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> instead relying on mercenary college grads who put up with the cost and the crazy for a few years before moving on to a more fulfilling job Good mercenaries

> instead relying on mercenary college grads who put up with the cost and the crazy for a few years before moving on to a more fulfilling job Good mercenaries know a lot more than fresh grads.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I'm not sure what your point is. Turnover is expensive, and the presumption that one can tough it out at a big company before taking a more lucrative offer elsewhere compounds the problem. This is particularly acute for young consultants at big names like McKinsey, where the first Google result is an ad for ex-McKinsey consultants. When engineers leave before they become managers, it forces the company to promote from a smaller pool or recruit externally, neither of which is preferable for long-term stability.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
  A company that hires the less skilled ought to lose money, and that could work against the forming of a mono-culture.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    It's not about skill, it's about loyalty. These companies are losing money precisely because they hire great people and fail to keep them. If you ran a major company, would you like the perception that the job you offer is only meant to be a resume-padding stepping stone? What happens when those people leave and new ones have to be filtered from application pools, acquainted with your teams and business practices, trained to use your systems, and then you have to repeat the process in a year or two? What does that do for morale among the people who stay?
    - angersock 11y ago
      Whatever--it's not our problem. Companies (as a class of socioeconomic entity) have, since the 80s, been continually shirking their duties to their employees. At this point, the employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Thus, if it makes more sense for prospective employees to view their next job as resume padding, that's what they'll do. If companies bothered to treat their workers well, to pay them well, to tie their fortunes to those of their employees, maybe we'd have something to talk about. As the movie "Killing Them Softly" said: This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fuckin' pay me. And yeah, that makes life hard for people starting new companies. So it goes.

> instead relying on mercenary college grads who put up with the cost and the crazy for a few years before moving on to a more fulfilling job Good mercenaries know a lot more than fresh grads.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

I'm not sure what your point is. Turnover is expensive, and the presumption that one can tough it out at a big company before taking a more lucrative offer elsewhere compounds the problem. This is particularly acute for young consultants at big names like McKinsey, where the first Google result is an ad for ex-McKinsey consultants. When engineers leave before they become managers, it forces the company to promote from a smaller pool or recruit externally, neither of which is preferable for long-term stability.

0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
A company that hires the less skilled ought to lose money, and that could work against the forming of a mono-culture.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  It's not about skill, it's about loyalty. These companies are losing money precisely because they hire great people and fail to keep them. If you ran a major company, would you like the perception that the job you offer is only meant to be a resume-padding stepping stone? What happens when those people leave and new ones have to be filtered from application pools, acquainted with your teams and business practices, trained to use your systems, and then you have to repeat the process in a year or two? What does that do for morale among the people who stay?
  - angersock 11y ago
    Whatever--it's not our problem. Companies (as a class of socioeconomic entity) have, since the 80s, been continually shirking their duties to their employees. At this point, the employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Thus, if it makes more sense for prospective employees to view their next job as resume padding, that's what they'll do. If companies bothered to treat their workers well, to pay them well, to tie their fortunes to those of their employees, maybe we'd have something to talk about. As the movie "Killing Them Softly" said: This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fuckin' pay me. And yeah, that makes life hard for people starting new companies. So it goes.