191–200 of 810 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy to blame it all on HR. I've witnessed many engineers draft reqs that included all kinds of unnecessary "musts".
HR is the cause of this issue, either the ossified silo, or the general company policy to HR, which results in too big of asks for too low of wage from folks that have to use that policy.
I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…
I had the same thing happen to me a couple times. Long and tiring process. Blackboard, make a project, lots of dirty laundry about "long gone incompetent developers" that made the current system a giant mess. Lots of red flags but lots of promises including a large maximum salary, including bonuses and stock options. The final offer, however, was 60% of my current pay. Lower than the average for someone with my exper…
I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…
I had the same thing happen to me a couple times. Long and tiring process. Blackboard, make a project, lots of dirty laundry about "long gone incompetent developers" that made the current system a giant mess. Lots of red flags but lots of promises including a large maximum salary, including bonuses and stock options. The final offer, however, was 60% of my current pay. Lower than the average for someone with my exper…
I thought to myself...that's not how it works. I'm sure I could have negotiated higher. But I wonder if he thinks I inflated my salary and those said match.
Keeping in mind my current company has some of the best benefits I've seen outside of Silcone Valley...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same thing happen to me a couple times. Long and tiring process. Blackboard, make a project, lots of dirty laundry about "long gone incompetent developers" that made the current system a giant mess. Lots of red flags but lots of promises including a large maximum salary, including bonuses and stock options. The final offer, however, was 60% of my current pay. Lower than the average for someone with my exper…
Is this an American thing? I live in Eastern Europe and make decent buck here (close to 5000 EUR/mo after taxes in a country where you can cover all expenses under 1000 EUR/mo). I never had any trouble getting quality work in my country but a few times I got approached by companies from the US and oh boy, weeks of tiring recrutation process and the pay was ALWAYS worse than local. I feel like they do it on purpose ma…
happened to me in Italy, about same script. salary expectations set from the start, two phone and two on site interviews with stellar feedback then they offered 2/3rd of current total comp.
like, thanks for waiting me three vacation days.
It sounds to me that this might be a problem with startups. I've been working in the enterprise space for 5 years, and I've never come across this sort of hiring. The last job I applied for was open from February 1 - March 1. After that, they pulled it down and began interviewing candidates. Six weeks later, I have an offer letter for a specific role with a well-negotiated compensation package. Personally if HR treat…
My last job hunt (signed a new contract just a few weeks ago) has taken me 3 months and I've seen all of the issues OP (and some of the comments) mentions, not only in startups, but also in fortune 500 companies and everything in between (including quite a few companies in the "best place to work" ranking). I've probably sent about 60-70 cv's and most of them have gotten me at least a phone interview (about 50? I lost count but in the document I was using to keep track of open processes I have 30 companies).
One of my ex-managers (and one of the best I've ever had, at that) is also job hunting (after taking a year off after being made redundant in a merge). He's in his 50's and the stuff he tells is even worse than my own experiences.
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Rule number 1, IMO, never discuss salary. I find listing your salary requirements before starting a process weeds out a lot of silly interviews. If you know your worth and have a goal for your salary, it is the most effective way I know to avoid dumb offers.
But that's exactly what I did? Sorry, I didn't phrase it right. My non-negotiable requirement was 20% more than I was getting. I gave a hard number and they said "yeah we can give that" before the interview. However the recruiter just assumed I was bluffing and went ahead with that colossal waste of time.
Recruiters make money as a percentage of your hiring salary, why on earth would they try to place you somewhere that you are making less? They should be shopping you to whoever will give the most money.
I had a recruiter call me a year ago with what sounded like a really amazing offer. Working for a well funded startup on a problem in which I happen to be a domain expert. They're aren't many expects in my field with my background and skill set and they said the right things to get me to interview (compensation won't be a concern). Anyway... Went in for 4-5 interviews. Took me about 10 hours in total to interview wit…
After one instance of that routine I learned to unashamedly [at least loosely] state my asking rate, and ask about salary up front (or early) after hearing the interview process.
It's saved me. I would have faced the same interview length for [same as you] half of my current salary, and would have had to share a machine as a matter of principle. For an intermediate->senior role. With longer hours, and fewer benefits (but there would be a ping pong table and exposed brick walls...).
Though the situation I experienced seems especially endemic to Toronto's dev mills. I've since learned to recognize them at the outset and stay away.
But HR isn't the only problem. In my experience having worked for a company that hired heavily for several years, it was the engineers who lacked the talent necessary to conduct proper interviews. Great candidates were being rejected by the truck load. Us engineers, we're great at engineering but many of the junior and mid-level ones don't have much experience interviewing people and usually no training whatsoever. S…
We switched from a random set of questions to a take home coding assignment (that we compensate for) and a discussion of said coding assignment. It's pretty clear what kind of work someone will do when you can look at work they've done.
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> HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who could do the job well. IMO, that's just a symptom. The real problem is that the hiring managers/engineers find the job of "recruitment" beneath them. All of us know the recruiter might not really understand the difference between "java", "scripting" and "javascr…
One of the best interview experiences I had was with a firm where nearly everyone participates in the hiring process. I don’t know any details beyond what I experienced as a candidate, but they interview tons of people, and everyone who makes it all the way through ends up interacting with at least a handful of would-be peers, managers, and a C-level officer. I imagine that everyone is expected to dedicate a signific…
They promised me to be partner, I felt bad leaving there for my colleagues. But I would never return, as their promise was just for keeping me interested.
Just 1/5th of the stress of before now. Thank god, sometimes being a sucker is doing too much.
Eg. Night calls because one of my applications ( e-commerce) was for fast-food, who did their orders at 01:00 am. Guess who had to fix other's people's sync services at night.
Even when I went swimming, I had to check phone calls. Urgh