> people are willing to change jobs often People are willing to changes jobs often because companies aren't offering meaningful paths for advancement. People a

> people are willing to change jobs often People are willing to changes jobs often because companies aren't offering meaningful paths for advancement. People aren't going to wait around forever, and will write their own promotion if it comes to that. I did, after watching people half as qualified as me interview for "Senior Software Engineer" with alleged years of experience as such. I've watched corporations make blindingly obvious $100M mistakes, and then layoff the rank & file — the "talent" — who had no say, and if anything, disapproved of the decisions that led to their ultimate layoff. You can't get attached to a company, as the winds will shift tomorrow. > almost all of the companies we studied are starting to take nontraditional approaches to recruiting And yet there doesn't appear to be a recruiter out there that can put a competently written email into my inbox. Of the jobs I've held, I've self-applied to two, my own network for one, and the last was a recruiter. > We don’t have a retention problem! In a sense, they’re right. At the senior level, the attrition rates at these companies are often quite low – 4% or 5% a year. … 4%–5% attrition YoY would be low, IMO. My experience is closer to 30–50% YoY. > They have good ideas, they have money – they just don’t have enough talented people to pursue those ideas. They are “talent-constrained.” If you have the money, and you're "talent constrained", it is either because you don't have the money, or you're not willing to loose the purse-strings enough to get the talent. > What do talented people get at startups? For one thing, the opportunity to make a lot of money. Please. Lottery tickets similarly offer the opportunity to make a lot of money, but I suppose this is 1998 and the bubble hasn't imploded just quite yet. > “Does your company make improving its talent pool one of its top three priorities?” In many companies, only 10% or 20% of corporate officers said yes. And the truth comes out. "Talent, talent, talent" as a marketing message, but … it isn't an actual priority. Mid-way through this alleged war for talent, Adobe, Apple, Google. Intel, Intuit, eBay and others would be sued for antitrust violations around suppressing wages by non-poaching agreements. They would later settle at various points for a collective $435M. Still, "[one of the plaintiffs] said the [earlier, slightly smaller settlement] represents only one-tenth of the $3 billion in compensation the 64,000 workers could have made if the defendants had not colluded".