31–40 of 134 posts
Heck, if you're not in it for the money, don't take equity, don't take a paycheck, and heck, don't even charge for your products or services. After all, desiring money is bad. Just stay home, eat popcorn and watch TV and -- hey wait a minute: all of that costs money!
at last years startup school this became a bit of a topic, zappos talked about how they wanted employees to work there and feel valued for life. mark zuckerberg talked about how he was happy creating a culture where great people should be able to come in, start being effective immediately, and move along after a year or so. paul buckheit mentioned his reason for quitting google, it was basically, because you need to…
Unfortunately it seems like the standard MO in this industry is to dangle a tasty carrot of an offer for jumping from your current ship, and then the gravy train stops, your raises can't cover cost of living increases, and your only way to advance is to jump ship again.
If your employees feel valued, feel like they're treated fairly, only a small portion will quit (the ones who just have to get up and do something else, and that's fine). If you have a persistent, significant problem with "hoppers" that speaks more about you as an employer than about your employees.
"You’re probably disloyal. You don’t have staying power. You’re in it more for yourself than your company." You mean, the company that would cut you loose in about three seconds flat if you became unproductive? Employment is an economic transaction. If you pay me, I will do high-quality, honest work for you. That's fair. If I don't produce, you can stop paying me. That's fair. But if you don't pay me well, or mistrea…
Particularly since this seems to be precipitated by a Calacanis tweet, the guy who fires people for any or no reason. Not exactly an example of loyalty. I'm guessing the reason for the entire post is actually that while Calacanis is okay firing someone, he gets angry if anyone leaves his company for a better position. There was a kerfluffle over that yesterday in various parts of the net (someone from his company sen…
(Because you certainly didn't expect me to agree to that clause for free, did you? No, you're going to pay. And the sooner you lock me in, the more you'd better pay if I can't even evaluate the job before the lockin starts.)
Would the equivalent for employees be: never work for a "serial entrepreneur"?
If they just bailed at the first sign of difficulty, ... well how are you going to learn that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Particularly since this seems to be precipitated by a Calacanis tweet, the guy who fires people for any or no reason. Not exactly an example of loyalty. I'm guessing the reason for the entire post is actually that while Calacanis is okay firing someone, he gets angry if anyone leaves his company for a better position. There was a kerfluffle over that yesterday in various parts of the net (someone from his company sen…
I doubt there's many employers willing to spend the money it would take to lock someone in. (Because you certainly didn't expect me to agree to that clause for free , did you? No, you're going to pay. And the sooner you lock me in, the more you'd better pay if I can't even evaluate the job before the lockin starts.)
Fucking asshole. Almost no one wants to change jobs every 12 months. Looking for work is a pain in the ass and changing jobs is inherently risky. Everyone goes into a job hoping they will work out so well at the company as to have no incentive to leave... at least for 5-10 years. All this is even more true for the best employees, because the number of desirable employers drops off faster than the number of talented p…
This is the wrong economic (and political) climate for this kind of BS.
I'm an independent recruiter, and I see resumes all the time of people who probably look like "flakes", but here's how you differentiate a flake from a person who hasn't found their niche: Flakes lack accolades. They leave jobs at the sign of trouble, or they get fired. It really is that cut and dry. On the other hand, you have individuals (like me, prior to striking out on my own) who consistently find jobs they exc…
Mark Suster implicitly is thinking about sifting through a thousand resumes. In that context this is a perfectly valid heuristic. If you end up in a thousand-resume situation you have no major accomplishments. If you have no major accomplishments you had better have at least shown staying power.
Outside of this scenario, though, I imagine this heuristic can be mis-applied.
It's not even an idealogical, but plain economical observation: take two companies. One is low-stress, slow, steady money. The other is a crazy fast, big money. Angels or VCs give you tons of cash, you can afford to pay top employees almost any amount of money, with any kind of crazy benefits you can think of (including those freshly baked blueberry muffins in the lobby, which nobody ever eats) but if you don't get that product out before your competitor, you lose it all.
Which company will be faster shedding an unproductive employee?
I can't count the amount of VC funded startups I've known to fire entire teams just because the product vision changed a bit. The main client is going to be an iPhone app instead of a web widget? Immediately fire with no notice or compensation all 5 "star" web developers who left permanent positions at Google, Amazon, Facebook etc to come and help your realize your dream.
I'm not even talking about non-productivity, incompetence, or engineering mistakes that would get you fired from a trail-blazing startup in about 5 minutes.
To expect "loyalty" under these kind of terms is sheer delusion. The only "loyal" employee you're going to get is someone entirely unfamiliar with the above realities - aka a clueless newbie on his first startup job.
There's not much point explaining how the notion of "job hopping" being an employee's "fault" is entirely baseless in this context. This is an important discussion, but so much beyond the grasp of this curious article, that purports to apply to the reality of startups while ignoring the elephant in that particular room.
I'm ambivalent about this. A few times in the article the author suggests that only in a small percentage of cases is job-hopping justified, but I think it's actually justified in far more than a small percentage of cases. The fact of the matter is that contemporary work culture is (for better or worse) progressing towards lower job security, and more job hopping is an inevitable consequence of this. When job securit…
However, I don't think that's the point of the article. The author is saying "I'm a businessman, and I've learned not to hire 'job hoppers', and you shouldn't hire them either." He's giving advice to other employers, and as such, he doesn't have to be 'fair' to the job hoppers. From his perspective (and that of other employers), hiring someone is a considerable investment (estimates vary, but between 30 and 40% of annual salary seems to be common). Having made that investment, no one wants to see it walk out the door 2 years later. It only makes sense for the employer to look at an individual's job history and form an opinion about whether they are a good risk. It doesn't really matter why you left six jobs in the last 10 years - your reasons only have to satisfy you - from his perspective, you are not the person he wants to invest in.
As I see it, if you like to change jobs frequently that is your business. You should do what you want to do, and accept the consequences (that some prospective employers will consider you too flaky to take a chance on). But don't turn around and complain that people aren't willing to take a chance on you, and won't give you the job that you now think is the perfect one for you. All other things being equal, if you were the employer and had a choice between someone with a track record of 'job hopping', or someone who seemed steadier in their employment history, which would you choose?