9 ms·

After reading the article one thing that struck me was the " internal candidates who were rejected after interviewing with the hiring manager were half as likel

• yaacov 5y ago
  If you can’t get promoted internally, try getting promoted externally :)
  • xhkkffbf 5y ago
    Believe it or not, it can be easier. Often you're seen as a certain type or level in your current job. They can't imagine you doing a different one. Plus, if they promote you, they just have to fill a lower position. A new company doesn't have any of these biases. A friend in night school said he fully expected to have to move to a new company to get promoted. His current boss didn't see him as someone with a masters-level intellect. Of course it's not always this way. Etc. Etc.
    • amatecha 5y ago
      Yeah, as far as I've observed, this is one of the key reasons for consistent short (1-2yr) durations working at companies in the tech industry. You get a raise by getting hired at a new company. Personally for me, each time taking a job at a new employer has resulted in far greater compensation increases than if I had stayed at the same place and waited for a bonus/raise.
    • macksd 5y ago
      There's the perception, yeah. I've also been told that I was so productive in my current role, they saw it as a loss to move me to my target role. Of course, they lost me entirely... There's a place for that: just because someone's a good engineer doesn't make them a good leader or manager, for instance. But such stiff attitudes really hurt an org, IMO.
    • nzmsv 5y ago
      And even if you manage to convince your manager to consider you for the promotion/transfer often they'll ask you to start doing the new job on the side for a bit to prove yourself. Now, how good are you going to be at something new that you are doing part time with nobody taking you seriously and supporting you? It's much easier to get the title first and grow into the job afterwards.
  • behringer 5y ago
    Of course. I'm not going to spend all that time updating my resume and going through all the interview hurdles not to get better paycheck. I'm going to keep applying until I've accomplished getting that better job I'm ready for.
  • plutonorm 5y ago
    This is very very hard to do if you want to go from software engineer to manager. Almost impossible - I have tried sending out hundreds of resumes over periods of years. You need to be promoted internally - but that is impossible unless you know someone. The internal job postings are a sham. I absolutely HATE software development but have been stuck in this role for 15 years and 5 years since I genuinely started loathing it. But there is no escape unless I want to go work in Tescos. I've not seen a promotion into management in my 15 years in the industry across 7 different companies. For all intents and purposes it does not happen and if you go into software, you aren't getting out.
    • pedrosorio 5y ago
      Is this a UK thing? I think I’ve read this before on HN, “getting promoted from software engineer to manager is hard”. It seems to be a cultural thing. In the US, the manager is not seen as “superior” necessarily and many people actively do not want to be promoted (and a bunch of kids pouring into the field every year) so getting a management position is not particularly hard, even if you’re under 30.
      • gambiting 5y ago
        I'm in the UK and at you wouldn't have any issue where I work(big AAA games publisher) - very very very few people want to be managers, so if someone expressed interest in managing they'd be given all training and support to make that happen, probably would get them promoted within a year or less. In fact I'd say that with some seniority under your belt you have to start actively avoiding management roles if you don't want them.
        • plutonorm 5y ago
          I don't believe it - have you seen it happen? If someone actually tries to follow that path, they get managed out rather than promoted, I bet you.
          • gambiting 5y ago
  • maerF0x0 5y ago
    As someone who has never been promoted internally, and has been promoted externally on about half my new roles , I can tell you that taking a job elsewhere is the easier path. I wonder if anyone with success getting promoted internally can chime in on what are some good tactics/resources?
    • n4kana 5y ago
      This may not be helpful in the context of Fortune 500 companies, but here it goes. I started at my current small company as a designer in 2011 with minimal formal training and a couple of years of self-taught experience. In the past ten years, I’ve been proposed to Sr. Designer, Consultant, and now Sr. Consultant. Moving from $10/hr to $95k/year in the process. The line of work is AV consulting and programming for commercial architecture. Let me contrast this with my job experience immediately preceding this, circa 2007 to 2011. I worked as an IT Manager at a University Law School. I started as a student help desk and eventually managed the AV systems in the classrooms. I couldn’t get promoted because it was part of a sprawling organization with super rigid job roles. I’d get in trouble for going above and beyond my job role. I wanted better pay at one point, so I applied for the tiniest move-up at a different school on campus and made it through a bunch of interviews until I met with the CIO of that school. She figuratively spit on my resume and told me to get fucked. I swear that she had a chat with the CIO of the law school, and they plotted her performance with me. My educational background is a BA in music, so I don’t have rock star credentials. Well…I have very modest rock music credentials, but hiring managers don’t give a shit. So what happened with my current job? It’s a small company. 10-20 people for most of the time I was there. Everything that pissed off the university delights the small business. I was able to wear new hats and jump into little side projects and demonstrate the value of my intelligence and enthusiasm. Also, I can’t overstate this; I work for the best boss I can imagine. She assumes the best in everyone and has a mental growth trajectory for all that isn’t marred by fuck ups. She sees the mistakes as learning, as they should be. I’m far enough along in my line of work where I can see that I’d need to change companies if I wanted a quick and easy promotion or a 20% raise. However, I can build/grow the position I’m in. My ambitions are more tied up in my family and personal wellness and growth lately.
• Xavdidtheshadow 5y ago
  > Working at a fortune 100 top 10 company Isn't that the Fortune 10?
  • dylan604 5y ago
    Only if you had a math teacher that harped on you to reduce your fractions.
  • nickff 5y ago
    Apparently not; the Fortune 100 is a sort of curated list, and there is no shorter list. The 10 at the top are referred to as the "Fortune 100 Top 10". https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fortune-100.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fortune-100.asp
    • abalashov 5y ago
      I guess it's seen to be a little gauche to whittle the list down beyond a certain point, i.e. the Fortune 3.
      • devoutsalsa 5y ago
        When Walmart was the most valuable company, a friend who worked at Walmart.com said he worked at a Fortune 1 company.
• Areading314 5y ago
  Simple reason is if they hire someone internally they just get another open req to fill.
  • behringer 5y ago
    Turns out they have another req to fill anyway, with hardly any notice too.
• bdowling 5y ago
  > one of the positions was actually only posted for someone internally This is extremely common. A company can't allow for nepotism or favoritism, so it requires a public posting for any open position. Qualified external applicants see the posting and apply. The managers hire the internal candidate they wanted to hire anyway. It's all a huge waste of everyone's time. I'd bet that a large percentage of job postings are insincere in this way.
  • abalashov 5y ago
    It's even more fun in public institutions, e.g. universities, where a higher amount of perfunctory humouring of external candidates is required in order to create a somewhat more convincing appearance of an equitable search.
    • vkou 5y ago
      It's the natural consequence of a world where performance is difficult to measure, people are largely fungible, and next to nothing that you personally do will move the needle in whether your employer will be successful. In that situation, why wouldn't you hire and promote your friends? All of the incentives are aligned for doing just that.
      • thinkharderdev 5y ago
        How much of it is "hiring friends" vs just hiring someone you have better information about? A lot of people interview exceptionally well but it's always something of a crapshoot how well they will do in the actual job. But for an internal candidate you should have a lot better information on how well they performed in other roles. You can have actual frank conversations with their managers/coworkers instead of getting BS references from people the candidate themselves chose for you to talk to.
        • phkahler 5y ago
          Yeah, there are a few jobs I could recommend a specific person for because I know they are very good due to past experience. When opening come along though, they are usually not looking to change. But if they were... some would say I just recommended a friend, which happens to also be true.
• castlecrasher2 5y ago
  On the flip side, companies tend to hire management for outside perspective; especially in my field, data engineering, companies build up but get to a point where no one internal knows how to proceed properly and so are better off hiring externally. I agree that doing so can be a mistake, but at times it's necessary, and likely less of a risk than promoting internally.
  • Jochim 5y ago
    Does no one know how to proceed properly or are existing management just not willing to listen to the rank and file? I'm watching this happen right now as a third party. The C-suite have brought in a bunch of expensive contractors who run perennially late and have done nothing but regurgitate generic flavour of the month blog posts rather than engaging with the people involved in the process that have actual experience of what's going wrong. At my own place there are no outside contractors but again the people who actually do the work know exactly what could be done to improve the company's processes, getting anyone in management to listen is like pulling teeth.
    • castlecrasher2 5y ago
      Believe me, I've been in your shoes multiple times. I suppose I've resolved that instead of being frustrated as I have been in previous roles, I should simply take advantage of it and be aware of those biases if the situation arises for me.
• dougSF70 5y ago
  Surely Fortune 100 firms want a docile workforce. People who will stay with the firm even when passed over for promotion and opportunity multiple times. These people tend to be easy to manage badly. You are better off finding your next job at a new firm and that firm being grateful you accepted versus staying at your current firm and you being grateful they promoted you.
• cmckn 5y ago
  If you’re still on the fence at all, apply elsewhere today. If your current employer isn’t fulfilling your personal goals, you have zero obligation to wait around until they do. It’s just a job. If your current management would react poorly to you acting in your own interests, you probably don’t want to make a career with these people. If opportunities or rewards are only handed out under threat of an external offer, again—you don’t want to work with these folks.
• victor9000 5y ago
  Do recruiters get the same commission or bonuses if they hire internally? If not then there's your answer.
• arcticbull 5y ago
  Aren't folks unhappy at their current roles likely to seek other roles internally before looking externally? It sounds like they are more likely to (a) already be unhappy (b) become extra unhappy when a transfer is denied and (c) that leads to them setting off into the sunset. I suspect that these aren't the folks companies want to keep in the first place. On average of course, there will be exceptions. Not trying to imply anything about you, OP.
  • maerF0x0 5y ago
    > I suspect that these aren't the folks companies want to keep in the first place. Why not?
    • arcticbull 5y ago
      Apologies for the delayed response. My thought process at the time was that if they were the kind of folks the company wanted to keep they would have been able to make the transfer. I could be wrong.
• Cacti 5y ago
  How long have you been looking internally? Promotions at huge companies usually aren’t just a matter of checking boxes, your manager really has to push for you using both the formal and informal routes. Also, do you trust your manager? Just because they checked some boxes in some system doesn’t mean they are actually advocating for you. It sounds like you probably need to understand the process better.
• anothernewdude 5y ago
  Look for other positions early, not later. Interviewing is a skill that is learned through practice, things like resumes benefit from continuous improvement and refinement. No just that but the interviews are a good chance to learn what skills and attitudes are valued by the places that are hiring the positions that you are interested in.
• bartread 5y ago
  This is giving me flashbacks. Years ago I applied for a C-level position at a company I worked for, somewhat to my surprise sailed through the interview process, and was officially offered the job. A few days later the CEO stopped by for a chat and told me they weren't going to offer me the job. He seemed surprised when I told him I'd already been offered it despite that everyone involved in the process had met and agreed to offer it to me. Cue shenanigans, partly self-inflicted, because I really wanted that job. Turns out they had someone else in mind they wanted to give it to (I'm not sure at what point they'd realised this) so they added some additional selections stages that were basically engineered to ensure I'd fail so they could give the job to this other person. With hindsight I should have quit there and then, and sued them for constructive dismissal. I didn't do that because a relative with whom I was close was terminally ill and I didn't think it was a good time to act in a way that felt rash with everything around that going on. I was also concerned about having to deal with a potentially protracted legal case in the midst of all this, and how I'd keep paying my mortgage with no income. Still, this was a mistake. I should have done it. I'll explain why below. I ended up staying for about another year, although I'd obviously made the decision that I was going to leave at the first opportunity. For part of that year I worked for the person they'd given the job to. It was shit. For the rest of it I was in a different team, where I actually worked pretty hard, but that work was targeted (by me) at skilling myself up to enable myself to find a new position. I'm not saying it didn't benefit the company, but any such benefit was very much a secondary objective. As you can imagine, this was by far and away the most humiliating episode of my career, and I came away from it extremely disillusioned, and with my confidence in tatters. Even all these years later, typing this now and in some limited form reliving the experience, I find myself surprised by how angry I still feel. The one positive is that it's had a profound impact on the way I choose to deal with people, and obviously particularly when hiring. A key lesson is know what you're looking for and be clear about that. After I left - with nothing else lined up - I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I ended up contracting for about two and a half years, just because the money was decent and I just couldn't tolerate the thought of being somebody's employee. I got over it eventually. I'm now a CTO at a growing company that's maybe 30% larger than the company where I was originally offered/de-offered a C-level job was at that time, and have been since the beginning of 2020. For political reasons my role in 2019 was an EVP position, but you could squint and say I've been doing this role for getting on three years. Nonetheless, that episode, and particularly the decision I made not to quit and sue, probably cost me 5 - 7 years in my career. That's time and money I won't get back. And it was, I think, that decision (or perhaps lack of a decision) more than anything else that led to the loss of confidence and disillusionment, because what I was mostly disillusioned with was myself. If I'd acted I think I would have felt quite differently because, even though the situation would still have been deeply unpleasant, showing that agency would have made it easier for me to own the outcome. All of this is a very long-winded way of saying that if you're not progressing the way you want to with your current company, don't mess around: find a role with a different company where you can progress the way you want to.
• fergie 5y ago
  I mean it sucks, but your boss gave you solid advice: If you are looking to get promoted internally in a massive technical bureaucracy, one of the best things you can do is get an external offer.
• theshadowknows 5y ago
  It’s the same where I am. We’re a fortune 4 and the number of people who create jobs for their friends is outrageous.