MIT MBA Student: Amazon and Microsoft Are Hiring, Google and Yahoo Aren’t | Hacker News Reader

MIT MBA Student: Amazon and Microsoft Are Hiring, Google and Yahoo Aren’t

xconomy.com

26 pointsgthuang7 comments

It makes sense to be hiring if you have work for people to do and the money to pay them. Take Amazon, if they are able to swim during this period where their competitors are treading water, they'll have a significant advantage when things pick up again. Likewise, labor is cheap right now (comparatively). Workers don't bargain as hard for salary because they don't think they can get another job. Often workers who get jobs in a down economy have lower earnings for years because the raises they get are likely to be based off that original, low salary for years to come - they might even start thinking that's the going rate for people in their position.

Google and Yahoo's profits aren't the same as Amazon and Microsoft's. They're probably more elastic as people rely on their free stuff rather than paying up. For example, we're no longer buying AdWords to my knowledge and rather just hoping people find us through regular search. Likewise, I'm sure the market for Google's premium $50/user Google Apps has dried as people use the free version that's almost the same.

It's tough times, but if you can see what needs to be done and have the money to do it now, you'll put yourself in a good position later.

Amazon and Microsoft are billion dollar companies that sell products and services. Google and Yahoo are billion dollar companies that sell ads and services.

It would be irresponsible for Google or Yahoo to hire MBA's right now when both companies are uncertain about the profits they normally see.

Buy cheap, sell high... now's the time to hire great people for cheap, if you have the cash... I'm surprised that Google isn't hiring much - or perhaps it's just MBAs that they aren't hiring.

The problem with the 'sell high' part is that you don't get to, uh, sell. If an MBA usually goes for $120K, and he accepts $80K this year because it's that or nothing, what happens two years from now if the market recovers? Does he a) get a 50% raise, or b) get another job, and force you to hire someone new?

True. But you're not really "buying" either. You pay this MBA $80K, and he adds a certain amount of value (presumably more than $80K). It's all dividends. There's very little fixed cost (training, a couple weeks to get up to speed) that could be considered as "buying".

There's very little fixed cost

I think that's a big mistake. Getting used to people at the company, learning about the industry, learning new technology, developing new skills in general -- all of these are investments with a long-term (multi-year) payoff.

I think one way you should reconsider your statement is to invert it: how will a company behave different if they can only make investments in their employees that pay off in one year? Two years? Ten years? Japanese companies (still) train people knowing that they can afford to take a loss on them for the first couple years, and recoup it later.

Your suspicion is correct. I just got hired by Google as a new grad software engineer. New grads might have a better shot in situations like this, because they are cheaper. Many companies made the mistake of not hiring them during the last recession, and paid the price. Also, with companies like Google, it's always a crapshoot as to what kind of person they are looking for at a given time. A friend of mine who I thought had a better shot than myself didn't make it.

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