The thing about titles, is that sometimes even though they don't reflect what you really do on a day to day basis, they do help with career management - i.e. finding the next job if the current one goes bust. So sometimes its ok to give someone a high-falutin' title as long as they understand up front that they have to earn it.
Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
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Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#22All the great salespeople I have known were nervous control freaks hiding inside a breezy exterior. The great ones are like painters who would never let you touch their canvas. Of course they will freak if you keep changing the product. Stability is a primal urge (for customers, not HN readers) and sales people know that.
The solution: Hire crappy salesmen who will call anyone you want? Not exactly.
Find the smartest customers you can and practically pay them to work with you. After all in the scenario outlined, you don't even have a product they want. The salesperson needs to "get" that they are selling the team not the product.
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#23I think it's less "job titles that", and more "job titles can". The hiring model for employees in the tech industry has shifted from "I'm hiring a (insert position here)" to "I'm hiring someone who can (skills x, y, and z)". Old industry HR practice is to look for a title, but new industry needs to focus on skillsets. Especially in the fluid world of startups, flexibility is core.
I think you're correct. In this case though, the VP said he could, but proved he couldn't.
Actually he says that the specific conditions did not come up in the interview. They used the terms customer validation and pivot, but did not specifically say "we don't have a well-understood group of customers" or "we don't have a scalable and repeatable business model."
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#24Interesting points, but it reads like a parable, rather than something that actually happened. This is something that irritates me about business writing. Parable != evidence, since I construct a parable after the fact, to make a specific point. Also, like witty aphorisms, it's just as easy to support either side of an argument. E.g. "the early bird gets the worm" v.s "the second mouse gets the cheese".
Absolutely: the plural of anecdote is not data. But Steve is not marshaling evidence for a proposition here, he's teaching a concept by telling a story to bring the concept alive. That's quite a different thing, and exactly what parables are for.
I don't dispute your overall argument, but:
the plural of anecdote is not data
The problem is that a parable isn't even an anecdote. One of the other posters on here, saying "this happened to me" is an anecdote, and I found that useful.
parable anecdote data <- often useful, but subject to horrible flaws in interpretation
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#25The thing about titles, is that sometimes even though they don't reflect what you really do on a day to day basis, they do help with career management - i.e. finding the next job if the current one goes bust. So sometimes its ok to give someone a high-falutin' title as long as they understand up front that they have to earn it.
And the thing about salesmen is that in the interview they're selling themselves. Of course he said what Rajiv wanted to hear! That's what he does for a living!
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely: the plural of anecdote is not data. But Steve is not marshaling evidence for a proposition here, he's teaching a concept by telling a story to bring the concept alive. That's quite a different thing, and exactly what parables are for.
I don't dispute your overall argument, but: the plural of anecdote is not data The problem is that a parable isn't even an anecdote. One of the other posters on here, saying "this happened to me" is an anecdote, and I found that useful. parable anecdote data <- often useful, but subject to horrible flaws in interpretation
Oh, you're right. I was thinking a parable didn't necessarily have to be fictional. So I looked it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable
"The word "parable" comes from the Greek "παραβολή" (parabolē), the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative. Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters might be conveyed.[3]"
On the other hand, while the story sounds like a parable, I didn't notice anything in the text that actually implies that it is fictional. In any case, it was highly effective for Steve to get his point across to me. Whether the point is true is another question which I can't answer from experience.
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#27Interesting points, but it reads like a parable, rather than something that actually happened. This is something that irritates me about business writing. Parable != evidence, since I construct a parable after the fact, to make a specific point. Also, like witty aphorisms, it's just as easy to support either side of an argument. E.g. "the early bird gets the worm" v.s "the second mouse gets the cheese".
I've been in that exact position - we kept hiring high powered sales guys and expected them to sell a product that was close , but not close enough, to what customers actually wanted. It's the classic mistake of confusing sales (selling an existing product) and marketing (finding out what people really want).
Sales without a feedback loop in it to your devs/marketing people is wasting a very large amount of effort.
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#28The thing about titles, is that sometimes even though they don't reflect what you really do on a day to day basis, they do help with career management - i.e. finding the next job if the current one goes bust. So sometimes its ok to give someone a high-falutin' title as long as they understand up front that they have to earn it.
And the thing about salesmen is that in the interview they're selling themselves. Of course he said what Rajiv wanted to hear! That's what he does for a living!
This is why you can't tell an interviewee what you want in an employee. You need to hold your cards close to your chest and get THEM to tell you what they deliver.
If it doesn't fit then you need to consider finding someone else.
The worst thing you can do is bring in someone for an interview, tell them what you want to hear, and then allow them to echo back to you what you want to hear. Which is what most humans will do.
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#29I think any titles period will hurt your startup. Who has the biggest dick? Who fucking cares? I can't stand titles... whoop-dee-doo you're an art director.
Re: Job Titles That Can Sink Your Startup
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the thing about salesmen is that in the interview they're selling themselves. Of course he said what Rajiv wanted to hear! That's what he does for a living!
This is why you can't tell an interviewee what you want in an employee. You need to hold your cards close to your chest and get THEM to tell you what they deliver. If it doesn't fit then you need to consider finding someone else. The worst thing you can do is bring in someone for an interview, tell them what you want to hear, and then allow them to echo back to you what you want to hear. Which is what most humans wil…
> "This is why you can't tell an interviewee what you want in an employee"
I disagree. If a company cannot clearly state what is expected of an employee then how can it expect to attract/retain great people? The interviewee should also be assessing their potential employer so being reluctant to share relevant information probably wouldn't come across well (at least not to me).
Interviewing is a skill and a good interviewer needs to be able to inform applicants about the job requirements while also probing to ensure that the candidate actually does possess the necessary skills. It is not easy.
Aside: There's an Ask HN thread on job descriptions which you might find interesting. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1685258