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Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

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Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#431

Post by PragmaticPulp »

anon291 wrote: post #139
corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…

> Exactly where in that schedule am I supposed to fit a FOUR HOUR coding assignment. That's ridiculous. Unless you're providing child care, this is simply too much.

What do you do for normal on-site interviews or phone interviews that have similar time demands?

I’m also a parent of small children with a packed schedule, but I’d much rather take a 4-hour take home and handle it on the weekend or when I’m flexible. Giving up half or whole days of PTO to interview in real-time is actually worse for my overall schedule, not better, because I need that PTO more than ever as a parent of young kids.

The flexibility of take-homes is great as a parent.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#432

Post by mym1990 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #412
colordrops wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you value apple equity vs cash? I recently got a decent offer with a total comp higher than my current all cash salary, but rejected it as it seems that equity even in Apple is not a sure bet at the moment. Even with the generous offer that was greater than my current salary that they gave me a few months ago, it would still be worth less than my current job after the recent market dip. I asked for more equ…

Most financially savvy people would say that public company equity is almost like cash. If you are saving money for retirement, you are going to put most of your cash in the stock market, and AAPL and the stock market are highly correlated. The vesting schedule essentially forces you to save that cash for a later date (in a volatile but usually highly accretive investment vehicle). You don't have the same kinds of si…

I would say take what most 'financially savvy' people say with a grain of salt and go ahead and do your own research or find an actual professional to sort through the details. The average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 is dropping fairly quickly, which puts the risk of a single investment going to 0(or on a long haul downward trend) higher.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#433

Post by moosterv »

mooreds wrote: post #353

Some ideas to help you stand out: * Post the salary in the ad. At least a range. * Pay folks for their take home assignment time. A few years ago, we paid senior folks $500. It is a token, not a contract, but it shows you care. * If it is the people that make it great, profile them so that potential hires can see their awesomeness. Help them grow their profile (speaking, writing, OSS) if they want. * Are you properly…

>* As a hard bitten senior engineer, I can tell you that I value equity at zero. If I get an equity win, awesome! But I don't count on it. (You don't mention it, but thought I'd share that.)

So much this!! I have been a paper millionaire more times than I care to remember, but none of them have panned out.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#434

Post by mdavis6890 »

colordrops wrote: post #408
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When calculating expected value of private stock/options I multiply by a factor of ~10 at the end. There are so many unknown unknowns that significantly decrease the value of your equity. The equity agreements I have seen also give ultimate discretion to the board on how your equity is executed. You don’t have control over triggering events and also there are usually quite a few clauses with “at the discretion of the…

How would you value apple equity vs cash? I recently got a decent offer with a total comp higher than my current all cash salary, but rejected it as it seems that equity even in Apple is not a sure bet at the moment. Even with the generous offer that was greater than my current salary that they gave me a few months ago, it would still be worth less than my current job after the recent market dip. I asked for more equ…

Public company stock should be valued near it's current market value, minus a bit to account for volatility. I would think 90-95% is about right.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#437

Post by mdavis6890 »

corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

This seems weird to me. I hear it all the time, but I don't understand. It's a few hours, even as much as a day of effort - to make a huge jump that might be worth hundreds of thousands of Dollars, or perhaps have other major lifestyle improvements. And "if I can get a similarly..." - sure, but is it not worth a few hours up front to find the best job for you? I would happily to 4 hours of work to get a 1% better job.

Of course, if it's STEP 1, and you're faced with many iterations of this, that's a different story. But if I'm somewhat certain that I'm looking at a great offer from a great company at some point, why not spend the 4 hours?

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#438

Post by mdavis6890 »

s0rce wrote: post #326
jiggawatts wrote: post #314

POST THE SALARY. Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment. Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs. They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an…

I've tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don't want people primarily motivated by money...

Sounds like you're underpaid ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#439

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

jmillikin wrote: post #400
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Great Rift Valley Software Company[0] is a small corporation that allowed me to use a bit of my retirement money without tax penalties. [0] https://riftvalleysoftware.com

Could you expand on the tax side of that a bit? This is the first time I've heard of using a personal retirement account to pay business expenses without tax penalties, and I'm not finding any relevant hits on Google.

It's a way of setting up a 401(K), that funds a corporation.

Kind of a pain in the butt, and not many accountants know of it. There's a lot of fairly strict rules. You can't paint outside the lines.

There's a company that specializes in this kind of thing. I don't really want to go into detail, here, but feel free to get in touch (my HN ID has contact info).

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#440

Post by peter422 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #387
peter422 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also know that if liquidation preferences are coming into play for the company’s exit, it’s almost certainly a giant failure and any late joining employees aren’t getting anything significant. If the startup is not growing extremely fast, the stock will likely not be worth very much regardless of how “clean” the terms are on the preferred stock. If you expect stock to be a big part of your compensation then leave…

It's not a giant failure if liquidation preferences are in play. Liquidation preferences help in literally every scenario that is not an IPO. It is very common that a startup exits in an acquisition, and usually when that happens, small common shareholders get a lot less than the "value" of their stock. The liquidation preference protects you (or pays out a bonus) in that case. It has a huge effect on the EV of a sta…

Help who? I’m specifically talking about an employee getting standard common stock.

If liquidation preferences are coming into play, you’ve already lost as a common shareholder. But you should never be in that situation to begin with. If a company is struggling or growing slowly, quit and join one that isn’t.

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