Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees. • Hacker News Board

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#121

Post by logic » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 8:56 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #116

mendriacus wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "In the case of Mahalo, it seems like they have a large asshattery factor (Calcanis is an overbearing idiot who will post nasty things about you on Twitter)" Why anyone would willingly work for someone like that is beyond me. You're setting yourself up for abuse, ensuring other employees are abused in the process. In my view, once you post something ugly about any of your employees, you lose your ability to hire an…

Well, that doesn't include the people who don't do due diligence. I'm sure there are still some who don't bother with even cursory Google searches. I'd word it as "would willingly work for very long"....

A prior employer looked good on paper, and on Google; in fact, I went into the interviewing process very skeptical of their industry in general, and came away with a surprisingly positive vibe about the organization and what they were trying to do. The employees I spoke with were top-caliber folks; asked smart questions, and had good answers for me as well. The interview with the owners was fairly typical and high-level, nothing out of the ordinary.

So, I came aboard. The principals had just left for an extended sabbatical (they departed shortly after I interviewed with them). Morale seemed excellent when I started, and there was a great deal of interesting work to be done. When they returned, the mood changed very quickly, and it didn't take long to understand why.

I spent enough time there to do some interesting things, and help them over a knowledge slump during an infrastructure forklift, but it quickly became apparent that the owners and I had different ideas about how people should be treated, and how businesses should conduct themselves. My personal google-fu failed me on this one.

I showed myself the door to take a position that I would have never otherwise considered taking, knowing full well how that would look on a resume, but also knowing I didn't want to continue contributing to their bottom line.

(I have a few items on my resume I do not enjoy discussing in an interview, and I've had to add this one to the list: being vague or evasive suggests you're hiding something, but any real explanation just invites the idea that you're the kind of guy who doesn't work well with others. But, such is life.)

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#122

Post by lief79 » Fri, Apr 23, 2010, 10:13 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #120

lief79 wrote: post #27

I'm right at the age he was talking about. Does 3.5 years at my first job sticking through two short-term paycuts to be laid off make up for the now (6 employers) that have followed? * 1.5 years, left after the group was split in half and I was forced into full time testing (I enjoyed part time testing and the first year in that role was outstanding, the new position and team was not a good match). * 1 year, taken ov…

Anyone who spent at least 2 years at their first job is going to look good to those with a clue. As you discovered, with all your recent jobs being short(er), you needed a good story, etc., but post dot.com crash I hope it wasn't too difficult. I wouldn't remove you from a job search for the above history.

Getting the first job was the hard one. (911 with the post .com crash.) If you know what you are talking about, once you have a couple years programming experience, you can generally find something.

In this case, the J2EE, Hibernate and Seam (usually in place of Spring) experience has opened up a lot of interviews at places that wouldn't have looked at me before.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#123

Post by stumm » Sat, Apr 24, 2010, 3:32 AM UTC

teej wrote: post #22

I'm 24 years old. I've had 6 employers since I was 19. I've doubled my salary every year for the past four years. And I think this article is bullshit. Am I wrong for choosing the path that brings me personal success at the cost of "company loyalty"? The depiction of an ideal employee painted by this author sounds a lot like the Japanese Salaryman - diligent and loyal to the company. Isn't that model considered total…

Either you were making a ridiculously small amount to start with, you are making a gargantuan amount now, or there's a mistake in your calculations. Increasing your salary 16X in 4 years seems more than a little unusual.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#124

Post by itgoon » Sat, Apr 24, 2010, 2:25 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #119

itgoon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you build a house by having it done by a professional, you're going to be paying more to have it completed. There's usually contract clauses and insurance to ensure that you're not left with a half-finished house. When you hire that professional, you're not only paying for his experience, but all those other things, as well. There's a premium attached to those clauses and insurance. You could choose to forgo those…

Of course - if you give equity for workers, it is simply a form of salary. If they don't get equity, they should get a higher salary than workers who get equity. I agree to that. I just don't see why equity should always be a part of the compensation.

That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could enter into a similar agreement with the builder.

He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal?

There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way).

In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms. He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it, though.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#125

Post by billswift » Sat, Apr 24, 2010, 8:48 PM UTC

itgoon wrote: post #124

Tichy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - if you give equity for workers, it is simply a form of salary. If they don't get equity, they should get a higher salary than workers who get equity. I agree to that. I just don't see why equity should always be a part of the compensation.

That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could enter into a similar agreement with the builder. He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal? There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny…

It's not, or didn't use to be, all that unusual in houses. It's referred to as building "on spec", meaning "speculative"; where the architect, builder, or whoever builds the house on the chance that they can make a profit selling it after, rather than the more common way of building it to an up-front contract. It was most often used when a builder had materials or a little cash available to avoid laying off good workers when there wasn't a contract job available.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#126

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 1:52 PM UTC

logic wrote: post #121

hga wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that doesn't include the people who don't do due diligence. I'm sure there are still some who don't bother with even cursory Google searches. I'd word it as "would willingly work for very long"....

A prior employer looked good on paper, and on Google; in fact, I went into the interviewing process very skeptical of their industry in general, and came away with a surprisingly positive vibe about the organization and what they were trying to do. The employees I spoke with were top-caliber folks; asked smart questions, and had good answers for me as well. The interview with the owners was fairly typical and high-le…

If everyone would behave like this there wouldn't be so many crap bosses around.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#127

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 1:54 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #34

_delirium wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly since this seems to be precipitated by a Calacanis tweet, the guy who fires people for any or no reason. Not exactly an example of loyalty. I'm guessing the reason for the entire post is actually that while Calacanis is okay firing someone, he gets angry if anyone leaves his company for a better position. There was a kerfluffle over that yesterday in various parts of the net (someone from his company sen…

I doubt there's many employers willing to spend the money it would take to lock someone in. (Because you certainly didn't expect me to agree to that clause for free , did you? No, you're going to pay. And the sooner you lock me in, the more you'd better pay if I can't even evaluate the job before the lockin starts.)

Well, what they do in (at least parts of) Europe is have a written contract with a 2 month notice period. That goes for you and the employer. If they fire you they still have to keep you employed until the end of the notice period. And it doesn't make changing jobs worse because everyone has this and works it into their hiring process.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#128

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 1:55 PM UTC

makmanalp wrote: post #13

apsec112 wrote: post #4

"You’re probably disloyal. You don’t have staying power. You’re in it more for yourself than your company." You mean, the company that would cut you loose in about three seconds flat if you became unproductive? Employment is an economic transaction. If you pay me, I will do high-quality, honest work for you. That's fair. If I don't produce, you can stop paying me. That's fair. But if you don't pay me well, or mistrea…

And if I feel like I'm getting bored here, I'll leave and we both win. I'm no longer bored, you don't have an unproductive worker. I don't see what's taboo about this. While leaving at the first sign of boring work or bad situations / pay / etc is a little iffy, if this is becoming the trend I'm going to leave. Loyalty doesn't come from nothing. It can't be expected by default, it's won. Besides, 2 years is a lot of…

Loyalty shouldn't be in the conversation at all. How much loyalty does the company have for you when they need to make cuts? That's how much you owe them.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#129

Post by msuster » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 1:53 AM UTC

pw0ncakes wrote: post #23

Fucking asshole. Almost no one wants to change jobs every 12 months. Looking for work is a pain in the ass and changing jobs is inherently risky. Everyone goes into a job hoping they will work out so well at the company as to have no incentive to leave... at least for 5-10 years. All this is even more true for the best employees, because the number of desirable employers drops off faster than the number of talented p…

Funny how your tone and language just reinforces one's perceptions of you.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#130

Post by msuster » Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 6:55 AM UTC

mendriacus wrote: post #50

pw0ncakes wrote: post #23

Fucking asshole. Almost no one wants to change jobs every 12 months. Looking for work is a pain in the ass and changing jobs is inherently risky. Everyone goes into a job hoping they will work out so well at the company as to have no incentive to leave... at least for 5-10 years. All this is even more true for the best employees, because the number of desirable employers drops off faster than the number of talented p…

This is very true. Good job pointing out how the author rambles about "generations" and what's wrong with them, trying to explain why an employee leaving a job he doesn't like is somehow evil and sinful. The article at part reads like the vague "get off my lawn" ramblings of a bitter elderly man. Good luck attracting top young talent with this attitude. Another important point is that most startups aren't a good plac…

Hardly bitter. Hardly "elderly." And I have tons of young entrepreneurs that I work with. Just because you disagree with my POV doesn't mean you have to try and launch a personal attack on me. What do you gain by this?