Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

If I were the employer I'd say, that's really nice, please make sure you serve out your two weeks and we'll post the job, she can apply.

Bringing in an outsider for a job on your own initiative can open up your employer to all kinds of nastiness, for instance, maybe there is someone in line for promotion that immediately has a case because the job was never posted.

Really, this will work only very rarely, if you're working for 'bigcorp' x, I'd highly advise against trying a stunt like this.

You also can't just disclose all kinds of stuff to third parties that are not under an employment contract. Even a librarian has access to all kinds of private information. No wonder his boss was a little 'stunned'. What's wrong with talking it over beforehand instead of presenting your boss with a fait-accompli ?

I worked for a company as a co-founder/shareholder in the mid 80's and was in the situation that I too wanted to quit, I talked it over with the owner ('DGA' in dutch, mine was a minority share), suggested that I would talk to a friend of mine, he said, fine, go ahead.

That's the correct sequence.

Incidentally, my friend still works there today!

"If you work for bigcorp x" being the operative term here. If you work in a small business, you know the owner personally, and you know this would be appreciated, knock yourself out. That's a lot of "if's", so the post could've used a lot more context, but in a certain situation I can see doing this.

Even in a smaller corporation I'd be very careful. I try to put myself in the place of the boss there and to have some sysadmin walk up to me and say hey Jacques, I'm leaving today, here is the guy that I trained while you weren't looking, he already has all the passwords and would very much like my job, I can promise you I'd be less than thrilled about it.

There are two things wrong with it, it presumes that it is his right to make these decisions and presents his boss with an impossible situation, either accept and you might have continuity, or don't accept and have an immediate problem.

Master salesmanship to get away with it but not everybody is quite as timid as his boss was there.

I can't find a better term than blackmail, but that isn't quite it because he doesn't expect any payout, maybe someone else has a better term for this, but something really isn't right here.

That decision was simply not his to make.

I call it 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Some of the worst behaviours I have seen have been from people who believed they were being helpful or protective of someone.

This is why all of those conditions need to be true. If you know that your employer will appreciate you doing this, then why not? Of course, it's highly unlikely that you know this to a reasonable certainty unless you ask.

Exactly, you don't know unless you ask. Don't assume, ask.

Do you really want to trust the opinion of someone who has decided you aren't that great to work for anymore? Derek is a special case, but generally speaking that's not a gamble I'd want to make.

Not everyone leaves because they "decide you aren't that great to work for anymore." While it is the overwhelmingly most common reason, something like 20% of departures (that statistic is from memory, so don't take it too seriously) are for reasons that have nothing to do with the employer. Changing priorities, physical moves, interesting opportunities elsewhere, and starting one's own business all play a part.

You make good points. In a company I worked for previously I got more than one of my friends hired, but I did it when the company was actively recruiting and I spoke with my boss extensively at every step.

In the end, I gave my recommendations and scheduled the interviews, but it was my boss that worked out salary and other details with them.

Unless you are the hiring manager and have direct authority to make offers on behalf of the company, never offer anyone a job. Providing a reference and hand carrying the resume to the appropriate hiring manager is as far as you would be wise to go.

He made the mistake of assuming all jobs were like his, so now you are going to respond by assuming all companies are like yours? I don't think mirroring the original logical fallacy helps anything. In some places, what he did is appropriate. In others, it isn't. Observing that different places are different seems a little pointless. It seemed pretty obvious to me that his suggestion was not meant for BigCorps where you're Worker #L24781124 and you have to file in triplicate in order for your quitting to be recognized.

I think that nowhere in the US or any country with similar labour laws would this be appropriate without careful consultation with management.

As pointed out in other posts, the fact he brought in a non-employee and trained her opens up some very nasty legal questions: What if she got hurt during this unofficial nonemployed training? Does the company need to pay her for that training time? I am not a lawyer so I don't have those answers, but I am a manager and know I don't ever want to ask them. I believe it is safe to say that applies to virtually all companies of any size in the US.

Now, what he could have done is, much as Jacquesm described, recommended her the same day he turned in notice and offered to train her. This would have let management make the final decision and get all the papework in order while he still gets to help out a friend by helping her get a job and help out the company by saving them the trouble of finding a replacement on two weeks notice (if they choose to avail themselves of it by hiring her.)

I have taken that second route, and that effort, in full consultation with senior management, has always been appreciated. Actually bringing someone into my workplace and training them would not have been appreciated anywhere I worked (in a couple of them, I would have been criminally prosecuted) and I suspect it would be appreciated by very few if any employers in the US.

Interns and apprenticeships don't exist anywhere in the US? It's essentially the same thing.

There are 2 key differences:

1. Internships and apprenticeships are known about and approved of by management.

2. Internships and apprenticeships are formal working relationships. This means that, depending on circumstances, they often involve the interns being covered under the companies insurance like employees and where appropriate involves NDAs and all other appropriate documents or procedures to protect sensitive information when needed.

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