131–140 of 231 posts
I never understand these situations, it took me months to get a job offer and somehow incompetent people accidentally stumble into senior roles?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's important to take responsibility. HR and the company fucked up. The employee negotiated well and over-sold their skills. I'd sit down with employee, and present options. Start with: You're not performing at the level, technically or with leadership, that we were expecting. Some of this is our fault, for not figuring that out in the interview. So this is going to be an uncomfortable conversation... Option A: We d…
> at which time we'll consider you for promotion. This can backfire, is this same training resource made available to the other devs in the team ? , are they being passed away for this promotion by guaranteeing it to the new entrant. The original poster specifically said its a small tight knit personal community of devs, if they could self promote inside, they would have provided training to existing dev itself. Afte…
If they're outright fired, that says something to the existing team too, and especially in smaller shops where each head holds valuable knowledge, I'm not sure that's the company-benefiting message to send either.
Plus if the individual chooses to leave, "I think we all noticed that so-and-so wasn't a good fit for the senior role. We extended them the opportunity to realign to a different level, which they declined" is a message I'd feel more comfortable presenting to the team.
"We're not going to immediately shitcan you..." is a powerful truth for retention in small teams/companies.
Especially coupled "... but we expect you to perform to your level, and we will address things if we see someone underperforming."
I do agree with other comments that do-nothing and ignoring the problem will be cancer to building a high-performing team.
One way that breakdowns can happen is if people are too subtle in their reviews. For example, damning with faint praise, or being overly constructive. Lots of people aren't good at reading comprehension, and even less good when wading through the piles of communication noise that many companies tend to generate. Combining free-form text with unambiguous "multiple-choice" options on the interview reports can help (e.g., interviewer writes constructive things about growth potential, but clicks the "lukewarm" or "not for this role" radio button).
Another way is if different interviewers had very different impressions, and one interviewer's takes precedence. (This can also happen the other direction: false-negative. As a team lead, I gave a very strong recommendation to hire this one very determined designer-y frontend engineer. But another team lead, who would have temporary loan of the hire before my team's project spun up, proceeded to Leetcode-haze them. I wouldn't say the candidate bombed it, but rather that the company bombed it. The company really didn't want to hire someone who got a strong negative, so they said no. Rejected candidate instead went to a different super-cool engineering-driven company, and I soon saw them featured in a tech demo video of that company on LinkedIn, explaining to customers this neat new product thing they built.)
Other ways?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “The fastest way to demotivate a good employee is to show them the lengths you are willing to tolerate a bad employee” - a sheet of paper i found in a desk 20 years ago
From this post there's not really any indication they're a "bad employee" though. They aren't up to the needs of the team that hired them, but that was on that team to figure out before they hired them. It's probably fine to fire them, but also everyone involved should be open about the fact that the hiring and so also the firing is the direct result of their own failure. The morale implications of this could be lot…
Could they have also lied on the interview?
I would consider personality as a strong factor in keeping them, and if the company has room for a junior.
Lowering the salary is a hard requirement though.
Your team members want to work with other great people who can help them deliver success - after all, the feeling of success is one of the most rewarding things a job can give you.
I’ll also add that letting someone go (constructively) can be a net positive for them, if you can put them on a path for greater success in life elsewhere. Struggling to deliver for months or even years is also not a good use of their time.
It might feel harsh, and it’s definitely a very difficult conversation to have, but I think if you remember that your responsibility is towards the team as a whole it can help you emotionally accept and navigate the situation.
* They still have an up-to-date resume
* They may still have warm leads for other jobs
* Employment with you is probably short enough, they can just leave it off their resume entirely
That cuts both ways, of course -- while I have only seen one person who "failed" their probationary period, I have myself left a job during my probationary period when it turned out to not be what I'd been promised. That's what the probationary period is for.
Unrelated: did this manage to work its way up to the #2 spot in under an hour because everyone on HN is worried this is about them deep down?
My recommendation would, for his sake and yours, to let him go sooner rather than later. Working in the wrong position is also going to tank his self confidence and will do him no favours.
This is why we need to have coding tasks during the recruitment process. It helps both sides.
For seniors it’s not that easy. The best interview process I had to do was in a restaurant where the recruiter and I were both ranting about how shitty C++ was. I got hired on the spot because the conversation we had proved that I was not bullshitting anyone. It may be more difficult for a junior, but that’s not the topic of the post.