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"We have 100 vacancies, but we’ll be fortunate if we can fill half with hires in the UK,” says Errol Damelin, the boss of Wonga. Often talent has to be imported
by casca 13y ago
"We have 100 vacancies, but we’ll be fortunate if we can fill half with hires in the UK,” says Errol Damelin, the boss of Wonga. Often talent has to be imported from America or elsewhere, but immigration rules for hires from outside the European Union are still “extremely cumbersome”, he complains
Another reason is that Wonga is morally bankrupt as it takes advantage of the desperate and the ill-informed. It's harder for them to hire as they want good engineers but need them to be unconcerned with what their skills are being used for.
- spongle 13y agoSpot on. If I could upvote this a hundred times I would. I had a certain well know recruitment agent basically begging for me to go and work for them a couple of years ago. The agent was completely incapable of understanding why I "would turn away such a great opportunity" and just kept pushing so I told her to fuck off. Absolute arsehole recruiters and companies. for ref, I refuse to work for gambling and gaming outfits as well as they're just as bad
- bosie 13y agoif they have such trouble finding good engineers, what are they willing to pay for them?
- simonswords82 13y agoBased on this job post 50k to 70k: http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=7339582&goback=%2Ebzo_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_wonga*3com&trk=vsrp_jobs_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A107350951380912992742%2CVSRPtargetId%3A7339582%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=7339582&goback=%... Pretty much market average according to this: http://www.totaljobs.com/salary-checker/average-sql-developer-salary-london http://www.totaljobs.com/salary-checker/average-sql-develope...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoThere is no offer high enough for many of them, when companies like wonga are asking.
- dubfan 13y agoFor those of us who haven't heard of Wonga, it's an online payday loan service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonga.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonga.com
- pjc50 13y ago_And_ they have been donating to the Conservative party, presumably to erode the social security safety net to drum up business for them.
- jiggy2011 13y agoI don't necessarily see anything unethical about offering short term, quick turnaround loans. Or is there some part of their business practise that makes them shady?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI've been reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much/dp/0805092641/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380922434&sr=8-1&keywords=scarcity http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-Much/dp/0... Which has some excellent insights into this sort of behavior. Basically if you don't have enough money you are willing to borrow against a future payout for an extortionate rate (say 5% if you pay it back in a month which is an annualized rate of 60% interest). But what it really means it that the 5% you paid to get early access to money is a huge chunk of your future income. Lets say you make $1000/month and you're always behind so you're always getting a payday loan with a 5% rate which you pay back when you get paid. Over 12 months you've paid 12 * $50 or $600 for that privileged which is nearly an entire month's pay. Great for the lender, sucks for you. Not surprisingly the principle is pretty general. I found when reading it that I could exchange "time" for "money" (which is to say making poor time choices when I felt time was scarce which would only cause me to have even less time in the future)
- jiggy2011 13y agoBut the question is, what happens if such loans are unavailable? Late charges on bills or missed opportunities (like can't get a new suit for a job interview). If you did short term high risk loans with standard loan rate APR like you would get from a bank it would be impossible to get any margin at all.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThat is a really excellent question. I don't know. In one universe people feel the pain of the scarcity and make better choices, in another they fall off of 'barely subsisting' into abject poverty. Either outcome is possible. In a third, less likely :-), universe we put together a basic income program and keep people out of the mental trap.
- twic 13y agoAn even bigger reason is that Wonga develops and deploys on Windows. Eww!