111–120 of 130 posts
Remote work is plan B. I don't do it unless I really have to. The reason is pretty simple, it sucks most of the times and is sub-optimal for most of the other case.
I have been mostly working remote since 1998 because I live in the mountains in Central Arizona - 2.25 hours from the Phoenix Airport. I find this article wildly optimistic. I literally give a 50% discount when I work remotely because I believe that in general I am about twice as valuable to my customers when I work on site. I enjoy remote work, but I am honest with myself that physical presence when working with a t…
Regarding that 50% discount, do you also charge for travel expenses, in addition to the normal labor rate? If you had to fly to Los Angeles and stay for a week - who pays the travel and lodging?
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Culture fit is just code for 'let's hire someone who has identical life experiences to mine'
Not necessarily. When we talk about someone being a good culture fit at the place I work, we look for someone who's respectful, approachable, not condescending, and who wants to empower their coworkers. There are many brilliant technical people who are jerks—we don't want to work with them. (And not to say that there's not a place for super-smart people who are assholes, but we try not to hire them.)
Anyone who believes that should be immediately fired. Those things come out in a few months at earliest, as does lack of professionalism or competence. Even a good judge of character needs a sample in non-contrived circumstances, which a hiring interview is not.
I'd actually like to see hard research data on this... What I have is soft data on how people are in general horrible judges of character. In that plain old days mining is often more accurate.
"You do not truly know someone until you fight (with) them."
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If you're going to reject people for "culture fit", and not because of any technical deficiency, then I believe you should lose any right to complain about a so-called "shortage of talent".
Failure to recognize the importance of relating to other people is a technical deficiency.
I've made a career out of remote work (10+ years working remotely), and I have to say this is a pretty poor article. No, remote work is not for everyone, you need to know what you are doing at both ends or it'll not match your expectations. No, it does not (necessarily) bring the best global talent, specially not if your motivation for remote is bringing down costs. And no, you don't need to use any of the tools list…
I agree. And I work remotely now. It seems the #1 requirement for remote work to work is ... mutual understanding. Otherwise you end up with communication gaps. The case for VCS is interesting to me because I believe we could replace a number of complex tools in the stack with proper use and style on top of that. Literally, we could do 90% of it all with just a VCS and people paying attention to it . You know: commit…
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This is definitely something that happens. It's valid, I believe, for the company to vet candidates for culture fit, but the go should not be hiring a team of "sames." In a recent batch of interviews (four opportunities local, three remote), I was put through a specific culture fit step of the interview process at all but one company, and it was part of all remote hiring processes.
Culture-fit is the hardest part of any interview process for me. I'm an extreme introvert -- though I can fake being an outgoing, friendly person when necessary (but it's extremely taxing and I need to take a nap afterwards). Perhaps others pick up on the fakery -- or maybe it comes off as 'creepy.'
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housing would need to drop for companies to pay less.
If employers suddenly started paying less then I'm pretty sure housing would drop.
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If employers suddenly started paying less then I'm pretty sure housing would drop.
After a very very long time only. It is not a liquid asset. It does not react to sudden price shocks quickly if at all.
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Unfortunately in some legal jurisdictions (e.g. the USA) this would not be allowed. You can't simply declare an employee to be self-employed and compensate them by means of invoices/1099 filings. This arrangement is only allowed if, among other things, the employee performs work for a number (greater than 1) of clients.
> This arrangement is only allowed if, among other things, the employee performs work for a number (greater than 1) of clients. It's actually about capability, not actual number if clients; a contractor does not suddenly become an employee just because it doesn't have a second client at the moment. That said, you are right that legally hiring contractors is not nearly as easy as some people think it is.
Conversely however, a contractor that has for some significant time, since leaving their previous employment only had one client (which is the parent scenario) is unlikely to be viewed by US labor law as not an employee.
There are other conditions besides this one: for example the contractor gets to set their own schedule and does not take detailed instructions on their tasks from the client. Again, hard to square this with the idea that you can just wave a wand and make what would have been an employee a contractor.