41–50 of 810 posts
I agree with most of the sentiment, but not this one.
Someone with the right experience, skills, maturity, 'get go' and initiative ... there are not 'thousands' of people like that in a mid tier city. More likely only a handful.
Made my first ever HN throwaway account to respond to this. I have been running a successful business, but it's not "tech". I want to get back into the software industry. I didn't have a software business idea, so I explored some tech company jobs. I am well-qualified at the VP/Director level for startups and even larger companies. I did go so far as to do an on-site interview for one company. I have verifiable proof…
If no equity was available, but profit sharing was? i.e if you brought in X million you get a % of that. Would you have taken the position? I'm starting a company, but want to retain 100% ownership. I don't want to give equity as I don't want to lose control. Been there, done that. I'd much rather go down the road of profit sharing based on the results.
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…
So in technical roles there are a lot of companies that are always hiring. Recruiters work for free until they find you someone and placing job listings online is so inexpensive it barely registers as a cost.
On top of that, most states are "at will" employment, so even if a company does not have any openings, if they find someone better, and cheaper, than another employee that is currently working at the company, they can hire them and then eventually let that other employee go.
For example, I'm not in the market for a new laptop, but if a brand new, top of the line laptop came up for sale at half price, I'd probably buy it.
Its so cheap to look for new talent due to automation, so most companies will shop around in case they get lucky and land a fantastic bargain. Many are not seriously looking to fill an immediate need.
With that said, there are still plenty of companies out there with an immediate need, so please do not get discouraged by that group of companies that are "always hiring".
One important point I didn't see mentioned was the other side: engineers also think they're worth more than they are. I posit the big VC-backed or FAANG companies 1) can offer huge initial salaries to not have to deal with competition 2) hire juniors at high salaries because they can afford to spend 1-2 years training them. Combine with the sheer volume of hiring they all perform, and it starts to set some false expe…
> Maybe smaller companies are failing at capitalism by not competing?
Pretty much. It makes sense for employees to land where they can create the most value. If FAANG can get 4x the value out of a junior engineer than your small company can, of course they are going to outcompete you in hiring top junior engineers.
Figure out how to extract more value or set your sights lower (and regardless probably want to keep your contempt to yourself).
I don't see any larger conclusion here. Let's assume HR talent falls on a normal distribution: just like you'll meet some absurd engineering candidates you'll also meet some absurd HR people.
I imagine companies that make really bad hiring decisions are put under selection pressure and are less likely to continue to exist. It's a problem that I think can be fixed by the marketplace, but I don't know if a post makes any tangible impact.
There are people who just want a decent job with decent pay and a decent place to work. They will do consistently decent work for stability, neat stuff to work on. They are not heavy negotiators, and maybe don't realize they could make '40% more elsewhere' - or frankly are not willing to move their wife/husband and 3 kids.
Real 'market value' is what you are being offered, or rather, what people are accepting. So if people are accepting those supposedly low-ball numbers, well, that is 'market value'.
Made my first ever HN throwaway account to respond to this. I have been running a successful business, but it's not "tech". I want to get back into the software industry. I didn't have a software business idea, so I explored some tech company jobs. I am well-qualified at the VP/Director level for startups and even larger companies. I did go so far as to do an on-site interview for one company. I have verifiable proof…
If no equity was available, but profit sharing was? i.e if you brought in X million you get a % of that. Would you have taken the position? I'm starting a company, but want to retain 100% ownership. I don't want to give equity as I don't want to lose control. Been there, done that. I'd much rather go down the road of profit sharing based on the results.
edit: Also, incentives people to think short term and pump us revenue at all costs (then find another job when it comes crashing down) which is not a great environment to work in.
As an employee, it is valuable to me that my company will not hire someone who doesn't think our business does something important ("get over yourselves, you're not curing cancer"), or who thinks the right way to ask business decision questions is to ask if "you're morons", or who has a problem with the company asking very basic probing questions, such as confirming you've thought through the challenge of changing fr…
Accept that people work for money, not because they believe in your company.
I had an interview with a company working in the ML space. There is a semi-difficult problem that their particular industry needs a solution for so I spent a couple hours in the hotel the night before writing up a solution for it. I was doing an interview with their head of ML and brought this subject up in general without mentioning that I had already solved it. His immediate response was: "that's impossible." And i…