Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which comment are you referring to?
I think he means the original tweet: http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 (Not that you want to see that again...)
That's the one. :/
Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
101–110 of 134 posts
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#102This is the 21 st century. People don't get to get married to their jobs, think of it just as casual dating. As long as both of us are having good time, it is all good. People have been loyal, but they have been paid back with lay offs, either the company goes belly up, or people/projects get cut. Once it happens to you once, you don't do that mistake again. If you see the 'shitty times' ahead sign, some people will…
There is also the situation of someone that wants to code and not be a manger, if they continue to receive interesting projects, are rewarded with pay rises accordingly, I wouldn't say that these people have no ambition, even though they are not really moving up into management ranks.
Agreed. Management uber alles is a mistake of our culture. Not everyone wants to or should be a manager, just as not everyone should be or wants to be a pro basketball player.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who said anything about low productivity? The issue at stake is whether you should hire "job hoppers". If I need to launch a complex product in 6 months or die, I don't care whether my senior developer had his entire family die from serial dysentery. Yeah, yeah - really respectful and caring.
Sure, if my senior developer had something horrible happen to him, I should allow him to work 0-2 hour weeks, keep him in the same position and payroll, and let my startup go down and hurt the lives of the other 9 employees who worked hard on it. "Respect and care" means among other things, that you keep your business running so it can respect and care for the majority of employees. If you're going to take things to…
If you're a startup and someone needs a 6-month vacation for mental health reasons, you need to cut him loose. If he's done good work and is willing to leave in a way that minimizes damage to the company, try to leave the door open and give him a good reference. You're right, of course, that startups cannot afford to have important people become nonproductive.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#104"Gen X’ers who are running for the door at the first sign of trouble"
I am sorry but the author supports a very prejudged and one sided viewpoint. The converse of the above quoted statement is: employers who enact massive layoffs at the first sign of trouble. The dynamics of the American work force have changes, many companies are no longer loyal so many employees are no longer loyal.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who said anything about low productivity? The issue at stake is whether you should hire "job hoppers". If I need to launch a complex product in 6 months or die, I don't care whether my senior developer had his entire family die from serial dysentery. Yeah, yeah - really respectful and caring.
Sure, if my senior developer had something horrible happen to him, I should allow him to work 0-2 hour weeks, keep him in the same position and payroll, and let my startup go down and hurt the lives of the other 9 employees who worked hard on it. "Respect and care" means among other things, that you keep your business running so it can respect and care for the majority of employees. If you're going to take things to…
If your senior developer has something horrible happen to him* , and you then immediately cut him loose because he's of no use to you any more, what happens to your product? You're a startup, so you're unlikely to have huge amounts of redundancy to cover for them when they refuse to train their replacement or answer support questions about your complicated 6 month time-critical project from their dying, dysentery-stricken family members' bedside.
Also, taking that sort of hard-nosed attitude will make the other developers on your team more wary, which will result in higher salaries, more turnover and (if you're a real idiot) no new staff, since word gets around. Ultimately you depend on your staff, so if you play hardball you're likely to reap the 'benefits' further down the track when you need them.
* - this was your original point, not some "meditation trip to Tibet"
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are absolutely loyal companies. It's just not the norm.
They're definitely not startups. If I need to launch a complex product in 6 months or die, I don't care whether my senior developer had his entire family die from serial dysentery. You're either working as hard as you can getting us to the milestone, or you're not a developer here. The truth is that being "loyal" will kill a startup.
Yes because a lot of start-ups have no margin for error. Not only will that developer loose his job should he not perform, but in the case of bootstrapped start-ups it could take everyone else out too. All the same, if the company does not get the next round of financing, they should duly expect defections and not piss and moan.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#107So this essay is an expansion of http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 which is almost certainly a response to http://pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0 If you can't keep your talent as an employer, that's your fault. Berating them for taking care of themselves is immature. Welcome to capitalism, you make money off them and they're free to take the best offer on the table. As an employer, I prefer have people with many job…
Yesss. Thank you for turning it around. I "hopped" my first 3 jobs because my employers seemed bound & determined to wreck their companies, and me with them. It's not MY fault that they were too gutless to fire the "expert" who spent his whole day nagging me for help, and who used raise_error() as GOTO. And who earned $15k/yr more than me, I knew, thanks to the H1-B notice posted in the kitchen. It's not MY fault the…
I understand as an employer you'll want someone who, when you get into a rage and bust up a printer, won't quit and head for greener pastures. It may seem an exaggeration, but as we both know, these things actually happen and while this might not be what the original author had in mind, many, many places of employment are awash in insanity. When you are young and just getting a start, it's easy to miss the warning signs in the interview or just have less options.
Job hopping in response to that might just reveal quick growth in skill, leading to better alternatives. It is a competition both ways. That guy that job hops a lot, maybe he can do that _despite_ a resume showing what employers consider disadvantageous, because his or her expertise is clear in interviews. Almost by definition, job hoppers are more in demand.
The ultimate goal of an employer should be to attract and retain the best employees. It is true that retaining is easier if you decide to exclusively pick from people who didn't have better options when their jobs suck, but personally, I'd rather have someone like you who left when the scene got crazy. Maybe that's just because it so closely reflects my experiences. (In fact, I think we shared an employer)
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#108"You’re in it more for yourself than your company."
What a delusional asshole. If anyone says they care more about a company (and in turn the success of the shareholders) over their own success, they're lying. Anyone who expects this is insane.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#109I'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…
You're wrong for doing what's best for you, instead of what's best for an unreasonable employer such as this author. At least, according to this author, that is. Also, notice that the "Japanese Salaryman" model is not only completely unworkable for high productivity, highly creative projects such as tech startups - it doesn't really apply here. That model, and all models like it in Europe and elsewhere, has two sides…
The local model (based on the European one) makes it very hard on the employer to fire a worker... it's more like it costs a lot for a company to let him go than that it doesn't want to.
It also makes job switching harder, for both sides - you lose all the benefits when you switch - for the first 3 months, you are on "trial" and can be fired at will, after that you lose the extra free days (we get 1 extra day of vacation every 4 years with the same company), and the firing money the company has to pay doubles every year (up to a maximum)
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#110I'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…
You sound like me. By changing jobs about ~6 times, I've gone from $16k/yr "assistant to the intern DB administrator" to well over six figures. Every job change was either because the job was gone (startup going under) or a very substantial (50%-ish) increase in pay.
The author of the article acts as though anyone who doesn't stick it out for 5 years is actively trying to screw over the company. That's just plain BS.