4 ms·

When I worked at VMware in 2008, I remember interviewing a candidate. Priorities changed, we weren't crazy about the candidate, and they didn't get hired. No on

When I worked at VMware in 2008, I remember interviewing a candidate. Priorities changed, we weren't crazy about the candidate, and they didn't get hired. No one was ever hired for the opening, and ~1 year later the project was canceled. > but they keep job reqs open for appearances People hire for appearances. If you're a manager you need people to manage. It makes you feel important. That job that I had at VMware... The more I think about it, that job was making someone feel important, and feel like they were checking a box. My prior job was about making someone feel important, too. (My boss was promoted to manager so he hired me.) So I wouldn't go and say that a company is pretending to be hiring. It's more that priorities change, or sometimes the bar for a position is high, ect, ect.

heraldgeezer 2y ago
>People hire for appearances. If you're a manager you need people to manage. It makes you feel important. This eventually leads to layoffs. At my old company, when someone in a team moved teams or quit, they reflexively hired a replacement or consultant even if it was not needed. Then they had to be laid off due to budget (me included) So yes, managers just want a bigger team to look good. It worked when money was free...
xyst 2y ago
There’s a few rumors out there that promotion for managers at Amazon require a minimum head count. Fortune 500 companies are a disaster. It’s all a game of smoke and mirrors. Pump the stock at all costs
- Ancalagon 2y ago
  rumors? I thought this was common knowledge for most large orgs
marcus0x62 2y ago
> If you're a manager you need people to manage. It makes you feel important. When you're a manager, you need a bench of candidates for areas where you think your team will grow, and for people from your team who might leave. When I was a manager, I always had a list of potential hires, but it was a spreadsheet I kept, and when I'd talk to people informally I'd let them know - either I have no possible opening for them now, but I'd like to keep them in mind for the future if they were also interested in working for me or, I'd let them know I'd probably have an opening n months in the future. But, I'd never post job listings just to get a candidate list. Or interview random people just for the hell of it. For one, at most (bigger than tiny startup) companies, there's at least some bureaucracy in getting job listings approved - why would you do that work if you don't need to? Also, why would you want to lead people on who you want on your team? At the line manager level, this theory makes no sense. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it is as stupid for the manager as it is wasteful for the job applicant.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > just that it is as stupid for the manager as it is wasteful for the job applicant. You're clearly a good manager. (And I suspect I would enjoy working for you.) Don't underestimate the amount of lousy managers out there. Many of them don't know they're lousy, or are just trying to do what's right without realizing that they aren't doing what's right.
- lovich 2y ago
  Your company still lets line level managers open reqs or decide who gets to join the company? Opening job reqs has been director+ at every place I’ve worked. The most say I get is to yay or nay based on the one round I get to interview candidates on, but the interviewers in every other round have an equal say. My point being is that you are correct that for line managers it makes no sense to have fake job postings but at a lot of companies the line managers have zero say in whether it happens or not
  - marcus0x62 2y ago
    > I’ve worked. The most say I get is to yay or nay based on the one round I get to interview candidates on, but the interviewers in every other round have an equal say. You're conflating two completely different things here (posting job listings and who decides on which candidate to hire) WRT to hiring, in my experience, the hiring manager for an IC position was always first among equals in making the final candidate selection. Other people, based on their position in the company, might get to say no, but I was the only person who got to say yes. This was slightly different for hiring non-ICs at the company I worked for - in that case, the functional leader had to agree with the hiring manager, but it was still the hiring manager who ultimately decided whether or not to advance their candidate to the final round with the functional leader. As for posting job reqs, it ultimately required much higher than director-level approval to post any job req. It typically required functional leader approval and HR/finance approval to get done. Generally, I and other managers would make the case for why we needed additional headcount to our managers (usually directly to our director and our VP) and the VPs would make the case to our SVP as to why their particular team should get the headcount they wanted. Then, the VPs would figure out where they wanted to allocate their headcount, then the directors would do the same, then the managers would figure out (if they didn't get all of the headcount they wanted) which positions they wanted to fill, then the whole process would go in reverse where we would make the case to our directors why we wanted to fill x position instead of y position, and so on and so forth. > but at a lot of companies the line managers have zero say in whether it happens or not I don't doubt that. But, it is a sign of an unhealthy leadership culture and an unhealthy relationship between managers and their directors.
Rastonbury 2y ago
Interesting take, did you feel like your work never helped the company or only helped marginally? Or was it a role you could purely coast in
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > did you feel like your work never helped the company or only helped marginally? The product was cancelled before it shipped. (Basically, the market window ended and the product was my first career example of architecture astronauts and the consequences.) But, to make it interesting: The HR guy who hired me bumped up my rank to get me a pay increase. They didn't tell me that I was the most experienced engineer on the team, nor did I have the leverage to push back on some serious architectural mistakes. 1 year in, I realized the project was an exercise of "architecture astronauts," although I didn't know the word at the time. > Or was it a role you could purely coast in I could have done that. I consider that generally unethical. I did coast a few days before I gave notice; I gave notice the day before a scheduled vacation, and then came in one day after the vacation to meet with HR. To make a long story short: I decided to quit a few days before the Employee Stock Purchase Plan grant date, and I was afraid if I gave notice, I'd loose the stock. To put things in context, my manager wanted to walk me out the door as soon as I gave notice, and I had to tell him that would make him look bad.
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    I just wanted to add to my comment about coasting, which I generally consider unethical. When my project at VMware ended, I was assigned to a team that I really, really didn't like. I was advised to find a new project, which I did: The rewrite of the VSphere UI in Flex. At the time, it was a 1-person exploratory project. I could have been #2 in that project. Well, we all knew where Flex went. At the time, I was eager to do work in HTML & CSS. I was planning quitting to start a startup in a few months, too. I spent a few days trying to get a Flex development environment running, and decided that it just wasn't "worth it" to spend any time with Flex, or the VSphere UI rewrite. If it had been HTML & Javascript, I would have stayed, at least for a few months longer, or possibly even longer, because the guy who was starting the project was kinda cool. Instead, when I decided it was time to leave VMware, I realized that I only had ~2 days before the employee stock purchase plan grant. This was quite lucrative, so I costed for 1-2 days, (also to give me a chance to change my mind,) and gave my notice.
qwertyuiop_ 2y ago
More often than not Managers aggressively hiring and “growing” the team is to build a facade for themselves to get promoted or prove that they grew the team.

heraldgeezer 2y ago

>People hire for appearances. If you're a manager you need people to manage. It makes you feel important. This eventually leads to layoffs. At my old company, when someone in a team moved teams or quit, they reflexively hired a replacement or consultant even if it was not needed. Then they had to be laid off due to budget (me included) So yes, managers just want a bigger team to look good. It worked when money was free...

xyst 2y ago

There’s a few rumors out there that promotion for managers at Amazon require a minimum head count. Fortune 500 companies are a disaster. It’s all a game of smoke and mirrors. Pump the stock at all costs

Ancalagon 2y ago
rumors? I thought this was common knowledge for most large orgs

marcus0x62 2y ago

> If you're a manager you need people to manage. It makes you feel important. When you're a manager, you need a bench of candidates for areas where you think your team will grow, and for people from your team who might leave. When I was a manager, I always had a list of potential hires, but it was a spreadsheet I kept, and when I'd talk to people informally I'd let them know - either I have no possible opening for them now, but I'd like to keep them in mind for the future if they were also interested in working for me or, I'd let them know I'd probably have an opening n months in the future. But, I'd never post job listings just to get a candidate list. Or interview random people just for the hell of it. For one, at most (bigger than tiny startup) companies, there's at least some bureaucracy in getting job listings approved - why would you do that work if you don't need to? Also, why would you want to lead people on who you want on your team? At the line manager level, this theory makes no sense. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it is as stupid for the manager as it is wasteful for the job applicant.

gwbas1c 2y ago
> just that it is as stupid for the manager as it is wasteful for the job applicant. You're clearly a good manager. (And I suspect I would enjoy working for you.) Don't underestimate the amount of lousy managers out there. Many of them don't know they're lousy, or are just trying to do what's right without realizing that they aren't doing what's right.
lovich 2y ago
Your company still lets line level managers open reqs or decide who gets to join the company? Opening job reqs has been director+ at every place I’ve worked. The most say I get is to yay or nay based on the one round I get to interview candidates on, but the interviewers in every other round have an equal say. My point being is that you are correct that for line managers it makes no sense to have fake job postings but at a lot of companies the line managers have zero say in whether it happens or not
- marcus0x62 2y ago
  > I’ve worked. The most say I get is to yay or nay based on the one round I get to interview candidates on, but the interviewers in every other round have an equal say. You're conflating two completely different things here (posting job listings and who decides on which candidate to hire) WRT to hiring, in my experience, the hiring manager for an IC position was always first among equals in making the final candidate selection. Other people, based on their position in the company, might get to say no, but I was the only person who got to say yes. This was slightly different for hiring non-ICs at the company I worked for - in that case, the functional leader had to agree with the hiring manager, but it was still the hiring manager who ultimately decided whether or not to advance their candidate to the final round with the functional leader. As for posting job reqs, it ultimately required much higher than director-level approval to post any job req. It typically required functional leader approval and HR/finance approval to get done. Generally, I and other managers would make the case for why we needed additional headcount to our managers (usually directly to our director and our VP) and the VPs would make the case to our SVP as to why their particular team should get the headcount they wanted. Then, the VPs would figure out where they wanted to allocate their headcount, then the directors would do the same, then the managers would figure out (if they didn't get all of the headcount they wanted) which positions they wanted to fill, then the whole process would go in reverse where we would make the case to our directors why we wanted to fill x position instead of y position, and so on and so forth. > but at a lot of companies the line managers have zero say in whether it happens or not I don't doubt that. But, it is a sign of an unhealthy leadership culture and an unhealthy relationship between managers and their directors.

Rastonbury 2y ago

Interesting take, did you feel like your work never helped the company or only helped marginally? Or was it a role you could purely coast in

gwbas1c 2y ago
> did you feel like your work never helped the company or only helped marginally? The product was cancelled before it shipped. (Basically, the market window ended and the product was my first career example of architecture astronauts and the consequences.) But, to make it interesting: The HR guy who hired me bumped up my rank to get me a pay increase. They didn't tell me that I was the most experienced engineer on the team, nor did I have the leverage to push back on some serious architectural mistakes. 1 year in, I realized the project was an exercise of "architecture astronauts," although I didn't know the word at the time. > Or was it a role you could purely coast in I could have done that. I consider that generally unethical. I did coast a few days before I gave notice; I gave notice the day before a scheduled vacation, and then came in one day after the vacation to meet with HR. To make a long story short: I decided to quit a few days before the Employee Stock Purchase Plan grant date, and I was afraid if I gave notice, I'd loose the stock. To put things in context, my manager wanted to walk me out the door as soon as I gave notice, and I had to tell him that would make him look bad.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  I just wanted to add to my comment about coasting, which I generally consider unethical. When my project at VMware ended, I was assigned to a team that I really, really didn't like. I was advised to find a new project, which I did: The rewrite of the VSphere UI in Flex. At the time, it was a 1-person exploratory project. I could have been #2 in that project. Well, we all knew where Flex went. At the time, I was eager to do work in HTML & CSS. I was planning quitting to start a startup in a few months, too. I spent a few days trying to get a Flex development environment running, and decided that it just wasn't "worth it" to spend any time with Flex, or the VSphere UI rewrite. If it had been HTML & Javascript, I would have stayed, at least for a few months longer, or possibly even longer, because the guy who was starting the project was kinda cool. Instead, when I decided it was time to leave VMware, I realized that I only had ~2 days before the employee stock purchase plan grant. This was quite lucrative, so I costed for 1-2 days, (also to give me a chance to change my mind,) and gave my notice.

qwertyuiop_ 2y ago

More often than not Managers aggressively hiring and “growing” the team is to build a facade for themselves to get promoted or prove that they grew the team.