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Also relevant should be the question how to act in different phases. An unhealthy company is not necessarily dying. And even a dying company is not necessarily

by erikb 9y ago

Also relevant should be the question how to act in different phases. An unhealthy company is not necessarily dying. And even a dying company is not necessarily bad for you. It's like with real people. When someone dies some others start to check out the valuables to get the best for themselves. If you are working in a brilliant team inside a dying company, you may all get picked up, get a raise, and be welcomed into new arms. That's one way to get into Google for instance. For figuring out the current health status, I'd check: the product line - is it understandable? is it modern? is it efficient? the customer base - do they have customers that wouldn't easily change to alternative options? the management team - do they have visions? are they cooperating? are they lying psychopaths, ambitious inventors, calm survivors (thinking Merkel here), idiotic burocrats? HR - HR is managements comm channel to the employees. Does the promo material look good? How close is the promo material to the actual day-to-day work? People - are there smart people you like to work with? How many of them are currently joining? How many of them are currently leaving? Hiring - you are either new and just got hired or there for a long time and probably at least hear things about the hiring process at the water cooler. how reasonable does it sound? does it filter out idiots? does it assess quality attributes like culture? Does the feedback from the interviewers have influence on the hiring decision (more often than you think they actually just hire anybody, if they are hiring at all).

avisser 9y ago
re: the product line - also, is it sticky/easy to migrate away? I've worked for places with products that were not great but had institutional customers who required acts of god to change vendors. We were okay.
- erikb 9y ago
  The list is meant more as a list of variables to compare, not as a list of possible red flags. If one or two factors are totally bad it still doesn't necessarily mean that you would call the patient "sick", especially when corresponding factors are fine. Strong market position with bad products is usually okay. But if you know that and then hear about a deal that may risk decreasing the market position, then you know that there's a good chance it will get a lot worse and you can already start screening the job market for alternatives. Also there are some factors, like good colleagues, which can compensate a lot for you personally, like bad HR department and bureaucratic leadership. And sometimes things that are bad for you personally are actually good for the company. For instance if your customer is the government then bureaucratic leadership may actually be a market advantage over the competition.

by erikb 9y ago

avisser 9y ago

re: the product line - also, is it sticky/easy to migrate away? I've worked for places with products that were not great but had institutional customers who required acts of god to change vendors. We were okay.

erikb 9y ago
The list is meant more as a list of variables to compare, not as a list of possible red flags. If one or two factors are totally bad it still doesn't necessarily mean that you would call the patient "sick", especially when corresponding factors are fine. Strong market position with bad products is usually okay. But if you know that and then hear about a deal that may risk decreasing the market position, then you know that there's a good chance it will get a lot worse and you can already start screening the job market for alternatives. Also there are some factors, like good colleagues, which can compensate a lot for you personally, like bad HR department and bureaucratic leadership. And sometimes things that are bad for you personally are actually good for the company. For instance if your customer is the government then bureaucratic leadership may actually be a market advantage over the competition.