
Ask HN: Has anyone been fired because they were job hunting? - jgwil2
I&#x27;m reacting to the Tell HN regarding Triplebyte [0]. A lot of people seem concerned for their job safety if they are suspected of job hunting, and I&#x27;m wondering if anyone has specific anecdotes regarding this.<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23279837
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ThrowawayR2
There are always a few managers who are petty and vindictive. I've certainly
met a few over the years.

But beyond that, let's say you knew that a certain bank had a good chance of
shutting down its branch offices in the town where you live, for whatever
legitimate reason. Would you consider opening an account at that bank? Well,
clearly no, because those bank branch offices might not be there for you to
use in the future.

Now let's say you were a manager and you knew one of your team members was
looking for a new job. Would you feel it to be worthwhile to assign important
project tasks to that person if you knew there was a good chance they would be
unavailable in the very near future and you'd have to move the tasks to
someone else? Are you going to put them up for a promotion or a bonus to
reward them, knowing that the effort might (in a sense) be wasted? The
knowledge that an employee is considering leaving, no matter how much the
manager might wish them well personally, changes the relationship because of
the uncertainty about the future availability of their time and accumulated
knowledge. It's better either for the employee not to create that uncertainty
and/or resolve it as soon as possible.

~~~
jgwil2
Is there reverse also not possible though? I'm a manager and I see an employee
who is thinking of leaving, so I try to figure out why. Do they want a raise?
More responsibility or autonomy? And then I try to give it to them so they
won't leave. Or is that overly idealistic?

~~~
nsgi
Often this is only temporary, though. They increase your salary, but it comes
out of your next raise and you get fewer opportunities because your loyalty is
in question, or if they're evil and the employment laws allow it they make you
happy temporarily until they find a replacement. If you're company is prepared
to do those things for you they should be willing to before you threaten to
quit

~~~
Lunatic666
It's the job of the manager to create an environment where employees can go to
the manager to discuss things which are not going well or change of career
anytime without the fear of retribution. I'm mentioning this often to make
sure everyone knows it. Last month we had a case where someone was unhappy
being a Team Lead and we could change their career path to something more
interesting with an equal level of contribution.

------
spellbounce
Firing employees for job hunting is a mistake on so many levels.

1\. It signals insecurity about your culture and why anyone should want to
work there. (We can't keep people here except under threat.)

2\. It's ineffective against your best employees, who will have options and
will not fear you.

3\. It demotivates everyone and creates a vicious cycle of fear and distrust,
which will drive a culture of keeping your head down and hoarding information,
which will destroy the efficiency of your remaining workforce.

~~~
bernawil

      It signals insecurity about your culture and why anyone should want to work there. (We can't keep people here except under threat.)
    

well, unless you're paying top dollar you can be sure people are working at
your place until they can get a job at a place that does.

    
    
      It's ineffective against your best employees, who will have options and will not fear you.
    

again, if your place isn't on top of everyone's preference list it's futile to
hold onto your best perforers. Better to embrace it will be a revolving door.

------
throwaways1232
I worked at a small company (less than 40 people in US and less than 30
offshore and 10 in Europe).

I uploaded my resume to a job site. Within a week I was called to meet the HR.
They asked me why I was looking for a job and if I was unhappy here. I told
them I was happy (obviously, I don't want to lose my job) They told me they
won't inform the CEO because it would upset him and it was never brought up
again.

I worked for a while and then had to leave. The place was toxic for me.

It really makes sense for small companies to monitor their employees because
they can't afford to have people quit willy nilly. So, definitely, I am 100%
sure they have monitoring software which detects employee search results.

A sudden TripleByte search result showing up on Google is definitely a red
flag that the HR would notice.

Having said this. I would say TripleByte wanting to award badges and making
profiles public is definitely a mistake on their part. I doubt they have
malicious intent. They just did not think through all the consequences with
this move.

Nobody want to lose their job in the middle of the pandemic. Bad move on their
part for sure.

~~~
sumedh
Do they use a keylogger?

~~~
halfdan
I read it more as the company OP worked for found their resume on the job
site.

------
thrownaway256
I was fired from my first job by the CTO of my company after telling him I was
job hunting.

Context: My first two managers were friendly and we openly talked about what
we wanted to do next. My 3rd manager was the CTO, who talked a lot about
preparing people for their next jobs/career. I assumed I could be open with
him.

After a month or two where several people left, he asked me in our 1:1 if I
knew of anyone who was thinking about leaving. Assuming that he wanted to know
so they could make counter offers or back fill headcount, I told him I was
considering it. I was trying to be helpful, and I guess I was, just not in the
way I expected.

Two weeks later he either quit or was fired. I was fired three days after him.
Apparently he had already advocated for my firing before leaving himself.

------
pmiller2
Let’s add “passed up for promotion or other desirable opportunities,” because
that’s apparently a concern, as well.

------
JamesBarney
I haven't seen "he's looking for work so let's fire him". But I have seen
"George doesn't seem committed let's promote Joe instead". Or "we have to cut
someone we should cut Alex because he doesn't seem committed to Acme Corp".

------
cwhiz
Don’t job hunt at work! Many comments here are from people getting “caught”
because they were job hunting at work on company WiFi. Don’t do that! Job hunt
on your own time.

~~~
oliwarner
And don't lie about it.

You're all adults. You need a day off to go interview, take a day. But if you
start taking mysterious sick days or long personal calls on company time,
expect disciplinary action.

~~~
bradlys
>And don't lie about it. You're all adults. You need a day off to go
interview, take a day. But if you start taking mysterious sick days or long
personal calls on company time, expect disciplinary action.

Until your employer adds 1+1 together and stops letting you take vacation
because you're on "unlimited PTO". In the end - who cares what the "official"
reason is.

------
amw-zero
No, I actually was able to successfully negotiate a better position and higher
salary after getting an offer from a different company.

~~~
shoo
Having offers for alternative employment that you'd be willing to accept puts
you in a strong negotiating position.

If instead your current employer only had the information that you were
searching for a new job, but didn't have any firm offers, then you might find
it harder to negotiate (why does a raise make sense if the market doesnt seem
to be making you an offer that you consider better than what you've already
got -- maybe you're already over paid etc), and might also run afoul of some
of the other considerations raised in this thread (managers not wanting to put
you in key role on important project if there is perception that you may be
gone soon).

I've once had the strange and unexpected experience of resigning from a job
without any competing offer lined up (was young & naive, jaded with the
company, didn't immediately need the money) and then being offered contract
work a few weeks later from the same former employer to do the essentially
same kind of work on a new project at contract rates, i.e., more than twice
what I was getting paid before, albeit with no security of continuing
employment. So arguably there are also other ways to improve your negotiating
position without needing a competing offer -- by resigning I gave a clear
signal that I genuinely wasn't interested in letting the status quo continue.
I don't recommend this as a strategy, it is far better to line up offers for
new jobs you'd be comfortable doing well before you are sick of the current
job. I wasn't resigning as some kind of considered move in a negotiation, with
any expectation that this outcome would occur. But it was an interesting way
to discover that in some job markets you may get paid a lot more as a
contractor than as a permie employee if you're in a position to accept much
more risk of having periods where the work just stops and you need to find a
new project/client.

------
giantg2
My wife got fired for job hunting. She was searching on her phone in the work
bathroom. She was connected to the company wifi.

~~~
mewpmewp2
How are they getting this information? Assuming usage of https they should
only be aware of the IP. Do they keep list of IPs which belong to job seeking
sites?

Is that enough evidence?

~~~
giantg2
I'm guessing it was http (not logged in or a Google search). I would assume
they could also do it based on the IP/DNS.

~~~
nicholas73
Ok but how did they know it was her phone?

~~~
giantg2
Her user name connected to the wifi.

------
sokoloff
I’ve discussed openly with employees their career thoughts, including many
occasions when they were considering leaving. Sometimes that results in them
leaving; more often it does not. I’ve never consciously held this against an
employee. I’ve also told my boss at times that I was considering my next move
and that it might be elsewhere. I can’t see where that’s ever been held
against me either.

I don’t view looking as disloyal. If employer N isn’t the best option for an
employee, they are welcome and even expected to consider employer N+1.

------
_448
Depends on where you are conducting that activity. A big no-no is if you are
using your current employer's infrastructure to job hunt(or any other personal
activity, including personal projects) i.e. if you are using office premises,
computers, printers, phones etc for you job hunting expeditions.

What I despise though, and personally experienced, is when HR of present
employer use external recruitment agencies to spy on you and block your job
hunt. And use that information to discriminate against you in various ways.

------
ianmf
Depending on what projects you work on, your org might could have installed
"monitoring" software on your computer that triggers alerts when you job
search. The purpose is to catch insider threat, make sure nobody runs off to
the competitor with IP. If you are job searching at competition's website,
they may cut you off specific projects, or just "let you go".

I would never job search on company's time or issued hardware, and I wouldn't
recommend it.

------
sloaken
I have known companies that had that policy, but it was only when there were
plenty of people looking for IT jobs. When the market is tight, if they find
out they might try to appease you.

However, once you start seriously looking, it is just a matter of time.

I know several people who always put out their resumes, and are open about it.
They say they like to know what they are worth. Typically they have not been
seriously looking just keeping in practice if they needed to.

Myself I went to a job fair, and I was surprised to see my boss there
recruiting. I had to get out as the tech was primitive and I was worried my
skills were atrophying. I was given a 10% raise, which was nice and I used it
to get another 10% at the new company.

------
Nginx487
Apparently, it's a toxic management practice, and I never worked more than 2-4
days in companies, which considered such employees treatment (heard from long-
time employees of that companies). Toxic working atmosphere could be easily
spotted during first days by multiple factors, like fearing the management,
overtimes, unnecessary and formal daily/weekly reports, and yeah, stories like
someone has been fired for updating cv online. That's where you should not
hesitate and leave right away, it would never become any better.

------
bellwether
I've never seen this in any company I've worked at.

Personally, if I saw members on my team looking for work, I would want to
understand that decision: is it for personal reasons, is it because they felt
unable to grow, is it because of salary, or is it because they find the work
no longer meaningful?

There are plenty of reasons to move on from a role. Firing someone for wanting
something that aligns better with their future is beyond petty imo.

~~~
schoolornot
I hope you have considered sharing this with your team, especially, if any of
them are at a point where job hunting & interviewing is ongoing.

------
shultays
Why would a company fire someone and pay the severence instead of simply
waiting for him to quit?

