How Zenefits just lost an engineer
medium.com
medium.com
Even if Zenefits turns into a unicorn, in a couple of years they'll get bought out, have an IPO, or turn into a completely different work environment. It's ridiculous to expect an employee to act like they're going to work at Zenefits their whole career.
There are a lot of lazy hiring managers out there. If you get a good job or good school on your resume, they'll assume you're highly skilled instead of doing their own evaluation of you. (I have the opposite problem. Having only had lousy jobs, I have a hard time getting people to take me seriously. With a marquee name, I'd certainly be doing a lot better.)
As I get older, I'm getting better at recognizing toxic situations. It's a lot better to walk away during the interview phase, instead of working there and being forced to move on again quickly.
There is a difference between "I'll be there for you" and "I'm job hopping".
I've been a hiring manager in the valley for over 20 years. Biggest red flag is people who last less than a year or two at each job. Maybe I'm old but weeding those people out has never been a bad choice in retrospect. Not once.
How could you know that?
It turned into one ~2 days ago [1].
[1] http://recode.net/2015/05/06/startup-zenefits-raises-500-mil...
It's debatable whether or not he should have publicly rescinded the offer. But after he did, "the die is cast".
The CEO should have had the guts to not edit his post. Especially after there were headlines linking to the article, explaining what the CEO did, and yet the CEO's words were gone. Very confusing.
Some other discussions about this:
Therefore, the most important thing about a job (after acceptable pay and benefits), is how well it's preparing you for you next job.
If your only focus is on how you get to make more money, you are doing it wrong. You'll make more money if you make your company make more money. When they don't reward you for making that money, it's time to move on.
Can see where both sides are coming from but sounds like they lost a good one.
I know there are plenty of people out there for whom life is relationships and hobbies, and career is a way of subsidizing life. That's a totally respectable set of priorities. There are also a lot of people, especially in the startup world, who want more from their career than a comfortable job and a paycheck. It's not crazy for a founder to seek out candidates who are motivated by those other more enduring (and cheaper!) factors of love of the team and belief in the mission.
To each their own but if I was interviewing someone who was already talking about how they really want to go work somewhere else - I'd say exactly what he said. Go apply there.
Bringing someone into a sustainable business is an investment. They aren't going to show up and be a rock star on day 1, it doesn't work that way. They are going to show up and have to learn how things work at that company and figure out how to fit in and make a difference in that context. That takes time. Learn the code, learn the process, learn the people, learn the customers. Who does that in a day? Nobody. A new employee is maybe useful in a year or so in the world I know. As a hiring manager I know I'm going to use up a year or so of salary before I get any return on my investment. I don't expect people to stay around forever but I want them to stay around long enough that it works out for everyone. This guy didn't sound like a good investment.
Just my opinion but I'm running an 18 year old company and my people have been here for at least 8 years, that may have skewed my view of things.
Asking if you should have a relationship with this girl because you really want a hotter girl, that's not going to end well when you do it in front of the less hot girl.
Commitment is a thing. Even if it is just for now, it's a thing. If you don't get that, oh, well.
All the CEO was asking was that the guy committed to his job offer. He didn't, it went away. Right call in my opinion. Yes, hiring is hard, getting good people is hard, I get all of that. I also get the other side of it. Figuring out who to hire is hard. This guy made that choice easy.
All the CEO was asking was that the guy committed to his job offer.
How do you "commit" to a job offer other than accepting it? Doesn't make much sense.
That guy didn't do that, he was thinking about his next job.
As a hiring manager what I'd say is don't be that guy. I get that you want more than what I can give you. That's fine. But I'm giving you a job. You need to give back. If you can't get that, you are weird and I don't want to hire you and pretty much everyone doesn't want to hire you.
What are you even saying? If you can't get that, you are weird and I don't want to hire you and pretty much everyone doesn't want to hire you. Are you like trolling or something?
- "Keep fresh on skills, because future career needs will arise (at this job or the next)" - "Keep interviewing skills sharp, because we have little control over company loyalty/success" - "Most companies have little loyalty to the cogs within, and it's foolish to expect them to be"
Obviously, exceptions exist for such things, but it certainly seems to be the conventional wisdom.
Asking which company would be better for one's career, Foo Corp or Bar Inc, seems like the sign of someone who cares about _having_ a career future. Wanting to learn more means that they're critical enough to _care_ about your culture, what they might learn there, etc. This is _especially_ true for someone who does not have personal contacts within those companies.
In the hypothetical case where I had an offer from both Google and Facebook at the same time, I'd certainly be trying to find out which would help me grow better as a developer and as a person.
Your hypothetical is fine, any sane person should do that. The problem with the engineer in question was that he clearly wanted to use the company as a stepping stone. While companies are fully aware that people move on, they are going to prioritize the people that seem like they are going to stick around for a while.
Turn it around and imagine you are the hiring manager. If your prospect is making it clear that the only reason they are hiring on is so they can go elsewhere, how does that make you feel? Remember, it costs money and time to bring someone in.
There is a difference between an employee and a contractor. A lot of what people are saying here would make sense for a contractor. A contractor is supposed to have a well honed skill set where they can come in, make a useful contribution right away, and move on to the next task. Employees, at least in my mind, aren't like that. The company is signing up to educate the new hire, that's an investment. In the places I've worked (system places like Sun), it was fairly normal that it would be at least a year before the new hire did any work that shipped. Maybe it's different now but that's the world I'm used to. So I'm looking at about $200K investment before I see anything at all hit the bottom line. In that context, yes, I'm looking for someone to stick around for a while.
Again, I'm old, but I've been hiring in the valley for 20, maybe 25, years. Maybe it's different now, but one screening technique everyone used was to look at how long someone stayed in one place. Someone who moves every 5 years is fine, someone who never makes it to 1.5 years is not great.
In this day of apps, maybe the dev cycle there is a lot shorter and so in that arena maybe you can pull in those numbers.
If anyone ever says, “I like what you are doing, I want to help”, they are probably just blowing smoke up your ass. We're workers. We want to get paid in return for labor. It's not like choosing which non-profit you want to sit on the board of.
For the record, I pay better than google, apple, facebook, netflix for top talent.
I hire people who want to help. And I'm super happy with the set of people I've hired. I didn't use to pay that well because there wasn't enough money. They stuck with me and the money thing got better.
The idea that you are just a worker makes me sad. If you are that, OK, but I bet you are more than that. Very few people in tech are that sucky, most of us can make a difference. Make that difference and demand the pay that your difference made.
But honestly, I couldn't imagine having so few interesting thoughts of my own that I would actually willingly let myself be filled up with enthusiasm for some ephemeral product, or some ephemeral business, or even worse a "vision" or a "mission". I've got better things to think about at night.
Also, re "just a worker", I am happier to be called a "worker" than any other of the made-up terms which Capital has come up with in order to divide the working class. It at least puts me in the right bucket as far as the class struggle is concerned.
BTW, don't be too broken up about me not being a suitable hiring prospect for you. I'm going to leave the hell-hole that is tech as soon as the school debts are paid, and then go do something worthwhile.
But I'd also want any potential employer to respect my right to gather information and make an informed decision. That's where I think Zenefits went wrong here. Too bad; from everything I've heard, they're an excellent company.
I was very impressed by how forthright they were with both the benefits and drawbacks relative to other options. I thought I'd stay at Google for maybe a year; I ended up there for 5+, because it was a company that worked very hard to make sure that it's actually the best place to work for its employees and isn't trying to hide better places.
It's fine for a company to discriminate in who it hires and makes sure that everyone is a good culture fit. But when you cull out people because they might end up leaving you for a better employer, it reeks of insecurity. I don't want to work with insecure people; I don't want to work for insecure companies. That's fine; they don't have to work with me, and we're both better off.
Businesses prioritize the interests of its investors and the business itself over the interests of its employees.
Why should employees then be expected to put the business's interests ahead of their own career prospects?