441–450 of 464 posts
To me it sounds like someone "good with computers" but doesn't really know how to program. All that stuff about "commodore 64" and "garage startup" sounds a bit like a smokescreen. OK, you liked playing around with computers as kid. Great, most of us did. And that made you good enough with computers that you got a job at BigCo. Then you got a little lazy and stopped learning new stuff. It happens. This isn't a condem…
The press, and some people here, are always saying they can't find good programmers, and it is certainly something that is overstated. One reason there aren't enough good programmers are people in your situation - you got by for a while programming Javascript and web full stack in Germany, yet now, during an economic boom in tech, you are increasingly having trouble finding work. As you get older, and if the tech mar…
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> outside the web and mobile fields in general Why don't you just change the domain your working in? Why not web dev? If you're a programmer, you should be able to code anything, anywhere, with a bit of effort. I skimmed your post ( https://wmkrug.com/on-the-technical-skills-shortage-and-hiri... ) and honestly I'm not sure. I mean, you're saying that requiring "years of experience" in "specific technology" makes "goo…
> If you're a programmer, you should be able to code anything, anywhere, with a bit of effort. Is that really true? I do database programming, and I feel like I would be absolutely screwed if somebody demanded I do, say, embedded programming for small microprocessors. I guess theoretically I could study up, but it would be at least a year or two before I could be competitive in interviews, right? Maybe I just suck an…
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The internet is 46 years old. I've personally been using it for almost 23 years.
Ok, the WWW then. Let's be honest, the average Joe didn't use the Internet before the WWW came along (at least not knowingly). But I should know better than to mix the two up.
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I'm guessing there was a reason they all up and left. And quite frankly, it's not my fault that you have a bunch of people who want to leave. The stability of your business is not my problem.
I'm fully aware that this isn't a popular answer, but it is reality. This is anecdotal, but I've had an employee leave when she was paid 3 times what I made and given almost full autonomy. She hired away all of the staff at a branch office except a woman dying of cancer and another who was about to move out of state, then took the entire set of clients with her. This was an actual non-compete situation that nearly co…
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"Started a tech company in grad school" How could you do that if you don't have a degree? Very few grad schools will admit someone without an undergrad degree.
I think he means that his degree is not in Computer Science or a related field. Not that he does not have a degree.
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I still don't understand why that policy's fair. I recently left one company and joined another, and am trying to convince all my former coworkers to apply here as well because I genuinely think it's a way better place to work. If you can't compete on the labor market fairly, you deserve to lose employees. Policies like the one you describe are just a market inefficiency that doesn't have a real justification for exi…
If a company employs 20 people and 5 of them are programmers without which the company can't function, one leaves and recruits away the other 4 to go work at the same place that means the remaining 15 people are out of work. Business owners have a lot of people's livelihoods at stake. It's about a lot more than just how much more another company is willing to offer you. That might not matter to you, but that's also w…
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I'm fully aware that this isn't a popular answer, but it is reality. This is anecdotal, but I've had an employee leave when she was paid 3 times what I made and given almost full autonomy. She hired away all of the staff at a branch office except a woman dying of cancer and another who was about to move out of state, then took the entire set of clients with her. This was an actual non-compete situation that nearly co…
The reality is that you are not entitled to employees. If you don't want a flood of them to leave at once, you need to keep them happy. End of story.
There are certain realities to management and in many cases one bad employee who is thinking of leaving or planning on leaving can have a huge effect on other people in the office. When that behavior turns into "we should all go work at X" in a coordinated effort it can be hugely damaging and significantly more so than everyday turnover.
What's more is that when something like this happens the owner/manager rarely even gets any reaction time to find out why the person(s) left or are leaving to address the problem.
Sometimes, that one person just needed to go and everybody else will be fine. http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/4768/workplace-bad-apples
I've experienced this recently. Had an employee leave who complained constantly to the point that other staff contacted me to say they were considering looking elsewhere because the office was so negative. That one employee left and tried to recruit 3 other people with her until that clause stopped it.
As soon as she left, everything in the office got better. That was 2 years ago and none of those other 3 employees she tried to recruit away have been so unhappy as to leave...because we do everything to take care of our employees.
One part of keeping employees happy is knowing the company that they work for is stable. Knowing you're doing everything to make sure that is the case goes a long way to reducing workplace stress.
My fear here is that you're dramatically oversimplifying and the basis for that is the shortness of your replies without seeming to read any of my responses.
Running a business is complex and you deal with a lot of things that aren't anywhere in the realm of what you got into the work to do in the first place. What works one place doesn't necessarily work at another. Sometimes it depends on the type of people who you're hiring as to what type of policies will work.
For employees looking at the long term, 401k's with employer matching are huge. For others it's stock options. For some it's flexibility.
The particular business that I'm talking about is in the same city as the main graduate program in the state for the service we offer, so we get a lot of new grads with a lot of workplace inexperience. We've seen a repeat trend of this "Oh, lets all go work here next" behavior but only in this one city, which is what led to the policy in the first place. For that personality, happiness is job hopping and taking their new friends and clients with them.
I'm just trying to help you understand that all situations are not equal.
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During my unemployment spell in 2010-2012, I got lots of recruiters talking to me, and I even had some interviews come out of that. Guess what? The employers were pickier than the recruiters. I've learned to deeply distrust recruiters: they are known to make up lie after lie just to throw as many names in front of an employer as possible on the off chance one of us gets hired so they can grab their commission. They'l…
There are different types of recruiters. Some are those worthless spamlords, who pester candidates with irrelevant jobs and submit worthless candidates to hiring managers. But the good ones look for good matches and good candidates, and don't waste people's time with junk. One recruiter placed more people on my team, with a much higher hit-rate, than any other one I dealt with; when I was interested in changing posit…
I had one recruiter call me and sell me on a position as a portal developer. At the end of the call he finally asked "by the way what is a portal?" He was dead serious. I was livid.
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The reality is that you are not entitled to employees. If you don't want a flood of them to leave at once, you need to keep them happy. End of story.
I'm not trying to start a fight here, but at no point did I ever imply that I was entitled to employees. There are certain realities to management and in many cases one bad employee who is thinking of leaving or planning on leaving can have a huge effect on other people in the office. When that behavior turns into "we should all go work at X" in a coordinated effort it can be hugely damaging and significantly more so…
Yes, you did.
"There are certain realities to management and in many cases one bad employee who is thinking of leaving or planning on leaving can have a huge effect on other people in the office. When that behavior turns into "we should all go work at X" in a coordinated effort it can be hugely damaging and significantly more so than everyday turnover."
Then maybe you should treat your employees better. Either way, not my problem.
"What's more is that when something like this happens the owner/manager rarely even gets any reaction time to find out why the person(s) left or are leaving to address the problem."
Like all things with management, you have to be more proactive, not reactive. Again, not anyone's problem but yours.
"Sometimes, that one person just needed to go and everybody else will be fine"
If that were true, then everyone else wouldn't be looking at joining that person.
"My fear here is that you're dramatically oversimplifying and the basis for that is the shortness of your replies without seeming to read any of my responses."
That's because it is simple. You do not have the right to employees.
"Running a business is complex"
Nobody said otherwise. Still no excuse for you to be putting restrictions on your employees like that. You don't own them.