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Actually I own the company and everyone is remote (hundreds of people). I have lost entry level hires because they didn’t like remote only. Now we don’t hire re

Actually I own the company and everyone is remote (hundreds of people). I have lost entry level hires because they didn’t like remote only. Now we don’t hire recent college grads anymore. I want everyone to work hard when they are working and enjoy their life when they aren’t working.

dahart 4y ago
That’s pretty interesting as the owner to switch to not hiring juniors after they expressed trouble with remote work. Is this sustainable? Wrt your top comment, it’s probably worth acknowledging that work mentoring and water-cooler banter are two completely different work-social activities. People do need mentoring, even senior level hires, and without it, people are not going to succeed as often. How do you ensure mentoring is working with all-remote work? (I do think there are things you can do remotely, but as a senior developer, I have watched juniors struggling during the pandemic, and I don’t have the choice to stop hiring juniors.)
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  If their budget allows for it, there will always be enough seniors to hire that they don’t have to eat the cost of training juniors who aren’t compatible with their operating model. Let that be someone else’s problem if you can (and then hire who’ve they’ve developed away with the offer of remote work). It has not been my experience that senior folks need mentoring, only culture and people ops guidance (as every org is different in that regard). Coaching (distinctly different than mentoring) can be done between peers remotely.
  - dahart 4y ago
    That’s definitely true for one company, but of course can’t work for all companies. And even so, mentoring is still an important task, not to mention many other aspects of work communication that aren’t automatically enabled with Slack and email, so I’m genuinely curious how to make it as good remotely as it used to be in-person.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Sure. What I have seen work is the mentor sitting in on video or conf calls as a regular participant, taking notes, and then coaching room for improvement one on one with those being coached. Praise in public, constructively critique in private. Observe, communicate, improve, repeat.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  There’s a bunch of reasons I don’t want entry level people around, in general the drama is a lot higher and the dice rolling is more significant on whether they work out. We do 6 month internships and students either take a sabbatical or their college has co-op programs for longer interns, and if they are good and can work remote effectively, we will hire them once they graduate. Otherwise it’s 2+ years experience and up only and we strongly prefer more experienced people. You need to be self-motivated as no one is watching you, and the people in their 30s+ are typically much better at this.
  - SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
    > We are fully remote > we can’t train new devs Yeah, I think it’s clear what’s going on here to folks who aren’t you.
deleted 4y ago
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dahart 4y ago

That’s pretty interesting as the owner to switch to not hiring juniors after they expressed trouble with remote work. Is this sustainable? Wrt your top comment, it’s probably worth acknowledging that work mentoring and water-cooler banter are two completely different work-social activities. People do need mentoring, even senior level hires, and without it, people are not going to succeed as often. How do you ensure mentoring is working with all-remote work? (I do think there are things you can do remotely, but as a senior developer, I have watched juniors struggling during the pandemic, and I don’t have the choice to stop hiring juniors.)

toomuchtodo 4y ago
If their budget allows for it, there will always be enough seniors to hire that they don’t have to eat the cost of training juniors who aren’t compatible with their operating model. Let that be someone else’s problem if you can (and then hire who’ve they’ve developed away with the offer of remote work). It has not been my experience that senior folks need mentoring, only culture and people ops guidance (as every org is different in that regard). Coaching (distinctly different than mentoring) can be done between peers remotely.
- dahart 4y ago
  That’s definitely true for one company, but of course can’t work for all companies. And even so, mentoring is still an important task, not to mention many other aspects of work communication that aren’t automatically enabled with Slack and email, so I’m genuinely curious how to make it as good remotely as it used to be in-person.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Sure. What I have seen work is the mentor sitting in on video or conf calls as a regular participant, taking notes, and then coaching room for improvement one on one with those being coached. Praise in public, constructively critique in private. Observe, communicate, improve, repeat.
monero-xmr 4y ago
There’s a bunch of reasons I don’t want entry level people around, in general the drama is a lot higher and the dice rolling is more significant on whether they work out. We do 6 month internships and students either take a sabbatical or their college has co-op programs for longer interns, and if they are good and can work remote effectively, we will hire them once they graduate. Otherwise it’s 2+ years experience and up only and we strongly prefer more experienced people. You need to be self-motivated as no one is watching you, and the people in their 30s+ are typically much better at this.
- SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
  > We are fully remote > we can’t train new devs Yeah, I think it’s clear what’s going on here to folks who aren’t you.

deleted 4y ago

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