[quote=svelte]To me, an immediate red flag is a candidate who has 10 years of work history, 1-2 years at each company. That tells me there is a problem of some sort…I mean once or twice could be a bad fit but a half dozen times of that, it’s the employee not the companies.
I had a problem child handed over to me awhile back as a last resort. I too failed and turning this person around and they left the company. While looking through their file, I found the resume this person gave us when we interviewed them. Sure enough, 10 years and not more than 1.5 years at any place. I asked the folks who hired the employee – didn’t you notice this? Why the f did we bring this person aboard? They just shrugged and handed their mistake off to me to handle.
And I agree with conversation above. A wise mentor a long time ago said the point of an interview is not whether the person knows the exact technical skills we need…if they are worth their salt they can pick that up quickly as long as they have the basics in our technology field. What is more important is their thought process, their ability to get along with others and their ability to stick with something…that’s why a degree is important for an entry level person – shows they can stick with something for four or more years.[/quote]
i actually disagree with that. thats actually the mentality of some san diego companies but not generally how it works overall. Fact is modern day tech companies get sold, acquired, run out of money all the time. Its not the engineers fault. and often times some people, particularly asian male, get pigeon holed into a role and never have the opportunity to move up…the entire white frat boy club…so for some people the choice is simple. you could wait 5-6-7 years hoping youll get your turn by merit working hard…meanwhile watching a white fratboy who likes to talk a lot about football but nevertheless less qualified than you, bloviate his way around and move up more quicker and eventually ends up your boss keeps you as
worker bee….or you quit for the next company that offers you a better position…seems like it’s a no brainer…i see a lot of my asian colleagues still Software Engineer 3 after so many years, no surprise there.
i certainly am glad I moved around enough. When Avago acquired Broadcom and chopped it up, it was a great monetary pay day of a few hundred thousand ever for worker bees… but it was sucky for a lot of engineers that were laidoff to make the stock go up, especially when maby of them were unemployed for quite some time because they did leave earlier before everyone else was looking for a job. especially when these layoffs do happen, its usually thr white frat boy c-suite that get to keep their jobs and their stock options, while they lay off the asian worker bees they never promoted because after all, they are the decision makers …..
and when a startup skipped a 401k contribution that was already withheld from your paycheck, you also know its time to get out of there because the company is lying and not tellng you they are running out of money…
theres the opposite problem.. a lot of Qualcomm lifers stayed st the company for like 20+years… and when they got laidoff they were unemployable elsewhere because they never kept current with the rest of the industry.
i think one thing for certain, this industry is large enough that if company X doesnt like you for some subjective random reason, thats fine.. theres company y z a b c that doesnt care and have some other subjective reason not to like someone else as long as you are good.
