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

• dschobel 17y ago
  But in a competitive job market you’re less likely to get the chance to tell me your sob story. That may be a little delusional (might be his MBA showing) in light of the recent reports of major hiring drives from the big names: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304628704575186362957042220.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230462870457518...
  • _delirium 17y ago
    It also seems like, if true, it would be self-correcting: if it were hard to get tech jobs, people who had jobs would be pretty reluctant to leave them. You don't go job-hopping when there's nothing to hop to!
• _delirium 17y ago
  Would the equivalent for employees be: never work for a "serial entrepreneur"?
  • lief79 17y ago
    It clearly depends on what you are looking for and their record. If they've created a couple successful startups, and left after they were successful, large and losing the startup culture, then that seems like a reasonable bet. If they just bailed at the first sign of difficulty, ... well how are you going to learn that?
  • neurotech1 17y ago
    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.
• tokenadult 17y ago
  "If you’re 30 and have had 6 jobs since college you’re 98% likely to be a job hopper." If you have had lots of employees leave your company during a recession, you’re 98% likely to be an ineffective employer.
  • lucisferre 17y ago
    Right on the money. That was one of the most self serving "startup guy" blog posts I've read that didn't come from Spolsky.
    • nsoonhui 17y ago
      Upvoted for dragging Spolsky into the discussion
• ladyada 17y ago
  So this essay is an expansion of http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 which is almost certainly a response to http://pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0 http://pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0 If you can't keep your talent as an employer, that's your fault. Berating them for taking care of themselves is immature. Welcome to capitalism, you make money off them and they're free to take the best offer on the table. As an employer, I prefer have people with many job experiences - so when they show up here they can tell they're respected and fairly compensated!
  • thwarted 17y ago
    My response: "Mary Poppins was the ultimate flake; she also offered no value during her stay." http://twitter.com/thwartedefforts/status/12684019933 http://twitter.com/thwartedefforts/status/12684019933
  • ahoyhere 17y ago
    Yesss. Thank you for turning it around. I "hopped" my first 3 jobs because my employers seemed bound & determined to wreck their companies, and me with them. It's not MY fault that they were too gutless to fire the "expert" who spent his whole day nagging me for help, and who used raise_error() as GOTO. And who earned $15k/yr more than me, I knew, thanks to the H1-B notice posted in the kitchen. It's not MY fault they joked about how this client (MY client) was a sociopath who called people and ranted at them at 3am, and then expected me to give him my cell phone number. It's not MY fault that my boss had a tantrum in a meeting, screamed at people, then busted up a printer in a rage. It's not MY fault that the CEO constantly derailed our projects and everybody stuck around only because of the golden handcuffs, but I was tired of being demoralized and feeling like I wasn't earning my pay. I did my best for every employer I ever had, and they never did the same for me. To the contrary. Maybe he just doesn't want to hire job-hoppers because they have a sense of self-respect.
    • arghnoname 17y ago
      I understand as an employer you'll want someone who, when you get into a rage and bust up a printer, won't quit and head for greener pastures. It may seem an exaggeration, but as we both know, these things actually happen and while this might not be what the original author had in mind, many, many places of employment are awash in insanity. When you are young and just getting a start, it's easy to miss the warning signs in the interview or just have less options. Job hopping in response to that might just reveal quick growth in skill, leading to better alternatives. It is a competition both ways. That guy that job hops a lot, maybe he can do that _despite_ a resume showing what employers consider disadvantageous, because his or her expertise is clear in interviews. Almost by definition, job hoppers are more in demand. The ultimate goal of an employer should be to attract and retain the best employees. It is true that retaining is easier if you decide to exclusively pick from people who didn't have better options when their jobs suck, but personally, I'd rather have someone like you who left when the scene got crazy. Maybe that's just because it so closely reflects my experiences. (In fact, I think we shared an employer)
• dmix 17y ago
  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...
  • prosa 17y ago
    ... 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. But the days when employees are kept around while they fill out their pensions are gone. Most employers are signaling that it's every man for himself.
    • mendriacus 17y ago
      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.
  • dolphenstein 17y ago
    As comic book guy would say... Worse example EVER!
• daleharvey 17y ago
  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 stir stuff up, he just went from a comfortable but awesome job to something completely different, a new challenge. I couldnt help feel a bit depressed thinking about working for zappos for the rest of my life, no slight against zappos, they seem like an awesome company and I would love to have a chance to work there, just meant I could help felling depressed about working for any single company for the rest of my life.
  • isleyaardvark 17y ago
    Most of us here have probably heard of one of Zappos' unique offers to their new employees: $1000 to quit right after training. At least in Zappos case that would help minimize #1 and #3 listed at the bottom of the post.
    • devinfoley 17y ago
      It's actually $2000 now.
  • potatolicious 17y ago
    Honestly, if a company can keep interesting work coming, and compensate me fairly (e.g., inflation-competitive raises, come on, that isn't so hard now is it?), I don't have any trouble sticking around forever. 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.
  • 17y ago
• apsec112 17y ago
  "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 mistreat me, I'm going to leave. That's also fair.
  • _delirium 17y ago
    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 sent a 2-weeks notice, and he blew up, firing them and telling them they had their last day and never set foot in the office or email his staff again). I'm guessing his tweet of 23 hours ago is due to him still being pissed at someone jumping ship from Mahalo. Edit: It came to mind that there's a perfectly capitalist way of solving the problem, for companies that really do hate the idea of someone leaving: sign an employment contract with time terms, rather than hiring at-will employees. :)
    • jerf 17y ago
      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.)
      • _delirium 17y ago
        There might be some people who'd take it, since it also means guaranteed employment for the same period: an employer couldn't fire you without documented good cause that'd stand up in court. But I agree that it'd probably make hiring in a startup/tech sort of culture harder, since this isn't a culture where there's that much value put on the can't-be-fired aspect (the job market is good, so you'll just get another job).
• RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Was Jason Calacanis' original comment a swipe at Evan Culver?
  • eculver 17y ago
    Which comment are you referring to?
    • anthonyb 17y ago
      I think he means the original tweet: http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 (Not that you want to see that again...)
      • RyanMcGreal 17y ago
        That's the one. :/
  • nphase 17y ago
    Probably.
• philwelch 17y ago
  "Look at some of the uber-successful icons of Silicon Valley / Technology: Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry/Sergey, Eric Schmidt, Andy Groves, John Doerr. Not job hoppers." That's because they're founders and CEO's. If you're hiring me, by definition I'm not the founder (but if I have lots of equity and am treated as an equal partner maybe we'll split the difference on that one). Are you hiring me to be CEO, then? If not, find a better example to compare me against.
  • pw0ncakes 17y ago
    Job hopping for a founder or CEO would be an entirely different thing. If you take someone's money, you take on responsibility to them. If you personally hire people into a position that won't exist if you abdicate, the same is true. If you hit a patch of shitty or painful work for a few months, you stick through it because other people are depending on you. Someone who tries a corporate job for four months, realizes that he isn't getting good projects, and leaves, is (a) doing what he should do, since he's undervalued in his current role, and (b) not really hurting anyone.
  • arethuza 17y ago
    Actually, Eric Schmidt has had quite a few roles over the years. Hardly a "job hopper", but it's not like he founded one of the majors and stayed there forever (like Gates, Ellison etc.).
• jbellis 17y ago
  One of my bosses told me, "People who have been at their current company for more than four years probably do not have enough thirst for challenge to be a good fit at a startup." That seemed to work for him. And I think Mark Suster has had success with his preferences in the opposite direction. So maybe this is an example of hiring to our biases that don't matter as much as we think.
  • dget 17y ago
    It probably matters to the extent that it helps form the company's culture. It might not be that one is better than the other, but picking one side might matter for its own sake.
• gphil 17y ago
  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 security goes down in the economic community, the propensity for job hopping goes up--even when employee's jobs are not directly at risk. This is a natural and rational response to low job security. Judging workers who have job hopped in the past can be unfair to those workers, especially when many companies are decreasing their own loyalty to their employees. Why shouldn't workers chase higher paychecks outside of their current companies, if those companies don't adequately value their worth? If an employer has not demonstrated a commitment to retaining its employees, it shouldn't expect any commitment in return. That said, I do agree with the fundamental sentiment behind the article--that companies who are loyal to their employees should prefer employees that will be loyal to them in return.
  • Alex63 17y ago
    I think you raise an interesting point. At a time when companies are so ready to shed unneeded workers, it should come as no surprise that employees are less loyal. 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?
• iamdave 17y ago
  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 excel at, and produce results. What any hiring manager, and any recruiter who is worth the salary they are paid should look for are results. Is the candidate simply listing job duties that they are expected to accomplish, or do they go into detail and educate you on the accomplishments and success they've experienced at each job? There is a difference, and if you're unable to make that distinction, I won't be sending anyone to work for you because that indicates to me you're looking for grunts. Not team members.
  • akkartik 17y ago
    I like the idea that tenure and accomplishment are like quantity and quality. But I disagree about how you measure accomplishment. At least for developers I want to see evidence in working code. What have you built? What open source projects have you contributed to? It's not just about making 'a good resume'. In fact the best candidates spend 0 time on the resume. 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.
    • iamdave 17y ago
      And you are one-hundred percent correct. Working code works well with resumes, but it's not entirely practical to send a CD-ROM with every resume you send out there, especially when IT departments are already cautious about software they don't directly support as a means of protocol security. On top of this, you have to consider that hiring managers and recruiters are just the first barrier to defense when it comes to the process of making hiring decisions. Often, they have to place individuals in departments that aren't development, thus, expecting them to look at any code you've produced or software you've written is almost moot. They don't know what the code means, if it's good or bad code and whether or not it's a fair indicator of how your contributions and work ethic can impact the department needing a vacancy filled. At the same time, they have no idea if the software you've provided a download link to is software you wrote over a weekend by copy and pasting tutorial code, without actually learning how to employ critical thinking skills as a developer. In my work process, when screening clients, a resume entails everything from candidate discovery to candidate placement, it's entirely in the candidates ability to sell to me that they are the candidate for the job vacancy. The physical resume is just the bridge I use to connect that candidate to the hiring manager. Sifting through resumes is admittedly tiring, but the moment I come across one that has actual accomplishments and enables me with a feeling that this person did more than clock in, crunch away at an IDE, and clocked out, that's when I set that resume to the side and make a mental note that "John Doe deserves a phone call".
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• aasarava 17y ago
  I'm not sure I'd want to hire someone who hadn't switched jobs several times in their careers so far -- especially if they worked in tech over the past 10 to 15 years. In my experience, people who have worked at various companies bring a more diverse set of experiences to the table. They know that there's more than one way to do something. On the other hand, people who have stayed at one job for a long time (in a non-executive role) while everything around them was changing probably aren't as good as identifying opportunities or accepting change.
• teej 17y ago
  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 totally broken? Company loyalty as a top priority comes at the cost of ineffectiveness and lower morale. It just doesn't seem right. If your employees are being scalped away at salary+15, maybe you're not paying them enough. If your employees are working 12 months and switching jobs, maybe you don't offer enough internal growth. If your are rejecting applications of "job hoppers", maybe you're leaving major value on the table. In Silicon Valley, it's an employee's market. The employer has to work to retain, support, and fairly compensate your employees. Otherwise, you shouldn't be surprised when they up and leave.
  • mendriacus 17y ago
    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.
    • GFischer 17y ago
      The local model (based on the European one) makes it very hard on the employer to fire a worker... it's more like it costs a lot for a company to let him go than that it doesn't want to. It also makes job switching harder, for both sides - you lose all the benefits when you switch - for the first 3 months, you are on "trial" and can be fired at will, after that you lose the extra free days (we get 1 extra day of vacation every 4 years with the same company), and the firing money the company has to pay doubles every year (up to a maximum)
• pw0ncakes 17y ago
  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 people. (The best people, who want only to work at the best companies, have what is in a way the most difficult kind of job search.) Job hopping is almost always involuntary-- not in the sense of a person getting fired, but in the sense of a person being wise enough to realize that he's in a position that his wasting his time, and moving on-- the rational response. The "job hopper" stigma originally came into existence because people who did so would rise rapidly in salary through iterated negotiations; in times such as the late 1990s, it's possible to get to a very high salary level this way. Pursued inflexibly, it's a terrible strategy in the long term, because it makes you less likely to end up as someone's protege (rolling stone, no moss) and eventually compensation will reflect the resulting stagnation. But most "job hoppers" do not fall into this category; they change jobs not because they are trying to game the system, but because they realize they are wasting time. If your career is not improving-- you're not learning, inadequately mentored, and no one is looking out for your advancement-- then you should change jobs as soon as you can do so with minimal harm to the company. (If you're in a small company, it might be right to stay on for a couple months, at least to train someone else.) Since most people are not and cannot be "protege", this means that it's good to shift around a few times until finding a fit. Likewise, everyone has to do some grunt work and deal with some unpleasantness, and recognizing this is just being a mature person, but anyone who finds out his job is mostly or entirely grunt work, or work unrelated to his career (e.g. the programmer who gets put full-time on office tasks) is wasting time and should leave. Sorry, but I have to say all this because I am sick and fucking tired of people ripping on my generation for not playing by someone else's shitty rules. Are the older people really so damn entitled as to not understand all this? And how can they expect loyalty to companies when layoffs happen all the time?
  • wrinklz 17y ago
    My sentiments exactly. And what about the "temporary" employee that can't get hired permanent because the company can't find a budget. This is the wrong economic (and political) climate for this kind of BS.
• andywood 17y ago
  I agree with the general concept, but how on earth is 3 years "short-term"? That's enough time to see certain medium-sized software projects through the full development cycle from conception through v1, with plenty of time left over to follow up with v2 and v3. I get that it's nothing like being a lifer, but I think its a significant period of time for an engineer. Also, your use of phrases like "buh bye" make me think you're trolling for controversy a bit too hard.
• lief79 17y ago
  I'm right at the age he was talking about. Does 3.5 years at my first job sticking through two short-term paycuts to be laid off make up for the now (6 employers) that have followed? * 1.5 years, left after the group was split in half and I was forced into full time testing (I enjoyed part time testing and the first year in that role was outstanding, the new position and team was not a good match). * 1 year, taken over, got J2EE experience and worked with a great team, too bad the office was scheduled to be closed and that we were given no work to do. * 6 months, layoff, worked with the full cutting edge J2EE JBoss (Seam) stack but was let go as one of the newest employees and the only one that didn't know C# (15% of IT laid off) when the budget was shifted. * Short stint at a failed startup, learned some PHP * New stint at a promising startup Technically, with the take over, that's now 7 employers. I think the new job looks quite promising, and I don't regret any of those experiences, as I now have a lot of breadth. I freely admit that I had to work to avoid appearing as a job hopper, and that hurt in the recently ended job hunt. I still think (hope?) that I've ended up at my best work place since that year learning J2EE. *editted for clarity and inserting some more details in the first few minutes
  • hga 17y ago
    Anyone who spent at least 2 years at their first job is going to look good to those with a clue. As you discovered, with all your recent jobs being short(er), you needed a good story, etc., but post dot.com crash I hope it wasn't too difficult. I wouldn't remove you from a job search for the above history.
    • lief79 17y ago
      Getting the first job was the hard one. (911 with the post .com crash.) If you know what you are talking about, once you have a couple years programming experience, you can generally find something. In this case, the J2EE, Hibernate and Seam (usually in place of Spring) experience has opened up a lot of interviews at places that wouldn't have looked at me before.
• mattm 17y ago
  When can we get out of this 1800s Industrial Revolution mentality? I can see the author's point that it is bad to hire job-hoppers at a startup. A startup probably needs people to stay around for their knowledge. But this is such a terrible generalization. People leave for basically one reason - they will be happier doing something else. Why not make your company the place they will be happiest at rather than blaming those around you? The author is upset because with "job-hoppers", employers do not have as much power as they once did. This advice is incredibly biased towards keeping the status-quo for the author's own selfish reasons.
• mkramlich 17y ago
  My favorite thing he attributes to a supposedly bad employee is that "they are only in it for the money." Yeah, and he's not. 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!
  • mendriacus 17y ago
    The author talks about "generations", so we may mention this funny "generation" of 20-something entrepreneurs that try to hire people for little or no money (see the recent "chief intern" postings) to make the entrepreneur - ofter only a couple of years older than them - rich and themselves poor. The good news is that these clever entrepreneurs tend to get what they pay for. But then they have more time than successful ones to wax poetic about this "generation" and its many misgivings.
• wrinklz 17y ago
  Doesn't apply in the biotech field, where startup lifespans tend to be fairly short. Particularly since most of the employees are hired in about the middle of the company lifespan (unless they hit paydirt).
• mendriacus 17y ago
  I find the use of the term "loyalty" here not only immature, but dishonest and hypocritical. The plain truth is that tech startups, and especially the more cutting edge and fast paced among them, are some of the least loyal employers to ever inhabit any job market. 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.
• mkramlich 17y ago
  I think both extremes look bad. Somebody who has had 24 jobs in the last 24 months looks pretty bad. Somebody who has had 1 and only 1 job in the last 24 years also looks rather bad -- depending on the field. If it was a librarian and that's what you're looking to hire, great. But I've noticed that as a general rule, in the software field, if somebody stays at the same employer for 10-20 years, that's usually a bad sign. Not always, but generally. Also think if you were in the software field in the mid/late 90's and you were NOT job hopping, in some sense, you were probably not being very smart. Because there was so much demand for our skills that you could almost always get more money by moving on. Once all the frothy demand died down, yes, it tended to become smarter to stay. But all of this -- all of it -- is just generalizations. People leave jobs for all sorts of reasons which do not or should not reflect badly on them. Family, sickness, education, career growth, moving to a better home or community, etc. I think loyalty is more important at a startup than at a larger, more established business. But never EVER assume the business will be loyal to you, the employee. If you're lucky, they will, but don't assume that. The whole point of the business is to maximize profit for the owners, and the executive/managerial class sometimes really is just out for their own best interests, even if that means canning employees and/or shutting down entire lines of business that otherwise are staffed with good people doing good work. They look at the numbers, and may often "do what the numbers tell them." Likewise, an employee can analyze matters in the same way. It's fair.
  • mendriacus 17y ago
    As much as I support job changing (see my other comments), it's perfectly fine to stay at the same job for 24 years (heck, why not 50?) if it's really good, you're constantly growing, and can demonstrate a rising skill curve throughout. Your extreme suspicion of anyone who stays for so long reveals a more fundamental truth about the software industry: very few companies manage to keep employees happy and challenged for so many years.
• vaksel 17y ago
  the problem is that companies do not pay a fair wage. they hire a person, and then if they work like a slave for them...the most they'd see is a 5% raise if that. And in this economy, chances are the company won't even give the people a raise for years. And early on, in one's career, the experience you gain is valued way more than a 5% raise. I'll give you an example of my friend. He came into his company and ended up with a $12K raise in salary. Pretty much was the top performer there. So the first year he got a 5% raise(max available, and only after 4 months on the job). Second year the market crashed. And the company pretty much slashed the work force. 50% of people were let go. Out of 30 people in his department, only 3 were left. No raises that year. The next year, no raises, more jobs slashed, the rest of his team was let go...and my friend ended up being the only person in the department(company has multiple divisions, so he was just transferred to another department). The next year the company turned around...but once again no raises. So look at my friend...1. top performer...out of 30 people in his department, the only one who wasn't laid off. 2. more and more responsibilities, pretty much attached to his blackberry. Works nights, weekends from home too. 3. the ONLY person in the entire company who knows anything about 60% of the company's internal software..and no raises. And due to inflation....you can even say his salary was slashed, because it wasn't adjusted with inflation for multiple years. Now why would anyone stick around with a company like that? Why wouldn't he move to another company for a 20-30% raise? In fact he wants to...but he can't because he is the only person working in his family, has kids and he figures, it's better the devil you know, so he is waiting for the market to turn around...+ he likes his commute. Now let's say he sticks around for another year, and the next year the company decides to give everyone raises. Do you think the company will be fair, and will give people raises for the 3 years they stuck around supporting the company through the tough times w/o getting paid their fair market value? Or do you think they'll just give people 5%(if that) and maybe a $500 bonus? Bottom line: Employees will stick with you through thick and thin as long as you pay them their fair share...noone likes changing jobs...noone likes the first 3 months on a new job when you don't know if they want to keep you, noone likes job hunting, noone likes interviewing. If you don't, you shouldn't be surprised if they feel justified to look for a company that pays them what they are worth.
• etherael 17y ago
  Interesting tack, say something blatantly offensive claiming it will make you a lot of enemies and then use as demonstration of courageous conduct when you are in fact saying the kind of thing that would otherwise make you look pretty damned evil. The barrage of vitriolic and savage responses here is totally deserved, I can't get over the fact that people like this still exist.
• ardit33 17y ago
  This is the 21 st century. People don't get to get married to their jobs, think of it just as casual dating. As long as both of us are having good time, it is all good. People have been loyal, but they have been paid back with lay offs, either the company goes belly up, or people/projects get cut. Once it happens to you once, you don't do that mistake again. If you see the 'shitty times' ahead sign, some people will leave, and for good reason. Want to keep them around? Give them an incentive to do so, more equity, more responsibility/better tittle, and promise higher pay when things get better. But a lot of companies just don't do it, and expect blind obedience. Also they turn blind eye when shitty managers ruin teams, and take action only after half of the team has left already. First guys out of the door are always the good ones. If a candidate tells you: 'I left company x, b/c my manager was a dickhead, and that I'd rather work somewhere for good people, then compromise my dignity and integrity just to make a manager look good', means that guy actually has a backbone. A weak person will bend and please his manager, even though what the manager is demanding might be damaging to the company on the long run (you see this often in tech. companies). My experience as a Gen Y, when I started my first job (2002), as an intern, i saw 3 out of 8 team members get laid off. One guy had be there for 2 years, one 6 and one 14! That's a good lesson you get for life. A lot of people that started their careers between 99-2003 saw this first hand. Sorry, but loyalty goes so far. Expect the average person to stay 1-4 years in one place, with the 3 year mark the good time to find a new job. Any more than that, then they probably have no ambition, unless they are moving really high up in the ranks.
  • pw0ncakes 17y ago
    If a candidate tells you: 'I left company x, b/c my manager was a dickhead, and that I'd rather work somewhere for good people, then compromise my dignity and integrity just to make a manager look good', means that guy actually has a backbone. A weak person will bend and please his manager, even though what the manager is demanding might be damaging to the company on the long run (you see this often in tech. companies). Fair, but I wouldn't advise anyone, under any circumstances, to badmouth an ex-boss at any stage of the job search process. It's one of the most common interview fuckups.
    • 17y ago
• plinkplonk 17y ago
  Well the article assumes that structuring my life so people like the author can have the warm fuzzies when looking at my cv is a priority for me. What I look for in a job is autonomy, great co-workers and interesting work. The moment any of these decline, I leave. Why should I stick on to a dead end job because someday some fellow like the author might not like my cv? Do what makes sense to you at each decision point. If you are any good technically you will never have a shortage of job offers. If you are really good you'll be drowning in them.
  • strlen 17y ago
    Keep in mind his own experience and the sort of company he started. He was a consultant at Accenture and then started a company making a business application (Koral, a CMS) which he sold to Salesforce (who I'd imagine are to the likes of SAP what Mint was to the likes of Intuit: commendable for the innovative business aspects, but not awe inspiring from technology point of view). His article on the role of a CTO vs. VP of Engineering mentioned having an opinion on Ruby on Rails and familiarity with Hibernate as examples of description of a CTO. Compare this with a real technology company e.g., where the _CEO_ -- a "business guy" -- wrote lex as a his Thesis project. I believe you've been in his world (enterprise software and consulting), so it's fairly clear to you that he neither needs -- nor is able to attract -- very strong technical people. That's fine: if you're building business software, hire people who are competent in writing software and who have understanding of business, but it does put perspective on the situation. He does not "get" what actual engineers (vs. business software developers) aim for a career: doing interesting work, continuously learning (thus becoming more valuable to present and future employers) rather than receiving a high salary and working for a successful company. That's why Calacanis didn't get why Evan left to join Yahoo (oh no, they're not cool according Techcrunch!), that people could be happy when they're doing interesting work even if their workplace is no longer considered hip and sexy. Low compensation or feeling of an employer being a sinking ship will eventually get engineers to consider switching jobs (especially if they have a life goal that requires the additional money e.g., buying a house; this is especially true of those who started as "college hires" at companies with formulaic salary ranges and didn't think to negotiate), but it's never just about the money.
• deleted 17y ago
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• datums 17y ago
  "In the last job I recruited for (our associate) I had more than 1,000 resumes" You're doing it wrong! BTW I don't want to employee someone who doesn't want to be there. If he wants to leave, he's doing us both a favor. It's important to explore why the candidate wasn't happy or had leave the company.
• alnayyir 17y ago
  Schopenhauer said it best. This man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
• gruseom 17y ago
  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.
• jseifer 17y ago
  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.
• donaq 17y ago
  You’re in it more for yourself than your company. No shit, Sherlock. Is the company going to be in it for me? Quid pro quo.
• lolindian 17y ago
  How about this: Employers who don't give proportional ownership of the company to workers are terrible employers and living off of your sweat.
  • Tichy 17y ago
    I must admit that is a notion I don't understand. Why shouldn't it be possible to simply pay for a job and have it done by a professional? Like if I pay somebody to build me a house, am I supposed to give them ownership of the house afterwards?
    • itgoon 17y ago
      If you build a house by having it done by a professional, you're going to be paying more to have it completed. There's usually contract clauses and insurance to ensure that you're not left with a half-finished house. When you hire that professional, you're not only paying for his experience, but all those other things, as well. There's a premium attached to those clauses and insurance. You could choose to forgo those assurances, and save some money, but you have a higher risk. Not to mention, a lot of better professionals would refuse, thus limiting the pool of candidates. The author of the article wants it all: the assurance of the higher-cost option without the premium.
      • Tichy 17y ago
        Of course - if you give equity for workers, it is simply a form of salary. If they don't get equity, they should get a higher salary than workers who get equity. I agree to that. I just don't see why equity should always be a part of the compensation.
        • itgoon 17y ago
          That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could enter into a similar agreement with the builder. He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal? There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way). In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms. He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it, though.
• fretlessjazz 17y ago
  While the metrics behind his assertions are short-sighted, specifically ( years in workforce / number of jobs ) = job-hopping likelyhood, I think he left out the most absolutely critical reason why I and other hiring managers look at the duration of employ at previous establishments. I've reviewed hundreds of resumes, hired great people, and hired some not great people. Sometimes they leave because of you and your company, sometimes they don't. In my experience, a history of short employment can mean one of two things: 1. This candidate is extremely talented, independent, and a self-starter. Hire these people. Now. 2. This candidate leaves before he or she is truly accountable for the code they write. 2 is very dangerous. You don't want to hire an engineer who will write a subscription billing platform and quit the week after launch. It's often tough to determine the difference between 1 and 2, and it takes many pointed questions to figure it out.
• signa11 17y ago
  well all i can say is "if you want loyalty, go buy a cocker-spaniel..."
• brerrabbit 17y ago
  what a fucking pompous blowhard. I find it patently offensive when employers try to posture their employee culture as anything other than what it is, business. "We're all family here..." Fuck you, you are not my Mother or my Father & I resent that implication. Loyalty...please. If Im in on the ground floor, then that might be different, but in that scenario, loyalty swings both ways.
  • msuster 16y ago
    Do you feel better about yourself about saying this about me anonymously on HN? re "you are not my Mother or Father" - I never asked you to read my blog. So the implication that I'm lecturing you is a stretch. I welcome people to disagree with my POV, but personal attacks or epithets are unnecessary.
    • deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    • brerrabbit 16y ago
      Well again, you are behaving like a condescending jerk. You don't even for a second consider that your pontification amounts to an assault on the livelihood of thousands of capable developers who are guilty of nothing more than the moral imperative of responding to market forces. My personal, experience is that I lost my last position of 2 years when the company was knocked out of operation by several months of clients not paying their invoices during the financial crisis. I am now in a position that is steering me directly towards obsolescence. If I take measures to preserve my career, I risk not making it through your "filter" because of your cursory glance @ my resume? Well thank God for that. The only problem is, what if other people actually pay you any attention? The fact that you are now whining about the anonymous attacks and epithets because you never asked the internet to read your blog shows how little you grok the medium to begin with. You deserve worse than insults and epithets, you deserve to be tarred and feathered by your (probably miserable) employees. One last thing...before Im done with you. "you are not my Mother or Father" was not an implication that you were lecturing. It is a comment on your obviously condescending and obtuse management style.
• CRASCH 17y ago
  No one wants to train new employees. It is expensive. I totally disagree with the filter. I don't want employees that aren't going to tough it out and quit mid-project either. That isn't what we are talking about though. We are talking about people that probably switched jobs for any number of reasons. Not hiring someone just because they switched jobs or independently consulted, that seems so arbitrary it is almost comical. It really is a two way street. I worked at a place that had 98% employee retention for multiple years through the boom. Almost everyone there was heavily recruited and almost no one left. Even the people that were previously independent consultants and the ones that had job hopped. Why? It was a great place to work with above average compensation and awesome people to work with. My point is that if you compensate people well and you provide a great place to work you don't have to filter for potential job hoppers. You are then free to filter for the important things like work ethic, aptitude, skill, and fitting in.
• kls 17y ago
  "Gen X’ers who are running for the door at the first sign of trouble" I am sorry but the author supports a very prejudged and one sided viewpoint. The converse of the above quoted statement is: employers who enact massive layoffs at the first sign of trouble. The dynamics of the American work force have changes, many companies are no longer loyal so many employees are no longer loyal.
• acid_bath 17y ago
  "You’re in it more for yourself than your company." What a delusional asshole. If anyone says they care more about a company (and in turn the success of the shareholders) over their own success, they're lying. Anyone who expects this is insane.