
Startups, please stop calling it your 'Careers' page - rmcfeeley
http://robmcfeeley.com/post/70586882306/startups-please-stop-calling-it-your-careers-page
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sjtgraham
Wow, people get so worked up over such minutiae these days.

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rdudek
I finally registered just to show my full support over this comment. I found
the title to be more of a link-bait than anything else. While I agree with the
article that joining a startup is not exactly secure work, but what is?
Joining a startup does generally have a lucrative personal growth
opportunities and within the company itself. So yes, it should be called
"career".

~~~
oellegaard
Indeed. I think I would indeed call what, for instance, Mark Zuckerberg is
doing a "career". It's indeed a classic example of a Hacker News "look at
me"-post, where the content seems to be less important than the title. While
the quantity of these posts seem to increase, fortunately most post on HN
still have real content.

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RougeFemme
I get the point(s) - I think, but. . .careers don't have to be within one
company. And these days, they rarely are. Also, once you're a few years out
from your multiple start-up jobs, you may see how some hard or soft skill you
acquired has contributed/is contributing to your career progression. Several
years ago, I looked around at my peers in my current job and thought. . .I
really _was_ on a career path (though it was not particarly planned and it
spanned a number of organizations and industries); I really _do_ have more
breadth and depth of knowledge and experience than I thought; even though I
feel that my talents are often wasted, I really _am_ viewed as more senior
than I thought (salary ranges here are an open secret, if you know how/where
to look). . .

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rmcfeeley
Good point. "Imposter syndrome" is definitely a thing.

I think a lot about the hyphenated person these days (i.e. artist-programmer-
writer-marketer-lover). Your point about retroactively realizing that you were
on a path is a good one - my point here is that the notion of a "careers page"
implies that you know where the hell you're going... or at least that working
for startup X is a natural step along that path.

Most people, plainly, do not (or companies, for that matter), know where the
hell they're going. Diving into the startup world is a great way to find that
out--FAST. And that's definitely not a bad thing.

But 'career' is too loaded a word, IMHO, to capture all of this..

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bushido
Actually, now that I think about it the foundation of the OP's case against
the naming could be flawed.

From my perspective a career is made up of a number of jobs done through the
life of that type of work. For a marketer it would be a few or many marketing
jobs.

The perception for a potential future employee that a new job/gig/etc. with a
start-up or a larger company is a good addition to building this foundation
and progress in their career as a marketer/writer/programmer/etc. is an
important image.

And hence start-ups should definitely continue calling it a career page.

The only exception is if the start-up believes that it is going to hurt the
recruits career.

Also, I have never heard the word security associated with career as in _"
Career Security"_; _Job Security_ on the other is thrown around all the time.

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n008
Working for a start-up is a career opportunity, no matter how short the
duration.

Most people who join start-up companies, have long term goals to start
something later on in life, and the experience you get from working on almost
all aspects of the business, and take part in critical decision making is
highly invaluable in this regard.

Some people just like the excitement that comes with the uncertainty, and if
all things fail, you can always get another job or start something if you are
adventurous.

This post appears to come from a Sales (or businessy) person who tend to
prefer a stable environment as against risk and excitement imo.

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arasmussen
Author, please stop taking words so literally. This isn't that complicated. If
I'm on a startups website and I want to apply for a job there I will look for
two words. Those words are "jobs" and "careers" and to me (and probably most)
they mean the same damn thing. Nobody arrives at a website and sees careers
and automatically thinks anything you talked about.

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rmcfeeley
"Author, please stop taking words so literally" is a wonderful sentence

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lauradhamilton
I think calling it "careers" is much nicer than calling it "jobs."

Nobody is staying at jobs for 10-15 years anymore. You should be switching
jobs every 3-5 years to refresh your skillset and stay updated. The days of
working for Kodak for 40 years and then retiring are over.

~~~
RougeFemme
I don't think you necessarily _should_ be switching. . .depending on the
company, you may be able to refresh and update by simply transferring to a
different team or project. But yes, the reality is that, for most of us,
that's what we need to do.

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wil421
The college I went to had an online job posting board, I would check it
weekly. Often there would be some startup on the careers page with the Title:
"Rock Star Code Monkey Ninja wanted - Start your Career"

Guess which ones didnt receive my resume?

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bushido
This is unfortunately an anti-thesis to the OPs opinion. I am guessing this
was not your intention.

He talks of a "career" page. As in the title. The only time this matters is if
you are already on their website.

If this was an obscure start-up, the reason you'd land on that page would be
because something about them made you go to their website.

Now ask yourself this, when you visit a website would you prefer them calling
the page with their job listings a gigs page, jobs page, job listing page or
careers page?

Which one would you look for?

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wil421
I think that career gives the person some optimism about the posting but it
may give false hope to someone they are hiring just to get the product built
or for only one project.

The only ones I dont like are the ones with a lot of buzzwords or code monkey
type lingo.

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joelrunyon
Does he have any hard examples of this?

I've _never_ seen this on any startup site I've looked at. Typically they're
labeled "jobs" or "work with/for us."

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the_watcher
Seems like a startup should have much more important things to worry about
than what to label their jobs page.

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benmgreene
I don't think it's the name so much as the attitude that matters. I've
definitely seen startup founders that expected a longer term commitment from
employees than they did from themselves. The founders wanted employees to
believe 100% that they would be at the company for years to come, even though
the founders fully expected to guide the company from inception to acquisition
as quickly as possible and then split. I think the reality is that startup
industry people, regardless of whether they're in a founding or hired role,
are in it to create businesses and learn how to do so. Once those
opportunities evaporate, they're not going to see value in sticking around to
turn the gears. Startups that try to hire for long-haulers are bringing in the
asylum-seekers, not the risk-takers.

Full disclosure: I worked with the author for six months.

~~~
the_watcher
I'm just talking about worrying about the name. They should absolutely think
long and hard about the actual page. I've just always treated jobs and careers
as synonyms in that context.

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3pt14159
A job sounds like something a person barely getting through high school looks
for.

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jeremysmyth
A career sounds like something you find yourself having once you've had three
or four jobs.

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bushido
If all(or some) three or four jobs were in the same fields such as
writing/marketing/programming one would correctly argue that the career
started with the first job of its kind, it just took you X number of jobs to
realize that it was your career.

