4 ms·

Tech lay-offs teach us a lesson about the ‘war for talent’

29 points by thm 4y ago

qubex 4y ago
Paywalled.
pmjones 4y ago
Archived link: https://archive.ph/bXlVV https://archive.ph/bXlVV
revskill 4y ago
"The thing about dreams is that they disappear when you wake up" To me, it's the opposite. As soon as i still have ability to learn more things everyday, it's the dream to me already. It's the greed that kills them, not waking up.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
There's two things I can see coming out of this cycle of layoffs - first is that there's lots of very promising start-ups that are going to pick up some great staffers from the bigger tech compaines they previously couldn't tempt. Second - that as the talented engineers move on (or are moved out) there will be a vacuum filled by the usual corporate types and sociopaths who will collectively reduce the efficiency of the companies they remain part of.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  And perks go away, which increases the average anger point and decreases enjoyment. The best performers will move on while everyone else will be "stuck with the check".
salawat 4y ago
I've long held that really, the thing Big Tech has been doing is strategic brain drain via talent attraction. It is relatively easy to become entrenched when you buy off everyone who even becomes/registers as a threat, especially when capital is cheap and plentiful. This strategy is only reinforced by the quick dumping of workforce when capital gets more expensive. Those "threats" shrink when in direct proportion to the degree of difficulty in acquiring startup capital. If there actually were a pressing need for the best of the best, they wouldn't have frozen hiring, as they'd be continuing to keep an eye out for the new cream of the crop. No one'll admit it, of course, but I have heard it several times in various forms, generally boiling down to what I'd call the adage of "if they are working for you, that's one less worker for your competitor," in my career.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  I guarantee you the big cos are keeping an eye out for the new cream and any hiring freeze you hear about has major exceptions for certain areas of growth. Do you really think Apple is having trouble picking up talent right now or that they stopped hiring?
  - robbintt 4y ago
    Yep, so far layoffs are really underperformers, overweight specializations, and nontechnical. Twitter is an exception, but it's not a rational actor.
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  They froze hiring because of risk. That tends to happen when there's uncertainty and/or debt concerns. This happens all the with expensive (but very nice to have) assets. When problems start to mount the expensive stuff gets jettisoned. It could be very promising and it would still be cut. Now some programs that they see as crucial to their future development/survival might still be kept, but that doesn't mean that because people / projects that are cut necessarily lack promise (though this is often the case). It could just as easily be that they just don't have the same high likelihood of success, or the payoff could be not worth the risk. I'd add that the adage "if they are working for you, that's one less worker for your competitor," is a little bit of an unnecessarily negative portrait. At a high level, would you rather your team have a "C+ teammate while your competitor has an A+ teammate", or would you like the opposite? The answer is obvious and you do everything you can to put the balance in your favor... but I see this as different from paying to keep them off the market. This repeats for every team member so you have to try to do this every time to keep that balance. On the other hand, from the perspective of a smaller company, they have an A+ person that's not available at all, and will go to another high paying big company before you anyway. So that I see as more of the talent hording people refer to. I guess I don't see a small hypothetical company as "competition", but maybe that's a bad idea. EDIT/PS: I know in the second to last paragraph I do a poor job of describing why it's different from "keeping them off the market". I see it more like picking players before a game... of course you pick the best players for yourself, and do so to some extent to prevent them from going to the other team, but I don't think the adage fits.
1letterunixname 4y ago
At a certain megacorp, there's a hiring freeze officially except for senior technical talent. Most bootcamp folks were let go and recruiting was downsized significantly.
demystifyfp 4y ago
[flagged]

29 points by thm 4y ago

qubex 4y ago

Paywalled.

pmjones 4y ago

Archived link: https://archive.ph/bXlVV https://archive.ph/bXlVV

revskill 4y ago

"The thing about dreams is that they disappear when you wake up" To me, it's the opposite. As soon as i still have ability to learn more things everyday, it's the dream to me already. It's the greed that kills them, not waking up.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

There's two things I can see coming out of this cycle of layoffs - first is that there's lots of very promising start-ups that are going to pick up some great staffers from the bigger tech compaines they previously couldn't tempt. Second - that as the talented engineers move on (or are moved out) there will be a vacuum filled by the usual corporate types and sociopaths who will collectively reduce the efficiency of the companies they remain part of.

1letterunixname 4y ago
And perks go away, which increases the average anger point and decreases enjoyment. The best performers will move on while everyone else will be "stuck with the check".

salawat 4y ago

I've long held that really, the thing Big Tech has been doing is strategic brain drain via talent attraction. It is relatively easy to become entrenched when you buy off everyone who even becomes/registers as a threat, especially when capital is cheap and plentiful. This strategy is only reinforced by the quick dumping of workforce when capital gets more expensive. Those "threats" shrink when in direct proportion to the degree of difficulty in acquiring startup capital. If there actually were a pressing need for the best of the best, they wouldn't have frozen hiring, as they'd be continuing to keep an eye out for the new cream of the crop. No one'll admit it, of course, but I have heard it several times in various forms, generally boiling down to what I'd call the adage of "if they are working for you, that's one less worker for your competitor," in my career.

birdyrooster 4y ago
I guarantee you the big cos are keeping an eye out for the new cream and any hiring freeze you hear about has major exceptions for certain areas of growth. Do you really think Apple is having trouble picking up talent right now or that they stopped hiring?
- robbintt 4y ago
  Yep, so far layoffs are really underperformers, overweight specializations, and nontechnical. Twitter is an exception, but it's not a rational actor.
P_I_Staker 4y ago
They froze hiring because of risk. That tends to happen when there's uncertainty and/or debt concerns. This happens all the with expensive (but very nice to have) assets. When problems start to mount the expensive stuff gets jettisoned. It could be very promising and it would still be cut. Now some programs that they see as crucial to their future development/survival might still be kept, but that doesn't mean that because people / projects that are cut necessarily lack promise (though this is often the case). It could just as easily be that they just don't have the same high likelihood of success, or the payoff could be not worth the risk. I'd add that the adage "if they are working for you, that's one less worker for your competitor," is a little bit of an unnecessarily negative portrait. At a high level, would you rather your team have a "C+ teammate while your competitor has an A+ teammate", or would you like the opposite? The answer is obvious and you do everything you can to put the balance in your favor... but I see this as different from paying to keep them off the market. This repeats for every team member so you have to try to do this every time to keep that balance. On the other hand, from the perspective of a smaller company, they have an A+ person that's not available at all, and will go to another high paying big company before you anyway. So that I see as more of the talent hording people refer to. I guess I don't see a small hypothetical company as "competition", but maybe that's a bad idea. EDIT/PS: I know in the second to last paragraph I do a poor job of describing why it's different from "keeping them off the market". I see it more like picking players before a game... of course you pick the best players for yourself, and do so to some extent to prevent them from going to the other team, but I don't think the adage fits.

1letterunixname 4y ago

At a certain megacorp, there's a hiring freeze officially except for senior technical talent. Most bootcamp folks were let go and recruiting was downsized significantly.

demystifyfp 4y ago

[flagged]