5 ms·

In a nutshell: they aren't. The economics of it are that in many places in the world, it is extremely difficult to fire an employee. Getting rid of an underper

In a nutshell: they aren't. The economics of it are that in many places in the world, it is extremely difficult to fire an employee. Getting rid of an underperformer can take time, effort, and exposes the company to liability if the termination can be construed as relating to the employee being in a protected class (e.g. can't fire someone because she's a woman). Let's assume that it's a SF startup willing to play a little fast and loose and they aren't concerned with severance packages or the legal issues. They still put time and effort into training a new engineer. That's months of work that is potentially wasted. All of that means that companies are incredibly risk-averse when it comes to hiring, and will pass on someone who looks even slightly wrong to them. It also means that the process is inherently random as a company will pass on someone they aren't sure of _even if they would have been a good hire_ just because they aren't certain. However, this also means that a lot of companies rely on self-selection in their hiring pool. Look for people they already know, from the same backgrounds, or are willing to pass through a series of arbitrary tests. In short, it's like democracy. It's the worst form of government, except for all the others we've tried.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Don't know where you live but in most of Europe firing someone is pretty trivial. For a newly hired, you have a probation period, before your contract becomes permanent, usually between a month and a year, where you can be fired on the spot. After that, your contract becomes permanent and you can get fired, no questions asked, with a notice period of usually between one and 3 months. In theory, before letting you go, the company has to set up a performance improvement plan for you but companies never bother as it's considered wasted effort to invest in under performers so they just warn you at your performance review that your performance is lacking and that this is strike one. After 3 months of performance monitoring you are let go because your performance hasn't improved so that was strike two and you're out. Sure, you can sue them if you know you've been wronged, and win a few thousand euros, but nobody's gonna hire you knowing you're in a lawsuit with your ex-employer so nobody bothers to sue and prefers to just find another job instead. So unless you're a protected category, usually over 50 years old, woman or not, doesn't matter or part of some big-corp with strong unions, the hard-to-fire is not an argument that holds water here.
- diminoten 7y ago
  1 to 3 months is far from trivial...
- anotheryou 7y ago
  In the under-performing scenario, wouldn't the company have to pay part of the unemployment benefits (up to ~50% of the salary) for a year or so?
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    No, you and your employer pay monthly contributions to the social security system, as part of your income taxes, and in case you get laid off, your unemployment benefits come from that pool.
braythwayt 7y ago
I've been in this business for a very long time, and I have heard this my entire career from everyone except HR professionals and lawyers. First, in jurisdictions like Ontario, there is a probation period during which a new employee can be fired for no reason at all. They can be a top performer and still get fired, and they have no recourse. There are Ontario Human Rights exceptions to this, you can’t have a “Cowboys and Squaws Dress Day” and then fire the newly hired First Nations person who objects. But I have been to a number of management training programs put on by HR consulting firms, and zero of them have said, “Be 100% certain about your new hired, because firing them is difficult and expensive if they don't work out.” It’s true that after they’ve been around for a while, firing someone without cause entails some costs. But here in Ontario, they are surprisingly low. It’s possible to get sued, and win or lose that costs money and time, so most employers either go through a PIP process before letting someone go, or write a decent but not outrageously large cheque in exchange for agreement. On the whole, “Avoid all but the most insanely qualified candidate because firing people is hard” is not anything I’ve heard from a professional. At least, not in my jurisdiction. ——- The above is my recounting my factual experience. And now to my conjectures: What I have heard from fellow managers has more to do with team morale. Hiring and firing people on a regular basis destabilizes the teams they join. Hiring people without ensuring they're a decent fit sends a message that the company doesn't value competence. When such things were in vogue, using bullshit a-hair-to-the-right-of-astrology tests like “How many weights do you need to use a balancing scale to...” acted as a signal to existing employees that they are super smart elite braniacs, and the company values that. I suspect that a lot of risk-aversion with hiring is a combination of “apocraphyl stories going around the intrnet, but nobody is quoting actual research and case law,” combined with cultural signalling. At my current employer, there are lots of people who don’t pass our interview system, but when we review a candidate, we are often less concerned with how capable they are today than with our estimate of how amenable they are to growing on the job. That obviously applies a lot more to people coming in at a lower level, but I assure you that we value great people, but we aren’t insanely risk-averse. Being too risk-averse with hiring is a failure mode, just as being too risk-averse with engineering and product development.
- microtherion 7y ago
  > When such things were in vogue, using bullshit a-hair-to-the-right-of-astrology tests like “How many weights do you need to use a balancing scale to...” Ah, you're lucky to be living in such an enlightened society. In Switzerland you can still find employers who require handwritten applications because they have them evaluated by professional graphologists!
jghn 7y ago
Other fields seem to get along just fine with the same set of constraints. Yes, some of those have professional licensure but not always, and those licenses aren't always required depending on the field. In the latter circumstances, the license unlocks higher level positions, it'd be like saying you couldn't be a Director of Engineering at a software shop w/o one.
- repolfx 7y ago
  Do they get along just fine? My experience of quite a lot of jobs has been that people, even managers, struggle to articulate what exactly they do, let alone what is required to do it well. If you can't clearly articulate that it's pretty meaningless to have any sort of rigorous hiring process to begin with. Maybe that sounds over cynical, but I've watched as people from outside the tech industry encountered the concept of asking people to actually do a work sample in an interview for the first time. They thought it was the most crazy demanding and professional thing they ever heard of and immediately came to regard the team that was hired through that process as incredibly elite. Very few professions really challenge candidates in any meaningful way.
ausjke 7y ago
for startup the hiring is US is tough, thought about hiring from Europe (remote) then got scared away by the labor law there. checking at Asia now, not because they're slightly cheaper(they still are, though to a less degree), but at least the labor law seems more reasonable, so yes, outsourcing not for just saving some money but mainly because of the employment rules are more reasonable for both sides.
- wolco 7y ago
  Wouldn't you just offer a contract to anyone outside of the US? Treat it as a b2b contract?
  - ausjke 7y ago
    no you can hire a group of them, rent an office and designate a tech leader, then do some simple paperwork and set up payment flow and you're ready to go. You don't need consider age/gender/affirmative-action/minority/LGBT-rights and worry about being sued somehow for whatever strange reason, you just hire whoever from the market that wants to do the job, and pay them on time with best intention and follow the common sense rules.
Data_Junkie 7y ago
Not democracy, politics. When there are too many for what we know how to do, we just pick what we know and like. Which in most instances is people like us. After enough cultural repetition it just becomes the way to do it. And they end up looking for themselves, but they don't know how to do the work so nobody like them is a good choice.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

Don't know where you live but in most of Europe firing someone is pretty trivial. For a newly hired, you have a probation period, before your contract becomes permanent, usually between a month and a year, where you can be fired on the spot. After that, your contract becomes permanent and you can get fired, no questions asked, with a notice period of usually between one and 3 months. In theory, before letting you go, the company has to set up a performance improvement plan for you but companies never bother as it's considered wasted effort to invest in under performers so they just warn you at your performance review that your performance is lacking and that this is strike one. After 3 months of performance monitoring you are let go because your performance hasn't improved so that was strike two and you're out. Sure, you can sue them if you know you've been wronged, and win a few thousand euros, but nobody's gonna hire you knowing you're in a lawsuit with your ex-employer so nobody bothers to sue and prefers to just find another job instead. So unless you're a protected category, usually over 50 years old, woman or not, doesn't matter or part of some big-corp with strong unions, the hard-to-fire is not an argument that holds water here.

diminoten 7y ago
1 to 3 months is far from trivial...
anotheryou 7y ago
In the under-performing scenario, wouldn't the company have to pay part of the unemployment benefits (up to ~50% of the salary) for a year or so?
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  No, you and your employer pay monthly contributions to the social security system, as part of your income taxes, and in case you get laid off, your unemployment benefits come from that pool.

braythwayt 7y ago

I've been in this business for a very long time, and I have heard this my entire career from everyone except HR professionals and lawyers. First, in jurisdictions like Ontario, there is a probation period during which a new employee can be fired for no reason at all. They can be a top performer and still get fired, and they have no recourse. There are Ontario Human Rights exceptions to this, you can’t have a “Cowboys and Squaws Dress Day” and then fire the newly hired First Nations person who objects. But I have been to a number of management training programs put on by HR consulting firms, and zero of them have said, “Be 100% certain about your new hired, because firing them is difficult and expensive if they don't work out.” It’s true that after they’ve been around for a while, firing someone without cause entails some costs. But here in Ontario, they are surprisingly low. It’s possible to get sued, and win or lose that costs money and time, so most employers either go through a PIP process before letting someone go, or write a decent but not outrageously large cheque in exchange for agreement. On the whole, “Avoid all but the most insanely qualified candidate because firing people is hard” is not anything I’ve heard from a professional. At least, not in my jurisdiction. ——- The above is my recounting my factual experience. And now to my conjectures: What I have heard from fellow managers has more to do with team morale. Hiring and firing people on a regular basis destabilizes the teams they join. Hiring people without ensuring they're a decent fit sends a message that the company doesn't value competence. When such things were in vogue, using bullshit a-hair-to-the-right-of-astrology tests like “How many weights do you need to use a balancing scale to...” acted as a signal to existing employees that they are super smart elite braniacs, and the company values that. I suspect that a lot of risk-aversion with hiring is a combination of “apocraphyl stories going around the intrnet, but nobody is quoting actual research and case law,” combined with cultural signalling. At my current employer, there are lots of people who don’t pass our interview system, but when we review a candidate, we are often less concerned with how capable they are today than with our estimate of how amenable they are to growing on the job. That obviously applies a lot more to people coming in at a lower level, but I assure you that we value great people, but we aren’t insanely risk-averse. Being too risk-averse with hiring is a failure mode, just as being too risk-averse with engineering and product development.

microtherion 7y ago
> When such things were in vogue, using bullshit a-hair-to-the-right-of-astrology tests like “How many weights do you need to use a balancing scale to...” Ah, you're lucky to be living in such an enlightened society. In Switzerland you can still find employers who require handwritten applications because they have them evaluated by professional graphologists!

jghn 7y ago

Other fields seem to get along just fine with the same set of constraints. Yes, some of those have professional licensure but not always, and those licenses aren't always required depending on the field. In the latter circumstances, the license unlocks higher level positions, it'd be like saying you couldn't be a Director of Engineering at a software shop w/o one.

repolfx 7y ago
Do they get along just fine? My experience of quite a lot of jobs has been that people, even managers, struggle to articulate what exactly they do, let alone what is required to do it well. If you can't clearly articulate that it's pretty meaningless to have any sort of rigorous hiring process to begin with. Maybe that sounds over cynical, but I've watched as people from outside the tech industry encountered the concept of asking people to actually do a work sample in an interview for the first time. They thought it was the most crazy demanding and professional thing they ever heard of and immediately came to regard the team that was hired through that process as incredibly elite. Very few professions really challenge candidates in any meaningful way.

ausjke 7y ago

for startup the hiring is US is tough, thought about hiring from Europe (remote) then got scared away by the labor law there. checking at Asia now, not because they're slightly cheaper(they still are, though to a less degree), but at least the labor law seems more reasonable, so yes, outsourcing not for just saving some money but mainly because of the employment rules are more reasonable for both sides.

wolco 7y ago
Wouldn't you just offer a contract to anyone outside of the US? Treat it as a b2b contract?
- ausjke 7y ago
  no you can hire a group of them, rent an office and designate a tech leader, then do some simple paperwork and set up payment flow and you're ready to go. You don't need consider age/gender/affirmative-action/minority/LGBT-rights and worry about being sued somehow for whatever strange reason, you just hire whoever from the market that wants to do the job, and pay them on time with best intention and follow the common sense rules.

Data_Junkie 7y ago

Not democracy, politics. When there are too many for what we know how to do, we just pick what we know and like. Which in most instances is people like us. After enough cultural repetition it just becomes the way to do it. And they end up looking for themselves, but they don't know how to do the work so nobody like them is a good choice.