4 ms·
It's almost funny how this is the polar opposite of what you often want when hiring. You're hiring to add manpower to tackle the kind of unexciting tasks that y
by dkyc 5y ago
It's almost funny how this is the polar opposite of what you often want when hiring. You're hiring to add manpower to tackle the kind of unexciting tasks that you don't naturally find people drawn towards from your existing team (and then, people's responsibilities expand, or they turn 'boring' work into interesting work by redefining the problem or attacking it on a deeper level).
When you have a growing business, money is probably not not the primary concern, but the last thing you can afford is someone on the team being picky about which tasks are beneath them.
No judgment here, I understand OP's sentiment, but I cannot remember any situation in my career where 'hire me, I only work on what I find interesting but it'll cost you comparatively little' would have been an exciting proposition (on the hiring side).
- UncleOxidant 5y agoI'd put it a bit differently than the OP - for me interesting and meaningful work means that it's actually benefiting society in some way. That would mean that even the 'boring' aspects would have some kind of meaning ("we're trying to cure X" or "We're working to help solve global warming"). Too much work now is just trying to sell stuff to other people, get people to click links, get people riled up so that they're engaged with some social media platform - it's not helping us as a species.
- quijoteuniv 5y agoDefinetely. Making a rich guy get richer is boring. Helping the planet be a better place sounds interesting.
- kyawzazaw 5y agoApart from hedge funds and quant trading firms, I think there is a lot of that sentiment be projected onto many software engineer jobs (at least, imo
- itronitron 5y agoIf a company is trying to hire people to do the work that current employees don't want to do then it sounds like they have already hired the wrong people.
- freetime2 5y agoAs a company grows, all sorts of new problems open up that your current employees might not be a great fit for. For example, you might not need a DBA when just starting out, but when your database reaches a certain size it might make sense to hire one. Or you might need to hire a middle manager once you reach a certain size - but all of your initial hires prefer individual contributor roles. Or maybe you need someone with a strong background in security to be able to pass an audit. It doesn't mean that you hired the wrong people. Just that your needs are changing.
- XorNot 5y agoHire me and provide a steady stream of well-defined work is what I'd settle for. I'm currently about to abandon a 12 month contract about 3 months in because it's become apparent that the company didn't actually want a "DevOps" position, and I was hired as part of some incredible misconceptions about the regulatory environment they operate in by the managers who created the position. The problem isn't "being bored" for me, it's feeling like time is passing slowly. I don't really care what if at the end of the day it's a surprise that it's all of a sudden 5pm.