
Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees. - adamhowell
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/04/22/never-hire-job-hoppers-never-they-make-terrible-employees/
======
apsec112
"You’re probably disloyal. You don’t have staying power. You’re in it more for
yourself than your company."

You mean, the company that would cut you loose in about three seconds flat if
you became unproductive?

Employment is an economic transaction. If you pay me, I will do high-quality,
honest work for you. That's fair. If I don't produce, you can stop paying me.
That's fair. But if you don't pay me well, or mistreat me, I'm going to leave.
That's also fair.

~~~
_delirium
Particularly since this seems to be precipitated by a Calacanis tweet, the guy
who fires people for any or no reason. Not exactly an example of loyalty.

I'm guessing the reason for the entire post is actually that while Calacanis
is okay firing someone, he gets angry if anyone leaves his company for a
better position. There was a kerfluffle over that yesterday in various parts
of the net (someone from his company sent a 2-weeks notice, and he blew up,
firing them and telling them they had their last day and never set foot in the
office or email his staff again). I'm guessing his tweet of 23 hours ago is
due to him still being pissed at someone jumping ship from Mahalo.

Edit: It came to mind that there's a perfectly capitalist way of solving the
problem, for companies that really do hate the idea of someone leaving: sign
an employment contract with time terms, rather than hiring at-will employees.
:)

~~~
jerf
I doubt there's many employers willing to spend the money it would take to
lock someone in.

(Because you certainly didn't expect me to agree to that clause _for free_ ,
did you? No, you're going to pay. And the sooner you lock me in, the more
you'd better pay if I can't even evaluate the job before the lockin starts.)

~~~
_delirium
There might be some people who'd take it, since it also means guaranteed
employment for the same period: an employer couldn't fire you without
documented good cause that'd stand up in court. But I agree that it'd probably
make hiring in a startup/tech sort of culture harder, since this isn't a
culture where there's that much value put on the can't-be-fired aspect (the
job market is good, so you'll just get another job).

~~~
jey
I think you just described Germany.

------
ladyada
So this essay is an expansion of <http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849>
which is almost certainly a response to <http://pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0>

If you can't keep your talent as an employer, that's your fault. Berating them
for taking care of themselves is immature. Welcome to capitalism, you make
money off them and they're free to take the best offer on the table.

As an employer, I prefer have people with many job experiences - so when they
show up here they can tell they're respected and fairly compensated!

~~~
ahoyhere
Yesss. Thank you for turning it around.

I "hopped" my first 3 jobs because my employers seemed bound & determined to
wreck their companies, and me with them.

It's not MY fault that they were too gutless to fire the "expert" who spent
his whole day nagging me for help, and who used raise_error() as GOTO. And who
earned $15k/yr more than me, I knew, thanks to the H1-B notice posted in the
kitchen.

It's not MY fault they joked about how this client (MY client) was a sociopath
who called people and ranted at them at 3am, and then expected me to give him
my cell phone number.

It's not MY fault that my boss had a tantrum in a meeting, screamed at people,
then busted up a printer in a rage.

It's not MY fault that the CEO constantly derailed our projects and everybody
stuck around only because of the golden handcuffs, but I was tired of being
demoralized and feeling like I wasn't earning my pay.

I did my best for every employer I ever had, and they never did the same for
me. To the contrary.

Maybe he just doesn't want to hire job-hoppers because they have a sense of
self-respect.

~~~
arghnoname
I understand as an employer you'll want someone who, when you get into a rage
and bust up a printer, won't quit and head for greener pastures. It may seem
an exaggeration, but as we both know, these things actually happen and while
this might not be what the original author had in mind, many, many places of
employment are awash in insanity. When you are young and just getting a start,
it's easy to miss the warning signs in the interview or just have less
options.

Job hopping in response to that might just reveal quick growth in skill,
leading to better alternatives. It is a competition both ways. That guy that
job hops a lot, maybe he can do that _despite_ a resume showing what employers
consider disadvantageous, because his or her expertise is clear in interviews.
Almost by definition, job hoppers are more in demand.

The ultimate goal of an employer should be to attract and retain the best
employees. It is true that retaining is easier if you decide to exclusively
pick from people who didn't have better options when their jobs suck, but
personally, I'd rather have someone like you who left when the scene got
crazy. Maybe that's just because it so closely reflects my experiences. (In
fact, I think we shared an employer)

~~~
ahoyhere
It's also easier to retain great employees if you treat them well, don't
insult them in word, deed, or pay, and generally behave like a mature adult
instead of an overgrown, incompetent baby.

Too bad most employers seem constitutionally incapable of executing on that
list :)

I also doubt that we shared an employer. It's more likely that employers are
universally flawed in the same ways. But if we did, interesting!

------
teej
I'm 24 years old. I've had 6 employers since I was 19. I've doubled my salary
every year for the past four years. And I think this article is bullshit.

Am I wrong for choosing the path that brings me personal success at the cost
of "company loyalty"? The depiction of an ideal employee painted by this
author sounds a lot like the Japanese Salaryman - diligent and loyal to the
company. Isn't that model considered totally broken? Company loyalty as a top
priority comes at the cost of ineffectiveness and lower morale. It just
doesn't seem right.

If your employees are being scalped away at salary+15, maybe you're not paying
them enough. If your employees are working 12 months and switching jobs, maybe
you don't offer enough internal growth. If your are rejecting applications of
"job hoppers", maybe you're leaving major value on the table.

In Silicon Valley, it's an employee's market. The employer has to work to
retain, support, and fairly compensate your employees. Otherwise, you
shouldn't be surprised when they up and leave.

~~~
mendriacus
You're wrong for doing what's best for you, instead of what's best for an
unreasonable employer such as this author. At least, according to this author,
that is.

Also, notice that the "Japanese Salaryman" model is not only completely
unworkable for high productivity, highly creative projects such as tech
startups - it doesn't really apply here. That model, and all models like it in
Europe and elsewhere, has two sides - the employee doesn't leave, and the
company doesn't (easily) let him go. Needless to say, nobody in his right mind
would suggest implementing the latter part, least of all the author who
comically insists on the former part.

In other words, what we have is an employer who insists on applying half of a
completely irrelevant model to his particular line of business.

~~~
GFischer
The local model (based on the European one) makes it very hard on the employer
to fire a worker... it's more like it costs a lot for a company to let him go
than that it doesn't want to.

It also makes job switching harder, for both sides - you lose all the benefits
when you switch - for the first 3 months, you are on "trial" and can be fired
at will, after that you lose the extra free days (we get 1 extra day of
vacation every 4 years with the same company), and the firing money the
company has to pay doubles every year (up to a maximum)

------
tokenadult
"If you’re 30 and have had 6 jobs since college you’re 98% likely to be a job
hopper."

If you have had lots of employees leave your company during a recession,
you’re 98% likely to be an ineffective employer.

~~~
lucisferre
Right on the money. That was one of the most self serving "startup guy" blog
posts I've read that didn't come from Spolsky.

~~~
nsoonhui
Upvoted for dragging Spolsky into the discussion

------
iamdave
I'm an independent recruiter, and I see resumes all the time of people who
probably look like "flakes", but here's how you differentiate a flake from a
person who hasn't found their niche:

Flakes lack accolades. They leave jobs at the sign of trouble, or they get
fired. It really is that cut and dry.

On the other hand, you have individuals (like me, prior to striking out on my
own) who consistently find jobs they excel at, and produce results. What any
hiring manager, and any recruiter who is worth the salary they are paid should
look for are results. Is the candidate simply listing job duties that they are
expected to accomplish, or do they go into detail and educate you on the
accomplishments and success they've experienced at each job?

There is a difference, and if you're unable to make that distinction, I won't
be sending anyone to work for you because that indicates to me you're looking
for grunts. Not team members.

~~~
akkartik
I like the idea that tenure and accomplishment are like quantity and quality.
But I disagree about how you measure accomplishment. At least for developers I
want to see evidence in working code. What have you built? What open source
projects have you contributed to? It's not just about making 'a good resume'.
In fact the best candidates spend 0 time on the resume.

Mark Suster implicitly is thinking about sifting through a thousand resumes.
In that context this is a perfectly valid heuristic. If you end up in a
thousand-resume situation you have no major accomplishments. If you have no
major accomplishments you had better have at least shown staying power.

Outside of this scenario, though, I imagine this heuristic can be mis-applied.

~~~
iamdave
And you are one-hundred percent correct. Working code works well with resumes,
but it's not entirely practical to send a CD-ROM with every resume you send
out there, especially when IT departments are already cautious about software
they don't directly support as a means of protocol security.

On top of this, you have to consider that hiring managers and recruiters are
just the first barrier to defense when it comes to the process of making
hiring decisions. Often, they have to place individuals in departments that
aren't development, thus, expecting them to look at any code you've produced
or software you've written is almost moot. They don't know what the code
means, if it's good or bad code and whether or not it's a fair indicator of
how your contributions and work ethic can impact the department needing a
vacancy filled. At the same time, they have no idea if the software you've
provided a download link to is software you wrote over a weekend by copy and
pasting tutorial code, without actually learning how to employ critical
thinking skills as a developer.

In my work process, when screening clients, a resume entails everything from
candidate discovery to candidate placement, it's entirely in the candidates
ability to sell to me that they are the candidate for the job vacancy. The
_physical resume_ is just the bridge I use to connect that candidate to the
hiring manager.

Sifting through resumes is admittedly tiring, but the moment I come across one
that has actual accomplishments and enables me with a feeling that this person
did more than clock in, crunch away at an IDE, and clocked out, that's when I
set that resume to the side and make a mental note that "John Doe deserves a
phone call".

------
daleharvey
at last years startup school this became a bit of a topic, zappos talked about
how they wanted employees to work there and feel valued for life.

mark zuckerberg talked about how he was happy creating a culture where great
people should be able to come in, start being effective immediately, and move
along after a year or so.

paul buckheit mentioned his reason for quitting google, it was basically,
because you need to stir stuff up, he just went from a comfortable but awesome
job to something completely different, a new challenge.

I couldnt help feel a bit depressed thinking about working for zappos for the
rest of my life, no slight against zappos, they seem like an awesome company
and I would love to have a chance to work there, just meant I could help
felling depressed about working for any single company for the rest of my
life.

~~~
isleyaardvark
Most of us here have probably heard of one of Zappos' unique offers to their
new employees: $1000 to quit right after training. At least in Zappos case
that would help minimize #1 and #3 listed at the bottom of the post.

~~~
devinfoley
It's actually $2000 now.

------
mendriacus
I find the use of the term "loyalty" here not only immature, but dishonest and
hypocritical. The plain truth is that tech startups, and especially the more
cutting edge and fast paced among them, are some of the least loyal employers
to ever inhabit any job market.

It's not even an idealogical, but plain economical observation: take two
companies. One is low-stress, slow, steady money. The other is a crazy fast,
big money. Angels or VCs give you tons of cash, you can afford to pay top
employees almost any amount of money, with any kind of crazy benefits you can
think of (including those freshly baked blueberry muffins in the lobby, which
nobody ever eats) but if you don't get that product out before your
competitor, you lose it all.

Which company will be faster shedding an unproductive employee?

I can't count the amount of VC funded startups I've known to fire entire teams
just because the product vision changed a bit. The main client is going to be
an iPhone app instead of a web widget? Immediately fire with no notice or
compensation all 5 "star" web developers who left permanent positions at
Google, Amazon, Facebook etc to come and help your realize your dream.

I'm not even talking about non-productivity, incompetence, or engineering
mistakes that would get you fired from a trail-blazing startup in about 5
minutes.

To expect "loyalty" under these kind of terms is sheer delusion. The only
"loyal" employee you're going to get is someone entirely unfamiliar with the
above realities - aka a clueless newbie on his first startup job.

There's not much point explaining how the notion of "job hopping" being an
employee's "fault" is entirely baseless in this context. This is an important
discussion, but so much beyond the grasp of this curious article, that
purports to apply to the reality of startups while ignoring the elephant in
that particular room.

------
ardit33
This is the 21 st century. People don't get to get married to their jobs,
think of it just as casual dating. As long as both of us are having good time,
it is all good.

People have been loyal, but they have been paid back with lay offs, either the
company goes belly up, or people/projects get cut. Once it happens to you
once, you don't do that mistake again. If you see the 'shitty times' ahead
sign, some people will leave, and for good reason.

Want to keep them around? Give them an incentive to do so, more equity, more
responsibility/better tittle, and promise higher pay when things get better.

But a lot of companies just don't do it, and expect blind obedience. Also they
turn blind eye when shitty managers ruin teams, and take action only after
half of the team has left already. First guys out of the door are always the
good ones.

If a candidate tells you: 'I left company x, b/c my manager was a dickhead,
and that I'd rather work somewhere for good people, then compromise my dignity
and integrity just to make a manager look good', means that guy actually has a
backbone. A weak person will bend and please his manager, even though what the
manager is demanding might be damaging to the company on the long run (you see
this often in tech. companies).

My experience as a Gen Y, when I started my first job (2002), as an intern, i
saw 3 out of 8 team members get laid off. One guy had be there for 2 years,
one 6 and one 14! That's a good lesson you get for life. A lot of people that
started their careers between 99-2003 saw this first hand. Sorry, but loyalty
goes so far.

Expect the average person to stay 1-4 years in one place, with the 3 year mark
the good time to find a new job. Any more than that, then they probably have
no ambition, unless they are moving really high up in the ranks.

~~~
robryan
There is also the situation of someone that wants to code and not be a manger,
if they continue to receive interesting projects, are rewarded with pay rises
accordingly, I wouldn't say that these people have no ambition, even though
they are not really moving up into management ranks.

~~~
pw0ncakes
Agreed. Management uber alles is a mistake of our culture. Not everyone wants
to or should be a manager, just as not everyone should be or wants to be a pro
basketball player.

------
philwelch
"Look at some of the uber-successful icons of Silicon Valley / Technology:
Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry/Sergey, Eric Schmidt, Andy
Groves, John Doerr. Not job hoppers."

That's because they're founders and CEO's. If you're hiring me, by definition
I'm not the founder (but if I have lots of equity and am treated as an equal
partner maybe we'll split the difference on that one). Are you hiring me to be
CEO, then? If not, find a better example to compare me against.

~~~
arethuza
Actually, Eric Schmidt has had quite a few roles over the years. Hardly a "job
hopper", but it's not like he founded one of the majors and stayed there
forever (like Gates, Ellison etc.).

------
dmix
Why are successful founding members of companies used as examples of non-job
hoppers? If I remember correctly Bill Gates had always run his own company and
the Google founders created the companies out of university...

~~~
prosa
... and people working in CEO roles in dream jobs have no incentive to quit.
In today's world most companies award loyal employees with nothing. When
you're the CEO of a struggling company and you have reached a point where the
pile of pink slips is just around the corner, how can you expect your best and
brightest not to look around?

I think Mark is right, that chronic switching is a leading indicator of
selfishness. But the days when employees are kept around while they fill out
their pensions are gone. Most employers are signaling that it's every man for
himself.

~~~
mendriacus
Forget "dream jobs". This example is not just ridiculously inappropriate: it
actually works against the authors point.

If you founded a startup, then quit abruptly at the first sign of real
challenges, and now you're trying to found another startup - how would
prospective investors look at you? (Even if the former investors aren't
already suing you, which is entirely possible).

On the other hand, if you are an early startup hire, and you stick with what
is obviously one of the vast majority of failed startups, so you get to be
fired when they reduce their headcount to what they consider the best engineer
(you, alas, happen to be considered the 2nd best) - how is an employer going
to look at you, compared to someone who left two months before?

That's right - you were fired, and he quit. There's obviously something wrong
with you.

Comparing employees to founders isn't only completely bogus - it also shows
why the entire article is false, trying to explain why employees need to
behave like founders while they are a very, very different thing.

------
jbellis
One of my bosses told me, "People who have been at their current company for
more than four years probably do not have enough thirst for challenge to be a
good fit at a startup."

That seemed to work for him. And I think Mark Suster has had success with his
preferences in the opposite direction. So maybe this is an example of hiring
to our biases that don't matter as much as we think.

~~~
dget
It probably matters to the extent that it helps form the company's culture. It
might not be that one is better than the other, but picking one side might
matter for its own sake.

------
gphil
I'm ambivalent about this. A few times in the article the author suggests that
only in a small percentage of cases is job-hopping justified, but I think it's
actually justified in far more than a small percentage of cases.

The fact of the matter is that contemporary work culture is (for better or
worse) progressing towards lower job security, and more job hopping is an
inevitable consequence of this. When job security goes down in the economic
community, the propensity for job hopping goes up--even when employee's jobs
are not directly at risk. This is a natural and rational response to low job
security.

Judging workers who have job hopped in the past can be unfair to those
workers, especially when many companies are decreasing their own loyalty to
their employees. Why shouldn't workers chase higher paychecks outside of their
current companies, if those companies don't adequately value their worth? If
an employer has not demonstrated a commitment to retaining its employees, it
shouldn't expect any commitment in return.

That said, I do agree with the fundamental sentiment behind the article--that
companies who are loyal to their employees should prefer employees that will
be loyal to them in return.

~~~
Alex63
I think you raise an interesting point. At a time when companies are so ready
to shed unneeded workers, it should come as no surprise that employees are
less loyal.

However, I don't think that's the point of the article. The author is saying
"I'm a businessman, and I've learned not to hire 'job hoppers', and you
shouldn't hire them either." He's giving advice to other employers, and as
such, he doesn't have to be 'fair' to the job hoppers. From his perspective
(and that of other employers), hiring someone is a considerable investment
(estimates vary, but between 30 and 40% of annual salary seems to be common).
Having made that investment, no one wants to see it walk out the door 2 years
later. It only makes sense for the employer to look at an individual's job
history and form an opinion about whether they are a good risk. It doesn't
really matter why you left six jobs in the last 10 years - your reasons only
have to satisfy you - from his perspective, you are not the person he wants to
invest in.

As I see it, if you like to change jobs frequently that is your business. You
should do what you want to do, and accept the consequences (that some
prospective employers will consider you too flaky to take a chance on). But
don't turn around and complain that people aren't willing to take a chance on
you, and won't give you the job that you now think is the perfect one for you.
_All other things being equal_ , if you were the employer and had a choice
between someone with a track record of 'job hopping', or someone who seemed
steadier in their employment history, which would you choose?

------
donaq
_You’re in it more for yourself than your company._

No shit, Sherlock. Is the company going to be in it for me? Quid pro quo.

------
mattm
When can we get out of this 1800s Industrial Revolution mentality?

I can see the author's point that it is bad to hire job-hoppers at a startup.
A startup probably needs people to stay around for their knowledge.

But this is such a terrible generalization. People leave for basically one
reason - they will be happier doing something else. Why not make your company
the place they will be happiest at rather than blaming those around you?

The author is upset because with "job-hoppers", employers do not have as much
power as they once did. This advice is incredibly biased towards keeping the
status-quo for the author's own selfish reasons.

------
_delirium
Would the equivalent for employees be: never work for a "serial entrepreneur"?

~~~
lief79
It clearly depends on what you are looking for and their record. If they've
created a couple successful startups, and left after they were successful,
large and losing the startup culture, then that seems like a reasonable bet.

If they just bailed at the first sign of difficulty, ... well how are you
going to learn that?

------
dschobel
_But in a competitive job market you’re less likely to get the chance to tell
me your sob story._

That may be a little delusional (might be his MBA showing) in light of the
recent reports of major hiring drives from the big names:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230462870457518...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304628704575186362957042220.html)

~~~
_delirium
It also seems like, if true, it would be self-correcting: if it were hard to
get tech jobs, people who had jobs would be pretty reluctant to leave them.
You don't go job-hopping when there's nothing to hop to!

------
lief79
I'm right at the age he was talking about. Does 3.5 years at my first job
sticking through two short-term paycuts to be laid off make up for the now (6
employers) that have followed?

* 1.5 years, left after the group was split in half and I was forced into full time testing (I enjoyed part time testing and the first year in that role was outstanding, the new position and team was not a good match).

* 1 year, taken over, got J2EE experience and worked with a great team, too bad the office was scheduled to be closed and that we were given no work to do.

* 6 months, layoff, worked with the full cutting edge J2EE JBoss (Seam) stack but was let go as one of the newest employees and the only one that didn't know C# (15% of IT laid off) when the budget was shifted.

* Short stint at a failed startup, learned some PHP

* New stint at a promising startup

Technically, with the take over, that's now 7 employers. I think the new job
looks quite promising, and I don't regret any of those experiences, as I now
have a lot of breadth.

I freely admit that I had to work to avoid appearing as a job hopper, and that
hurt in the recently ended job hunt. I still think (hope?) that I've ended up
at my best work place since that year learning J2EE.

*editted for clarity and inserting some more details in the first few minutes

~~~
hga
Anyone who spent at least 2 years at their first job is going to look good to
those with a clue.

As you discovered, with all your recent jobs being short(er), you needed a
good story, etc., but post dot.com crash I hope it wasn't too difficult. _I_
wouldn't remove you from a job search for the above history.

~~~
lief79
Getting the first job was the hard one. (911 with the post .com crash.) If you
know what you are talking about, once you have a couple years programming
experience, you can generally find something.

In this case, the J2EE, Hibernate and Seam (usually in place of Spring)
experience has opened up a lot of interviews at places that wouldn't have
looked at me before.

------
jseifer
This is not in the tech field but I know someone who had to lay off an
employee because there was a restructuring wherein the night manager position
was basically eliminated in favor of transferring certain work to different
positions. The person had been with the company over 30 years. That's loyal.

Another friend truly does have a terrible manager. He's been with his company
for 5 years and had consistently great performance reviews until he
transferred locations. Six months later there's a position at a different
location and they won't let him transfer and he's getting poor reviews with no
suggestions for improvement. He's thinking about quitting and getting re-hired
at the new location. This would result in a pay cut and loss of vacation time
but he's willing to do it. He loves the company overall but his current
management has made things very difficult for him. That's loyalty.

Then this guy gives examples of a bunch of founders who started immense
companies and stuck with them. Of course founders are going to be loyal to
their company. They're the founders.

Now for this example he gives: _You start fighting with your co-founder whom
you thought you understood. Your revenues are “just around the corner.” Your
angel investors are nervous because the VCs aren’t moving that fast to fund
your next round._

As an employee faced with that situation and with a _better_ offer standing,
which would you go with? The company you're not sure is going to be around
because the founders are arguing and the capital is drying up or the one with
money to pay you more? I'm not sure why he used that as an example.

The author of the post seems to expect a lot from people he describes as
feeling entitled.

------
mkramlich
My favorite thing he attributes to a supposedly bad employee is that "they are
only in it for the money." Yeah, and he's not.

Heck, if you're not in it for the money, don't take equity, don't take a
paycheck, and heck, don't even charge for your products or services. After
all, desiring money is bad. Just stay home, eat popcorn and watch TV and --
hey wait a minute: all of that costs money!

~~~
mendriacus
The author talks about "generations", so we may mention this funny
"generation" of 20-something entrepreneurs that try to hire people for little
or no money (see the recent "chief intern" postings) to make the entrepreneur
- ofter only a couple of years older than them - rich and themselves poor.

The good news is that these clever entrepreneurs tend to get what they pay
for. But then they have more time than successful ones to wax poetic about
this "generation" and its many misgivings.

------
gruseom
I think the trouble comes from the concept "a job" to begin with. It's a
vestige. The historical trend that goes _slavery - > serfdom -> indentured
servitude -> wage slavery_ runs right up to _the modern job_. Looked at from
this perspective, the rhetoric around "loyalty" and "security" sounds
remarkably feudal.

This historical trend is continuing, the old forms are breaking down, and our
little corner of society (the software startup world) is one edge of whatever
is emerging to replace "jobs". It isn't clear yet what the next form is. But
these angry arguments about who owes what to whom are symptoms of the churn of
this process.

Personally I think it would be great if we eventually moved fully beyond the
master-slave relationship. As someone with a strong aversion to both sides of
that dichotomy I find it a little annoying to be part of a civilization based
on it.

------
plinkplonk
Well the article assumes that structuring my life so people like the author
can have the warm fuzzies when looking at my cv is a priority for me.

What I look for in a job is autonomy, great co-workers and interesting work.
The moment any of these decline, I leave. Why should I stick on to a dead end
job because someday some fellow like the author _might_ not like my cv?

Do what makes sense to _you_ at each decision point. If you are any good
technically you will never have a shortage of job offers. If you are really
good you'll be drowning in them.

~~~
strlen
Keep in mind his own experience and the sort of company he started. He was a
consultant at Accenture and then started a company making a business
application (Koral, a CMS) which he sold to Salesforce (who I'd imagine are to
the likes of SAP what Mint was to the likes of Intuit: commendable for the
innovative business aspects, but not awe inspiring from technology point of
view).

His article on the role of a CTO vs. VP of Engineering mentioned having an
opinion on Ruby on Rails and familiarity with Hibernate as examples of
description of a CTO. Compare this with a real technology company e.g., where
the _CEO_ -- a "business guy" -- wrote lex as a his Thesis project.

I believe you've been in his world (enterprise software and consulting), so
it's fairly clear to you that he neither needs -- nor is able to attract --
very strong technical people. That's fine: if you're building business
software, hire people who are _competent_ in writing software _and_ who have
understanding of business, but it does put perspective on the situation. He
does not "get" what actual engineers (vs. business software developers) aim
for a career: doing interesting work, continuously learning (thus becoming
_more valuable_ to present and future employers) rather than receiving a high
salary and working for a successful company. That's why Calacanis didn't get
why Evan left to join Yahoo (oh no, they're not cool according Techcrunch!),
that people could be happy when they're doing interesting work even if their
workplace is no longer considered hip and sexy.

Low compensation or feeling of an employer being a sinking ship will
eventually get engineers to consider switching jobs (especially if they have a
life goal that requires the additional money e.g., buying a house; this is
especially true of those who started as "college hires" at companies with
formulaic salary ranges and didn't think to negotiate), but it's never just
about the money.

------
etherael
Interesting tack, say something blatantly offensive claiming it will make you
a lot of enemies and then use as demonstration of courageous conduct when you
are in fact saying the kind of thing that would otherwise make you look pretty
damned evil.

The barrage of vitriolic and savage responses here is totally deserved, I
can't get over the fact that people like this still exist.

------
mkramlich
I think both extremes look bad. Somebody who has had 24 jobs in the last 24
months looks pretty bad. Somebody who has had 1 and only 1 job in the last 24
years also looks rather bad -- depending on the field. If it was a librarian
and that's what you're looking to hire, great. But I've noticed that as a
general rule, in the software field, if somebody stays at the same employer
for 10-20 years, that's usually a bad sign. Not always, but generally.

Also think if you were in the software field in the mid/late 90's and you were
NOT job hopping, in some sense, you were probably not being very smart.
Because there was so much demand for our skills that you could almost always
get more money by moving on. Once all the frothy demand died down, yes, it
tended to become smarter to stay. But all of this -- all of it -- is just
generalizations. People leave jobs for all sorts of reasons which do not or
should not reflect badly on them. Family, sickness, education, career growth,
moving to a better home or community, etc.

I think loyalty is more important at a startup than at a larger, more
established business. But never EVER assume the business will be loyal to you,
the employee. If you're lucky, they will, but don't assume that. The whole
point of the business is to maximize profit for the owners, and the
executive/managerial class sometimes really is just out for their own best
interests, even if that means canning employees and/or shutting down entire
lines of business that otherwise are staffed with good people doing good work.
They look at the numbers, and may often "do what the numbers tell them."
Likewise, an employee can analyze matters in the same way. It's fair.

~~~
mendriacus
As much as I support job changing (see my other comments), it's perfectly fine
to stay at the same job for 24 years (heck, why not 50?) if it's really good,
you're constantly growing, and can demonstrate a rising skill curve
throughout.

Your extreme suspicion of anyone who stays for so long reveals a more
fundamental truth about the software industry: very few companies manage to
keep employees happy and challenged for so many years.

------
fretlessjazz
While the metrics behind his assertions are short-sighted, specifically (
years in workforce / number of jobs ) = job-hopping likelyhood, I think he
left out the most absolutely critical reason why I and other hiring managers
look at the duration of employ at previous establishments.

I've reviewed hundreds of resumes, hired great people, and hired some not
great people. Sometimes they leave because of you and your company, sometimes
they don't. In my experience, a history of short employment can mean one of
two things:

1\. This candidate is extremely talented, independent, and a self-starter.
Hire these people. Now. 2\. This candidate leaves before he or she is truly
accountable for the code they write.

2 is very dangerous. You don't want to hire an engineer who will write a
subscription billing platform and quit the week after launch. It's often tough
to determine the difference between 1 and 2, and it takes many pointed
questions to figure it out.

------
andywood
I agree with the general concept, but how on earth is 3 years "short-term"?
That's enough time to see certain medium-sized software projects through the
full development cycle from conception through v1, with plenty of time left
over to follow up with v2 and v3. I get that it's nothing like being a lifer,
but I think its a significant period of time for an engineer. Also, your use
of phrases like "buh bye" make me think you're trolling for controversy a bit
too hard.

------
acid_bath
"You’re in it more for yourself than your company."

What a delusional asshole. If anyone says they care more about a company (and
in turn the success of the shareholders) over their own success, they're
lying. Anyone who expects this is insane.

------
kls
_"Gen X’ers who are running for the door at the first sign of trouble"_

I am sorry but the author supports a very prejudged and one sided viewpoint.
The converse of the above quoted statement is: employers who enact massive
layoffs at the first sign of trouble. The dynamics of the American work force
have changes, many companies are no longer loyal so many employees are no
longer loyal.

------
CRASCH
No one wants to train new employees. It is expensive.

I totally disagree with the filter. I don't want employees that aren't going
to tough it out and quit mid-project either. That isn't what we are talking
about though. We are talking about people that probably switched jobs for any
number of reasons. Not hiring someone just because they switched jobs or
independently consulted, that seems so arbitrary it is almost comical.

It really is a two way street. I worked at a place that had 98% employee
retention for multiple years through the boom. Almost everyone there was
heavily recruited and almost no one left. Even the people that were previously
independent consultants and the ones that had job hopped. Why? It was a great
place to work with above average compensation and awesome people to work with.

My point is that if you compensate people well and you provide a great place
to work you don't have to filter for potential job hoppers. You are then free
to filter for the important things like work ethic, aptitude, skill, and
fitting in.

------
aasarava
I'm not sure I'd want to hire someone who _hadn't_ switched jobs several times
in their careers so far -- especially if they worked in tech over the past 10
to 15 years.

In my experience, people who have worked at various companies bring a more
diverse set of experiences to the table. They know that there's more than one
way to do something.

On the other hand, people who have stayed at one job for a long time (in a
non-executive role) while everything around them was changing probably aren't
as good as identifying opportunities or accepting change.

------
datums
"In the last job I recruited for (our associate) I had more than 1,000
resumes"

You're doing it wrong!

BTW I don't want to employee someone who doesn't want to be there. If he wants
to leave, he's doing us both a favor.

It's important to explore why the candidate wasn't happy or had leave the
company.

------
wrinklz
Doesn't apply in the biotech field, where startup lifespans tend to be fairly
short. Particularly since most of the employees are hired in about the middle
of the company lifespan (unless they hit paydirt).

------
vaksel
the problem is that companies do not pay a fair wage.

they hire a person, and then if they work like a slave for them...the most
they'd see is a 5% raise if that. And in this economy, chances are the company
won't even give the people a raise for years. And early on, in one's career,
the experience you gain is valued way more than a 5% raise.

I'll give you an example of my friend. He came into his company and ended up
with a $12K raise in salary. Pretty much was the top performer there. So the
first year he got a 5% raise(max available, and only after 4 months on the
job). Second year the market crashed. And the company pretty much slashed the
work force. 50% of people were let go. Out of 30 people in his department,
only 3 were left. No raises that year. The next year, no raises, more jobs
slashed, the rest of his team was let go...and my friend ended up being the
only person in the department(company has multiple divisions, so he was just
transferred to another department). The next year the company turned
around...but once again no raises.

So look at my friend...1. top performer...out of 30 people in his department,
the only one who wasn't laid off. 2. more and more responsibilities, pretty
much attached to his blackberry. Works nights, weekends from home too. 3. the
ONLY person in the entire company who knows anything about 60% of the
company's internal software..and no raises. And due to inflation....you can
even say his salary was slashed, because it wasn't adjusted with inflation for
multiple years.

Now why would anyone stick around with a company like that? Why wouldn't he
move to another company for a 20-30% raise? In fact he wants to...but he can't
because he is the only person working in his family, has kids and he figures,
it's better the devil you know, so he is waiting for the market to turn
around...+ he likes his commute.

Now let's say he sticks around for another year, and the next year the company
decides to give everyone raises. Do you think the company will be fair, and
will give people raises for the 3 years they stuck around supporting the
company through the tough times w/o getting paid their fair market value? Or
do you think they'll just give people 5%(if that) and maybe a $500 bonus?

Bottom line: Employees will stick with you through thick and thin as long as
you pay them their fair share...noone likes changing jobs...noone likes the
first 3 months on a new job when you don't know if they want to keep you,
noone likes job hunting, noone likes interviewing.

If you don't, you shouldn't be surprised if they feel justified to look for a
company that pays them what they are worth.

------
RyanMcGreal
Was Jason Calacanis' original comment a swipe at Evan Culver?

~~~
eculver
Which comment are you referring to?

~~~
anthonyb
I think he means the original tweet:
<http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849> (Not that _you_ want to see that
again...)

~~~
RyanMcGreal
That's the one. :/

------
signa11
well all i can say is "if you want loyalty, go buy a cocker-spaniel..."

------
pw0ncakes
Fucking asshole. Almost no one _wants_ to change jobs every 12 months. Looking
for work is a pain in the ass and changing jobs is inherently risky. Everyone
goes into a job hoping they will work out so well at the company as to have no
incentive to leave... at least for 5-10 years. All this is even more true for
the best employees, because the number of desirable employers drops off faster
than the number of talented people. (The best people, who want only to work at
the best companies, have what is in a way the most difficult kind of job
search.)

Job hopping is almost always involuntary-- not in the sense of a person
getting fired, but in the sense of a person being wise enough to realize that
he's in a position that his wasting his time, and moving on-- the rational
response.

The "job hopper" stigma originally came into existence because people who did
so would rise rapidly in salary through iterated negotiations; in times such
as the late 1990s, it's possible to get to a very high salary level this way.
Pursued inflexibly, it's a terrible strategy in the long term, because it
makes you less likely to end up as someone's protege (rolling stone, no moss)
and eventually compensation will reflect the resulting stagnation. But most
"job hoppers" do not fall into this category; they change jobs not because
they are trying to game the system, but because they realize they are wasting
time.

If your career is not improving-- you're not learning, inadequately mentored,
and no one is looking out for your advancement-- then you should change jobs
as soon as you can do so with minimal harm to the company. (If you're in a
small company, it might be right to stay on for a couple months, at least to
train someone else.) Since most people are not and cannot be "protege", this
means that it's good to shift around a few times until finding a fit.

Likewise, everyone has to do some grunt work and deal with some
unpleasantness, and recognizing this is just being a mature person, but anyone
who finds out his job is mostly or entirely grunt work, or work unrelated to
his career (e.g. the programmer who gets put full-time on office tasks) is
wasting time and should leave.

Sorry, but I have to say all this because I am sick and fucking tired of
people ripping on my generation for not playing by someone else's shitty
rules. Are the older people really so damn entitled as to not understand all
this? And how can they expect loyalty to companies when layoffs happen all the
time?

~~~
mendriacus
This is very true. Good job pointing out how the author rambles about
"generations" and what's wrong with them, trying to explain why an employee
leaving a job he doesn't like is somehow evil and sinful.

The article at part reads like the vague "get off my lawn" ramblings of a
bitter elderly man. Good luck attracting top young talent with this attitude.

Another important point is that most startups aren't a good place to stay long
term, simply because (duh!) most of them do not succeed. Curious, isn't it?

Statistically, over a 3-4 year period, your startup is 90%+ likely to fail.
Why would the best and the brightest stay in a failing project? The captain
may be expected to sink with the ship (he often doesn't, and especially his
first officers don't), but when you realize that this isn't your company, your
"stock" isn't going to be worth a nickel since any meager sale profit will go
to the series A investors, and if you don't start sending out resume you're
going to be fired in a couple of months - why again are you expected to stay?

Also, many of the best engineers I've known have periods where they changed
jobs, and then periods where they stayed at the same job for 2-3+ years. That
just makes sense. If you can get hired anywhere, and since you can't really
gauge the merit of a company from a few hours of visiting it pre-hire, you're
likely to shop around and try to find a place that you like.

Ultimately, as you correctly pointed out, if an employee is truly happy in his
current position, _s/he will not leave_. And it's your job as employer is to
keep the employees you want happy and productive in your company (what other
task does a manager have, really?). How anyone can ignore this simple fact is
beyond my grasp.

~~~
pw0ncakes
_Another important point is that most startups aren't a good place to stay
long term, simply because (duh!) most of them do not succeed._

Startups have some dreadful lows, so I can understand not wanting to hire
people who will leave at the first painful moment, especially because one
departure can trigger a fatal exodus. There are also people who just collapse
during painful periods and a startup can't afford to have them... but the ones
who collapse tend to have a certain passivity about them that makes them
incapable of being voluntary job hoppers.

However, we're talking about entirely different sets of motivations when we
compare the "stay-or-go" decision at a big company vs. at a startup. Someone
who leaves a mediocre corporate job after 6 months because he isn't learning
anything and because it's obvious that no one with any power cares about him
is, in my opinion, savvy and ambitious. This sort of person could easily be a
great startup employee-- knows what he wants (and is therefore less likely to
job-hop out of ignorance and confusion) and seasoned enough to cut through
bullshit and avoid the wasting of time.

~~~
mendriacus
The few successful startups I've known actually didn't have many "lows", and
certainly not "dreadful" ones. They had a lot of stress, insane work hours, no
life/work balance at all (since "life" was removed from the equation), but not
too many of the kind of "omg we're actually failing" type of lows.

The cruel truth is that this business is so competitive, that if you make too
many mistakes you're going to lose to those 1 or 2 among your hundreds of
competitors that were lucky and competent enough never to have these kinds of
failures.

In any case, I agree about the failure to distinguish fundamental (and very
different) motivations here. Certainly you don't want someone crumbling under
stress, but these kinds of people are easy to identify. Did that person had a
very long vacation after leaving (for whatever reason) a startup? Does he seem
to shy away from risk, stress, and high pressure positions?

If so, and you're hiring for such a position, it probably shows obliviousness
and lack of self recognition and maturity for him to even apply.

------
lolindian
How about this: Employers who don't give proportional ownership of the company
to workers are terrible employers and living off of your sweat.

~~~
Tichy
I must admit that is a notion I don't understand. Why shouldn't it be possible
to simply pay for a job and have it done by a professional? Like if I pay
somebody to build me a house, am I supposed to give them ownership of the
house afterwards?

~~~
itgoon
If you build a house by having it done by a professional, you're going to be
paying more to have it completed. There's usually contract clauses and
insurance to ensure that you're not left with a half-finished house.

When you hire that professional, you're not only paying for his experience,
but all those other things, as well. There's a premium attached to those
clauses and insurance. You could choose to forgo those assurances, and save
some money, but you have a higher risk. Not to mention, a lot of better
professionals would refuse, thus limiting the pool of candidates.

The author of the article wants it all: the assurance of the higher-cost
option without the premium.

~~~
Tichy
Of course - if you give equity for workers, it is simply a form of salary. If
they don't get equity, they should get a higher salary than workers who get
equity. I agree to that. I just don't see why equity should always be a part
of the compensation.

~~~
itgoon
That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if
you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could
enter into a similar agreement with the builder.

He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final
selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable
deal?

There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way).

In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very
expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms.
He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it,
though.

~~~
billswift
It's not, or didn't use to be, all that unusual in houses. It's referred to as
building "on spec", meaning "speculative"; where the architect, builder, or
whoever builds the house on the chance that they can make a profit selling it
after, rather than the more common way of building it to an up-front contract.
It was most often used when a builder had materials or a little cash available
to avoid laying off good workers when there wasn't a contract job available.

------
alnayyir
Schopenhauer said it best.

This man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the
world.

------
brerrabbit
what a fucking pompous blowhard. I find it patently offensive when employers
try to posture their employee culture as anything other than what it is,
business. "We're all family here..." Fuck you, you are not my Mother or my
Father & I resent that implication. Loyalty...please. If Im in on the ground
floor, then that might be different, but in that scenario, loyalty swings both
ways.

~~~
msuster
Do you feel better about yourself about saying this about me anonymously on
HN? re "you are not my Mother or Father" - I never asked you to read my blog.
So the implication that I'm lecturing you is a stretch. I welcome people to
disagree with my POV, but personal attacks or epithets are unnecessary.

