7 ms·

All of these points sound like great filters- not for the company, but for me in determining that I probably don't want to work there. A place with thin margins

by tibbon 14y ago

All of these points sound like great filters- not for the company, but for me in determining that I probably don't want to work there. A place with thin margins, HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? No thanks. I do say this however as someone both privileged and experienced enough to really not need to scrape for a job too hard at this point in my life. YMMV.

jpdoctor 14y ago
> HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? Most folks don't realize it, but the phrase above is redundant. Intrinsically, the function of HR is CYA for the company. By the time you have full-blown HR, CYA is present. One example: Need to fire someone? Trained HR folks will help you navigate the minefield of legalities.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  There's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. I think the CYA OP is talking about is the sort where employees (managers, devs, designers, what have you) deliberately act suboptimally to protect themselves. Making a suboptimal recommendation knowing it will harm someone else more than it will harm you. Diffusing responsibility. Inflating estimates. etc etc.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - jpdoctor 14y ago
    > There's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. Maybe other people have different experiences, but I've never met an HR person who did one and not the other.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      HR is CYA by definition, but you can have a HR department without having the whole company behave like said HR department.
      - jonnathanson 14y ago
        True, and you can also have an HR department that goes beyond CYA. Some companies treat Recruiting & HR functions as strategic parts of the business. I'm not talking about lip service, like "Chief People Officer" titles, and things of that nature, which are usually just a whole lot of signaling and little else. Rather, I mean companies wherein recruiting and developing people is part of the hiring manager's job responsibility, and he or she has skin in the game. To the extent that HR is a self-contained silo, completely removed from the hiring manager's organization, it's bound to lose touch and turn into a simple, CYA-esque meat grinder. Additionally, good HR strategy includes implementing events, training programs, talent development strategies, etc., so that retention and promotion of existing employees is just as important as recruitment of new ones. A reasonable KPI, in this case, is turnover (both by volume and by average employee timespan). The ability to find world-class talent by the bucketload is all but wasted if existing employees tend to bounce after 6 months to a year.
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  CYA attitude can show itself outside of the HR department. One of the most insidious ways CYA hurts a company is when departments or people are resistant to trying new ideas because they might fail--even if the potential upside would be a significant improvement. This is part of the Innovator's Dilemma--people tend to keep doing what is working "well enough" because they can't be blamed for that, and opportunity cost tends to be invisible unless it's looked for. Meanwhile, a competitor with less to lose is more likely to take the risky bet. If they succeed, they eventully beat the former incumbent. Edit to add: in the case of hiring, CYA can mean hiring someone who's no different from anyone else currently employed in the company--and therefore perhaps missing an opportunity to create positive change.
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    There was a classic management study which, in essence, consisted of asking VP's of a company if they would initiate a risky project that had a 50% chance of saving company 2 million and a 50% chance of completely wasting 1 million - where each individual VP found arguments to not back the particular project in their area, but the CEO (naturally) would like all of his VP's to take that risk, as the odds favor the company (but failure hurts the individual manager).
Kurtz79 14y ago
"A place with thin margins, HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude?" As the author says, that is more or less what to expect when a company grows past a certain size. It's human nature (not one of the high points of it), or better the nature of mature/large companies. I'm sure there are exceptions (Google ? Facebook ?) but my personal experiences sort of confirm that. I'm not saying that it's not possible to "thrive" in such organizations, since they offer plenty of pluses (stability, more time to adapt, resources, mobility, variety), it really depends on one's nature, and on what he is looking for.
run4yourlives 14y ago
Basically, a large company, or one trying really hard to emulate one (beware of these most). There are so few exceptions to this it's not worth worrying about.
Articulate 14y ago
There are a few places that people deeply want to work at because of the type of work you will be able to do- getting into that bureaucracy is the only way to do it- (NASA, The United Nations, The World Bank) at these places you get work that unless you are a contractor (which is an entirely different maze). It may not be for you- but there are people that have studied and worked for years to "get in"- this advice is for them.
- lancewiggs 14y ago
  But the other rules still apply, and the best way into these entities is by taking the power of HR away and talking directly to people inside. My experience (EBRD) was that it was possible to switch from temping (got that through a friend) to contracting to employee (I turned down the last). Friends at the World Bank used a variety of methods to join, but all benefited from talking to professionals inside along the way. These tips are important, but it's far better to have the HR person know that there is existing demand for the applicant.
MartinCron 14y ago
Once you're not so desperate that you need to take any job that you can get, you start seeing all sorts of indicators like this. I once walked out of an interview when I found that I would have to take a drug test. I don't take any illegal drugs, but that was an indicator of the distrustful kind of environment I was getting into. Thanks but no thanks.
- speeder 14y ago
  Sometimes this is needed unfortunately. One of the companies my father owned, he one day went to see something at the police station, and saw open book of wanted criminals, and found half of his employees there, and all of them were in the same criminal group, while inside the company they behaved like if they did not knew each other until they met at the workplace... But probably I would refuse to take a drug test too. But sometimes companies are between a rock and a hard place.
  - HarryHirsch 14y ago
    You find wanted criminals with drug testing? In a functional working environment, if someone shows up incapacitated, you would show him the door there and then. But in the dysfunctional environment that we are in, if someone shows up incapacitated and kills someone, the company can point to the drug test, claim that they have taken due care when hiring and are off the hook. This needs to stop.
    - bubbleRefuge 14y ago
      Had a boss that got drunk every single day at work. He didn't hide it too much. During sit down meetings in his office, I'd sometimes catch a glimpse of his garbage can which was brimming with empty Coors lite cans. In the evenings, he often offered me a beer and I occasionally accepted. Ironically, he was the most productive , brilliant engineer to cross my path. Management never showed him the door. Eventually, he checked himself into rehab and I think there was a happy ending.
      - 14y ago
kevinskii 14y ago
I consider my current company a great place to work, with friendly and capable coworkers, good compensation, and lots of job flexibility and a variety of interesting technical opportunities. However, as I've recently unhappily discovered, our current interview process often suggests just the opposite. As a passive candidate myself, I've actually terminated several interviews for far lesser offenses than what we are guilty of. Things are improving quickly now that more of us are aware of what has been going on, but I'm now a bit more willing to tolerate other companies' hiring sins than I was before.

by tibbon 14y ago

jpdoctor 14y ago

> HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? Most folks don't realize it, but the phrase above is redundant. Intrinsically, the function of HR is CYA for the company. By the time you have full-blown HR, CYA is present. One example: Need to fire someone? Trained HR folks will help you navigate the minefield of legalities.

potatolicious 14y ago
There's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. I think the CYA OP is talking about is the sort where employees (managers, devs, designers, what have you) deliberately act suboptimally to protect themselves. Making a suboptimal recommendation knowing it will harm someone else more than it will harm you. Diffusing responsibility. Inflating estimates. etc etc.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jpdoctor 14y ago
  > There's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. Maybe other people have different experiences, but I've never met an HR person who did one and not the other.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    HR is CYA by definition, but you can have a HR department without having the whole company behave like said HR department.
    - jonnathanson 14y ago
      True, and you can also have an HR department that goes beyond CYA. Some companies treat Recruiting & HR functions as strategic parts of the business. I'm not talking about lip service, like "Chief People Officer" titles, and things of that nature, which are usually just a whole lot of signaling and little else. Rather, I mean companies wherein recruiting and developing people is part of the hiring manager's job responsibility, and he or she has skin in the game. To the extent that HR is a self-contained silo, completely removed from the hiring manager's organization, it's bound to lose touch and turn into a simple, CYA-esque meat grinder. Additionally, good HR strategy includes implementing events, training programs, talent development strategies, etc., so that retention and promotion of existing employees is just as important as recruitment of new ones. A reasonable KPI, in this case, is turnover (both by volume and by average employee timespan). The ability to find world-class talent by the bucketload is all but wasted if existing employees tend to bounce after 6 months to a year.
snowwrestler 14y ago
CYA attitude can show itself outside of the HR department. One of the most insidious ways CYA hurts a company is when departments or people are resistant to trying new ideas because they might fail--even if the potential upside would be a significant improvement. This is part of the Innovator's Dilemma--people tend to keep doing what is working "well enough" because they can't be blamed for that, and opportunity cost tends to be invisible unless it's looked for. Meanwhile, a competitor with less to lose is more likely to take the risky bet. If they succeed, they eventully beat the former incumbent. Edit to add: in the case of hiring, CYA can mean hiring someone who's no different from anyone else currently employed in the company--and therefore perhaps missing an opportunity to create positive change.
- PeterisP 14y ago
  There was a classic management study which, in essence, consisted of asking VP's of a company if they would initiate a risky project that had a 50% chance of saving company 2 million and a 50% chance of completely wasting 1 million - where each individual VP found arguments to not back the particular project in their area, but the CEO (naturally) would like all of his VP's to take that risk, as the odds favor the company (but failure hurts the individual manager).

Kurtz79 14y ago

"A place with thin margins, HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude?" As the author says, that is more or less what to expect when a company grows past a certain size. It's human nature (not one of the high points of it), or better the nature of mature/large companies. I'm sure there are exceptions (Google ? Facebook ?) but my personal experiences sort of confirm that. I'm not saying that it's not possible to "thrive" in such organizations, since they offer plenty of pluses (stability, more time to adapt, resources, mobility, variety), it really depends on one's nature, and on what he is looking for.

run4yourlives 14y ago

Basically, a large company, or one trying really hard to emulate one (beware of these most). There are so few exceptions to this it's not worth worrying about.

Articulate 14y ago

There are a few places that people deeply want to work at because of the type of work you will be able to do- getting into that bureaucracy is the only way to do it- (NASA, The United Nations, The World Bank) at these places you get work that unless you are a contractor (which is an entirely different maze). It may not be for you- but there are people that have studied and worked for years to "get in"- this advice is for them.

lancewiggs 14y ago
But the other rules still apply, and the best way into these entities is by taking the power of HR away and talking directly to people inside. My experience (EBRD) was that it was possible to switch from temping (got that through a friend) to contracting to employee (I turned down the last). Friends at the World Bank used a variety of methods to join, but all benefited from talking to professionals inside along the way. These tips are important, but it's far better to have the HR person know that there is existing demand for the applicant.

MartinCron 14y ago

Once you're not so desperate that you need to take any job that you can get, you start seeing all sorts of indicators like this. I once walked out of an interview when I found that I would have to take a drug test. I don't take any illegal drugs, but that was an indicator of the distrustful kind of environment I was getting into. Thanks but no thanks.

speeder 14y ago
Sometimes this is needed unfortunately. One of the companies my father owned, he one day went to see something at the police station, and saw open book of wanted criminals, and found half of his employees there, and all of them were in the same criminal group, while inside the company they behaved like if they did not knew each other until they met at the workplace... But probably I would refuse to take a drug test too. But sometimes companies are between a rock and a hard place.
- HarryHirsch 14y ago
  You find wanted criminals with drug testing? In a functional working environment, if someone shows up incapacitated, you would show him the door there and then. But in the dysfunctional environment that we are in, if someone shows up incapacitated and kills someone, the company can point to the drug test, claim that they have taken due care when hiring and are off the hook. This needs to stop.
  - bubbleRefuge 14y ago
    Had a boss that got drunk every single day at work. He didn't hide it too much. During sit down meetings in his office, I'd sometimes catch a glimpse of his garbage can which was brimming with empty Coors lite cans. In the evenings, he often offered me a beer and I occasionally accepted. Ironically, he was the most productive , brilliant engineer to cross my path. Management never showed him the door. Eventually, he checked himself into rehab and I think there was a happy ending.
    - 14y ago

kevinskii 14y ago

I consider my current company a great place to work, with friendly and capable coworkers, good compensation, and lots of job flexibility and a variety of interesting technical opportunities. However, as I've recently unhappily discovered, our current interview process often suggests just the opposite. As a passive candidate myself, I've actually terminated several interviews for far lesser offenses than what we are guilty of. Things are improving quickly now that more of us are aware of what has been going on, but I'm now a bit more willing to tolerate other companies' hiring sins than I was before.