6 ms·

> YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me

by Ologn 12y ago

> YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me. Yes. I get contacted by a headhunter that says they know of a company looking for engineers. I go on an interview and someone at the company asks me very officiously, "Why do you want to work for this company?" I respond, "I don't know that I do want to work here. I have a job. The headhunter called me and told me there was an opportunity here so I came to check it out". The interviewer didn't say anything, but their expression was slightly shocked. I guess I was supposed to launch into a pitch about how it was always my dream to work at that company. I think you put your finger on it. They present it to you as the CEO begging you to come work at the company. Then you start finding out it is a bait and switch, they want you to play the role of a desperate job seeker, begging some low-level manager for an opportunity to work at the company. It's a power thing. We see CEO's here and in the tech news complain that they can't find good technical talent. Yet every part of the job process is designed to demonstrate they have the power in the relationship from the offset. They want references - before you have a job offer often, they want you to ask a favor from two to three people to sing your praises to them. If you tell them you won't give them references until it's the last step before a job offer they look surprised. Or they just hand you a form to fill out, which will be incomplete if you don't put references. They want you to come interview for hours in the middle of your work day. Often you get there and they tell you some important person who has to interview you to get the job is not there, and you have to come back again. You also have to go through the indignity of not being candid - if you want the job offer. When they ask you why you left your last company, that your boss was a jerk is not an acceptable answer. If they ask you about unit tests at your current job, and you say you have asked management to allow time for putting in unit tests but they refused - it becomes your fault that your management told you no. And on and on and on. That I have to ask for a favor from 2-3 former coworkers or bosses that they give me a reference every time I apply for a job is probably the most annoying part. Who wants to go through all of this? It's why a lot of my jobs are at companies my friends work for. At least I know the score before I go in.

x0x0 12y ago
That's happened to me too. My response is "I don't" and then I shut up. To overgeneralize, though not by much, SF startups suck ass at recruiting; the standard assumption is the whole world is chomping at the bit to work there, and it's a privilege to do so. (Though I do wonder how they get that worldview to comport with endless bitching about the lack of engineers.) And you hit the nail on the head with the lack of consideration of recruitees' time. Take linkedin. I interviewed there a couple years ago when I was living in sf. They wanted me to come in 10 - 3, so basically an entire day of vacation (read ~$300-$400 I won't get paid out when I quit.) So I had a nontrivial amount of skin in the game. I also had to borrow a car to drive there, since I didn't own one. The interviews went really well, and they where pushy about continuing -- I was privileged to be able to come in a second day between 10 and 1, ie a second 1/2 day of vacation and go rent a car again! Fuck that; I bounced. But no doubt they're telling congress they just can't hire locally and need more h1b allotment.
- jt2190 12y ago
  So you invested hundreds of dollars and they invested hundreds of dollars (in the form of their employee time) trying to determine if you'd be a person they could give $n0,000 cash annually in exchange for $y0,000 of your services. From a sales perspective a deal of this size seems worth spending hundreds of dollars on. Is there a reason it was too much money to spend in this instance?
- bmm6o 12y ago
  I understand that it has to be a good fit both ways and both parties have to sell themselves to the other, but "I don't" implies you're wasting everyone's time. Even "I don't, yet" is 100x better, and that's still a really lame response. If you want to be pitched to, just say so.
Jemaclus 12y ago
Agreed. I got an offer from a YC company about a year ago. The offer was lower than I currently make by a large margin. I tried to negotiate, and the CEO came back in a huff and basically said I was an idiot for turning down the job, and why do I even bother with startups in the first place if I want so much money? Well, that's the thing, dude. I don't need your job. You need me. You got the whole thing backwards. Anyway, yeah, I agree with you completely. (And by the way, keep pushing on the unit test thing. It's something worth arguing for. Or next time, build in unit tests into the project estimate instead of setting it aside as a separate project. Good luck.)

by Ologn 12y ago

x0x0 12y ago

That's happened to me too. My response is "I don't" and then I shut up. To overgeneralize, though not by much, SF startups suck ass at recruiting; the standard assumption is the whole world is chomping at the bit to work there, and it's a privilege to do so. (Though I do wonder how they get that worldview to comport with endless bitching about the lack of engineers.) And you hit the nail on the head with the lack of consideration of recruitees' time. Take linkedin. I interviewed there a couple years ago when I was living in sf. They wanted me to come in 10 - 3, so basically an entire day of vacation (read ~$300-$400 I won't get paid out when I quit.) So I had a nontrivial amount of skin in the game. I also had to borrow a car to drive there, since I didn't own one. The interviews went really well, and they where pushy about continuing -- I was privileged to be able to come in a second day between 10 and 1, ie a second 1/2 day of vacation and go rent a car again! Fuck that; I bounced. But no doubt they're telling congress they just can't hire locally and need more h1b allotment.

jt2190 12y ago
So you invested hundreds of dollars and they invested hundreds of dollars (in the form of their employee time) trying to determine if you'd be a person they could give $n0,000 cash annually in exchange for $y0,000 of your services. From a sales perspective a deal of this size seems worth spending hundreds of dollars on. Is there a reason it was too much money to spend in this instance?
bmm6o 12y ago
I understand that it has to be a good fit both ways and both parties have to sell themselves to the other, but "I don't" implies you're wasting everyone's time. Even "I don't, yet" is 100x better, and that's still a really lame response. If you want to be pitched to, just say so.

Jemaclus 12y ago

Agreed. I got an offer from a YC company about a year ago. The offer was lower than I currently make by a large margin. I tried to negotiate, and the CEO came back in a huff and basically said I was an idiot for turning down the job, and why do I even bother with startups in the first place if I want so much money? Well, that's the thing, dude. I don't need your job. You need me. You got the whole thing backwards. Anyway, yeah, I agree with you completely. (And by the way, keep pushing on the unit test thing. It's something worth arguing for. Or next time, build in unit tests into the project estimate instead of setting it aside as a separate project. Good luck.)