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Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

fortune.com

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Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#51

Post by r0s »

Confirmed. I took a year off for my startup attempt, currently looking for another 9-5 and they really don't know what to do with me.

I think the bias is merely confusion. In recruiter land anything uncertain is a pass.

The primary problem I suspect is I seem overqualified. Having a diverse skill set in all things software such as product development and engineering AND management AND devops (etc.) is just too much to process for a recruiter. Also for hiring managers in general. It's great if you're applying to say a director level position but if you NEED A JOB and try for an IC role it's a tough sell. Proficiency in multiple tech stacks is the same negative signal.

Secondary is perceived or real attitude misalignment. The problems most corporate tech companies are solving are boring and they know it. They must never admit it, and candidates especially need to demonstrate complete obliviousness. Candidates need to walk the line, simultaneously signaling technical ultra-competence and naive enough to consider yet another CRUD legacy app maintenance task challenging and interesting.

I personally don't have a problem working on boring problems, and I'm less inclined to create unnecessary challenges by using bleeding edge tech to pad my resume. Both qualities I can never admit to a recruiter. To actually get interviews, I severely cut down my resume to fit each open role. Recruiters can intuit my experience somehow anyway, and just about every senior IC role I've interviewed for lately came with a big disclaimer that this role will NEVER include management responsibilities. I guess to hedge against senior ICs expecting compensation for the management tasks they absolutely will be doing.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#52

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

RHSeeger wrote: post #11
georgeburdell wrote: post #7

I’m not a recruiter, but I am in “Big Tech”, and dealing with founders, or even just people who have only worked at startups, is frustrating. They tend to have underdeveloped skills in teamwork and listening to authority. Honestly, I just want likable people who will execute on my ideas (or the ideas I’m simply passing on from higher management), or with light discussion, even if the execution isn’t perfect. I feel l…

> I just want likable people who will execute on my ideas (or the ideas I’m simply passing on from higher management), or with light discussion, even if the execution isn’t perfect. That sounds horrible. I want people working under/with me that will question the work, that will try to figure out if it's the right work. It is common for decisions "from higher management" to be made without a real in-depth knowledge of…

That sounds lovely riiight up until you’re in a position where one of your reports gets very inconveniently standoffish when they’re tasked with something that has been pre-determined, has been decided for complex workflow management , political, legal, etc reasons.

I am a big believer in developers working with sufficient context, but the reality is that when an org gets to a certain size, everyone can’t have full visibility over everything.

Sometimes the ‘business analysis’ involved in determining how to address a particular need can be painful, intense, political, disruptive, etc. A burden that I want to and should shoulder for my team. Sometimes you’ve just gotta divide and conquer with some things. And that means that sometimes developers need to start with the puzzle already partially solved.

Again, this can all sound completely unreasonable, right up until the point when you’re first faced with this situation. Framing it as “you’re not being paid to think! conform, swine!” is too cynical. Rather, sometimes, it’s impractical or flat out undesirable for everyone to do everything. Sometimes you’re better off focusing on a certain type of thinking / work.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#53

Post by NoboruWataya »

RHSeeger wrote: post #11
georgeburdell wrote: post #7

I’m not a recruiter, but I am in “Big Tech”, and dealing with founders, or even just people who have only worked at startups, is frustrating. They tend to have underdeveloped skills in teamwork and listening to authority. Honestly, I just want likable people who will execute on my ideas (or the ideas I’m simply passing on from higher management), or with light discussion, even if the execution isn’t perfect. I feel l…

> I just want likable people who will execute on my ideas (or the ideas I’m simply passing on from higher management), or with light discussion, even if the execution isn’t perfect. That sounds horrible. I want people working under/with me that will question the work, that will try to figure out if it's the right work. It is common for decisions "from higher management" to be made without a real in-depth knowledge of…

> That sounds horrible.

It sounds like how 95% of everything works. In reality of course there is a spectrum between visionary entrepreneurs and mindless drones and some critical thinking is generally welcome. But it seems like startup founders have a very strong belief in their own ideas even when everyone else seems to disagree (that is why they are/were startup founders) and that honestly just sounds so exhausting in a corporate setting.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#54

Post by doctor_eval »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #50
RHSeeger wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just want likable people who will execute on my ideas (or the ideas I’m simply passing on from higher management), or with light discussion, even if the execution isn’t perfect. That sounds horrible. I want people working under/with me that will question the work, that will try to figure out if it's the right work. It is common for decisions "from higher management" to be made without a real in-depth knowledge of…

Bruh we are slave to the machine. Most of us want to get in, get our paycheck, let the boss feel smart, and go back to our actual lives. Programmers tend to overinflate the influence of their job in their personal lives.

Please never work for me.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#56

Post by neilv »

> “It’s really critical for them to be able to explain the elephant in the room,”

Sure, but here's another elephant in the room:

> “So it’s really challenging for recruiters to understand whether their qualifications, experience, or job responsibilities are comparable to a conventional applicant’s.”

It's really challenging for recruiters to understand anything about anyone's ability.

Can we admit that the bulk of tech hiring is nonsense, and move forward?

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#57

Post by tennisflyi »

neilv wrote: post #56

> “It’s really critical for them to be able to explain the elephant in the room,” Sure, but here's another elephant in the room: > “So it’s really challenging for recruiters to understand whether their qualifications, experience, or job responsibilities are comparable to a conventional applicant’s.” It's really challenging for recruiters to understand anything about anyone's ability. Can we admit that the bulk of tec…

No. Gatekeepers mean dumb salaries all around

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#58

Post by WWLink »

peterhi wrote: post #35
thinkingkong wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh! Yeah I think I know what you mean. I - personally - would attribute that to fear. People from certain experiences or backgrounds dont want to be wrong or look bad. So they’ll demand a spec instead of being given general guidance. To me people who need spoon feeding and entirely dismissable if they cant be coached. The whole style that seems to work best is “we need to cross this river” rather than “build me a tem…

Oh god we had this in team building exercises in the woods. "Here's a pile of junk, work out how to cross a stream without getting wet". One guy grabbed a long piece of wood and vaulted over the stream, others weren't satisfied until they had incorporated every single item from the pile of junk into the solution It suddenly made it clear how each person worked that I couldn't see in the office

lmao at the "One guy grabbed a long piece of wood and vaulted over the stream" that's efficient as hell lol.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#59

Post by stvltvs »

doctor_eval wrote: post #54
darkhorse222 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bruh we are slave to the machine. Most of us want to get in, get our paycheck, let the boss feel smart, and go back to our actual lives. Programmers tend to overinflate the influence of their job in their personal lives.

Please never work for me.

I'm sure the feeling is mutual. This is why it's so important to suss out team culture before taking a job.

Re: Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs

#60

Post by ta_tunestub »

Not just recruiters, but hiring managers.

I trained the model used to rate candidates’ resumes at a largish public company (based on hiring manager feedback signals), and when you inspected resumes with “CEO” as a job title the expected scores (all else being equal) were much lower.

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