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Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

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Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#61

Post by AlexBlom »

pw0ncakes wrote: post #23

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…

+1. I was going to say something similar.

Every generation has it's problems, it goes two ways. More importantly, especially in the startup scene, the EMPLOYER is probably going to get a big payday at the end. I'll see little / none of it so of course I'm going to move with incremental changes.

That does not mean a 'job hopper'. I'm fairly certain that most are smart enough to think ahead and ensure that long term career prospects are not being jeoparidzed. And in 10 years, when this breed of CEO's dies out it is a null point anyways.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#63

Post by mendriacus »

boucher wrote: post #45
abrown28 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loyalty is a one way street for most companies. If the company has problems they expect me to suck it up and help keep them alive however the reverse never happens.

There are absolutely loyal companies. It's just not the norm.

They're definitely not startups.

If I need to launch a complex product in 6 months or die, I don't care whether my senior developer had his entire family die from serial dysentery. You're either working as hard as you can getting us to the milestone, or you're not a developer here.

The truth is that being "loyal" will kill a startup.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#64

Post by neurotech1 »

_delirium wrote: post #6

Would the equivalent for employees be: never work for a "serial entrepreneur"?

No because if you stay on good terms with a "serial entrepreneur" then you could easily end up an early employee of his next company. How many stories have you heard (On Mixergy?) of CEOs being on their 3rd and 4th startup before one takes off and is successful.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#65

Post by gruseom »

I think the trouble comes from the concept "a job" to begin with. It's a vestige. The historical trend that goes slavery -> serfdom -> indentured servitude -> wage slavery runs right up to the modern job. Looked at from this perspective, the rhetoric around "loyalty" and "security" sounds remarkably feudal.

This historical trend is continuing, the old forms are breaking down, and our little corner of society (the software startup world) is one edge of whatever is emerging to replace "jobs". It isn't clear yet what the next form is. But these angry arguments about who owes what to whom are symptoms of the churn of this process.

Personally I think it would be great if we eventually moved fully beyond the master-slave relationship. As someone with a strong aversion to both sides of that dichotomy I find it a little annoying to be part of a civilization based on it.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#66

Post by jseifer »

This is not in the tech field but I know someone who had to lay off an employee because there was a restructuring wherein the night manager position was basically eliminated in favor of transferring certain work to different positions. The person had been with the company over 30 years. That's loyal.

Another friend truly does have a terrible manager. He's been with his company for 5 years and had consistently great performance reviews until he transferred locations. Six months later there's a position at a different location and they won't let him transfer and he's getting poor reviews with no suggestions for improvement. He's thinking about quitting and getting re-hired at the new location. This would result in a pay cut and loss of vacation time but he's willing to do it. He loves the company overall but his current management has made things very difficult for him. That's loyalty.

Then this guy gives examples of a bunch of founders who started immense companies and stuck with them. Of course founders are going to be loyal to their company. They're the founders.

Now for this example he gives: You start fighting with your co-founder whom you thought you understood. Your revenues are “just around the corner.” Your angel investors are nervous because the VCs aren’t moving that fast to fund your next round.

As an employee faced with that situation and with a better offer standing, which would you go with? The company you're not sure is going to be around because the founders are arguing and the capital is drying up or the one with money to pay you more? I'm not sure why he used that as an example.

The author of the post seems to expect a lot from people he describes as feeling entitled.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#67

Post by mendriacus »

teej wrote: post #22

I'm 24 years old. I've had 6 employers since I was 19. I've doubled my salary every year for the past four years. And I think this article is bullshit. Am I wrong for choosing the path that brings me personal success at the cost of "company loyalty"? The depiction of an ideal employee painted by this author sounds a lot like the Japanese Salaryman - diligent and loyal to the company. Isn't that model considered total…

You're wrong for doing what's best for you, instead of what's best for an unreasonable employer such as this author. At least, according to this author, that is.

Also, notice that the "Japanese Salaryman" model is not only completely unworkable for high productivity, highly creative projects such as tech startups - it doesn't really apply here. That model, and all models like it in Europe and elsewhere, has two sides - the employee doesn't leave, and the company doesn't (easily) let him go. Needless to say, nobody in his right mind would suggest implementing the latter part, least of all the author who comically insists on the former part.

In other words, what we have is an employer who insists on applying half of a completely irrelevant model to his particular line of business.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#69

Post by mendriacus »

tessro wrote: post #10
dmix wrote: post #2

Why are successful founding members of companies used as examples of non-job hoppers? If I remember correctly Bill Gates had always run his own company and the Google founders created the companies out of university...

... and people working in CEO roles in dream jobs have no incentive to quit. In today's world most companies award loyal employees with nothing. When you're the CEO of a struggling company and you have reached a point where the pile of pink slips is just around the corner, how can you expect your best and brightest not to look around? I think Mark is right, that chronic switching is a leading indicator of selfishness…

Forget "dream jobs". This example is not just ridiculously inappropriate: it actually works against the authors point.

If you founded a startup, then quit abruptly at the first sign of real challenges, and now you're trying to found another startup - how would prospective investors look at you? (Even if the former investors aren't already suing you, which is entirely possible).

On the other hand, if you are an early startup hire, and you stick with what is obviously one of the vast majority of failed startups, so you get to be fired when they reduce their headcount to what they consider the best engineer (you, alas, happen to be considered the 2nd best) - how is an employer going to look at you, compared to someone who left two months before?

That's right - you were fired, and he quit. There's obviously something wrong with you.

Comparing employees to founders isn't only completely bogus - it also shows why the entire article is false, trying to explain why employees need to behave like founders while they are a very, very different thing.

Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.

#70

Post by japherwocky »

_delirium wrote: post #8
apsec112 wrote: post #4

"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…

anecdotally, ironically, I interviewed with mahalo.com (Calacanis' company), while I was working for a startup in an office about 2 blocks away in Santa Monica. They offered me a job, but I declined, as it was a 15% pay cut or so from my current position.
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