolio" first. They might list:

• Project: Battery Cell Assembly Line (Austin, TX)
• Project: Conveyor Retrofit (Louisville, KY)

This formatting signals that they think in terms of deliverables, not tenure.

The Relocation Pattern Look at the geography.

• Job 1: Michigan
• Job 2: Texas
• Job 3: Georgia
• Job 4: South Carolina

A Toxic Job Hopper rarely moves cross-country four times in four years just because they are bored. That is expensive and stressful. A candidate with this geography is almost certainly a "Road Warrior" following the major construction booms (automotive, EV batteries, logistics). This indicates high resilience and a willingness to go where the work is.

The "System Integrator" Exception

There is one specific scenario where short tenure is normal even for permanent employees: System Integration (SI).

System Integrators are the firms that build the machines for the manufacturers. The pace at an SI is grueling. Engineers travel 50% to 80% of the time. They work 60-hour weeks. Burnout is rampant.

The average tenure for a Controls Engineer at a high-volume System Integrator is often only 18 to 24 months.

If you see a candidate who worked at a known "churn and burn" integrator for two years and then left, do not view that as instability. View that as a "Badge of Honor."

It means they survived the boot camp. They likely learned more in those two years than a plant engineer learns in ten. If they left to find better work-life balance at your plant, that is a stable, logical career move.

The Interview Strategy: Verification Questions

Once you decide to interview a "jumpy" candidate, you need to verify your hunch. You need to determine if they are running toward a challenge or running away from a problem.

Here are three specific questions to ask.

Question 1: "Who signed your paycheck?"

This is the ultimate clarifier.

• Candidate: "Oh, I was actually employed by Aerotek, but I sat at the GM desk."
• You: "Okay, so you were a contract employee. Was it a defined-term contract?"
• Candidate: "Yes, it was a 12-month contract, and we finished in 10."

Verdict: Green Flag. They didn't quit; the contract ended.

Question 2: "Did you stay for the SAT?"

The Site Acceptance Test (SAT) is the holy grail of automation projects. It is the moment the customer signs the document saying the machine works and they accept ownership.

• You: "You left Company B after 9 months. Had the machine passed SAT before you left?"
• Candidate: "No, we were still debugging the safety circuit. I got a better offer so I left."

Verdict: Red Flag. Leaving before SAT means they abandoned the team during the "crunch time." They lack completion integrity.

Question 3: "Tell me about the team you left behind."

Toxic hoppers burn bridges.

• You: "If I called your manager at that 6-month job, what would they say?"
• Candidate: "They would say I did great work, but they ran out of budget for the project." vs.
• Candidate: "They would probably be mad because I left on short notice, but they were unreasonable anyway."

Verdict: Listen for accountability. Contractors usually leave on good terms because the industry is small. Hoppers leave a trail of angry ex-bosses.

The Risk/Reward Calculation

Hiring a contractor-type personality into a permanent role does carry risk.

They might get bored. If your plant is running smoothly and the only work is routine maintenance, the "Mercenary" will be miserable. They crave the adrenaline of the startup.

However, if you are planning a major expansion, a retrofit, or a new line launch, the "Mercenary" is exactly who you need.

They have seen fifty different plants. They know fifty different ways to program a servo. They bring "cross-pollinated" ideas from other industries that your long-term staff will never have.

The Strategy: If you like the candidate but fear the flight risk, structure the offer accordingly.

• Offer a "Completion Bonus": Instead of a signing bonus, offer a bonus payable after the successful launch of the new line.
• Be Honest About the Role: Tell them: "Look, the next 18 months are going to be chaotic and exciting. After that, it will get boring. If you give me 18 months of great work, I will help you find your next project."

Honesty builds loyalty.

Conclusion: Don't let the Algorithm Decide

In 2025, many Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are set up to automatically reject resumes with gaps or short tenures.

If you are relying on these algorithms, you are filtering out the best talent in the industrial automation sector. You are filtering out the experts who built the Gigafactories. You are filtering out the road warriors who know how to fix a down machine at 2 AM because they have done it in ten different states.

You have to read between the lines.

Look for the project mindset. Look for the completion of the mission. Look for the technical depth that comes from exposure to variety.

If you can separate the "Mercenary" from the "Hopper," you will build a team that is battle-tested and ready for anything.

Need help decoding the resumes?

We look at thousands of automation resumes every month. We know which "job hops" are actually successful project completions, and which ones are red flags. We verify the "Site Acceptance Test" history of every candidate we represent.

If you want to see candidates who are vetted for their completion integrity, not just their keyword density, let us help you build your shortlist.