[FiestaST]

I work for a blockchain startup and I started there in January 2022.
Looks like the party is over. The company had laid off 10-15 people that I worked with and many that I do not know of. Absolutely no notice given. I saw the slack going from green to deactivated. This is my first time seeing a layoff firsthand. I cannot start to think what they must be going through.

[Captain Slow]

Originally Posted by FiestaST

I work for a blockchain startup and I started there in January 2022.
Looks like the party is over. The company had laid off 10-15 people that I worked with and many that I do not know of. Absolutely no notice given. I saw the slack going from green to deactivated. This is my first time seeing a layoff firsthand. I cannot start to think what they must be going through.

I assume this is not in India?

[FiestaST]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

I assume this is not in India?

No. This is in the US.

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by Mr.Ogre

Simple solution was to go out, and come back in again after a year with a good pay and better designation.

In your opinion, is one year a reasonable gap to go back again to your previous organization if you wish to go back ever? Just asking to understand.

[Mr.Ogre]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

In your opinion, is one year a reasonable gap to go back again to your previous organization if you wish to go back ever? Just asking to understand.

Yes, why not. Its not like it depends on me alone, there has to be a requirement and more importantly willingness to take back - which in the present scenario is not a blocker. If I am getting more for my services why shouldn't I capitalise on it? Don't businesses do the same? No one is doing no one any charity. This kind of opportunity does not come every time and you will be a fool to not to capitalise on it.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Mr.Ogre

...and more importantly willingness to take back - which in the present scenario is not a blocker.

Yeah I think more companies are now willing to re-hire former employees. At the start of my career, there was a distinct "once you leave you are persona non grata" sentiment towards former employees. Only the most forward thinking orgs/HR back then made it a point to have employees leave on friendly terms. Now I see a couple of former employers advertising their 'returning employee' policy on LinkedIn, including quicker/reduced interview rounds.

Funny thing is at one of those orgs, I distinctly remember the manager would even stop talking with the employees once they resigned! They used to take it that personally! Glad those trends are changing, let's just take things professionally.

Personally, for me it's a no-brainer. The candidate is a known entity- you've already hired them once, so they can do the job. The time away from the org is a bonus- means they picked up something else. Plus while interviewing, even if you didn't know/work with that particular person, it's really easy to ask some of their former colleagues about their work and attitude- instead of an unknown candidate who could be faking all that at the interview.

[adisan]

Originally Posted by balenoed_

is one year a reasonable gap to go back again to your previous organization if you wish to go back ever?

There are people who returned to their previous organization within weeks, as well as some who took 5-6 years after exiting.

It depends on the particular people and situation. Sometimes an organization knows a person's value but was unable to prevent his/her exit. Sometimes a person's exit leads to a domino effect, and then the organization realizes his/her value a bit later.

I feel that the key is the previous organization is truly keen to have a person back with them, and not the amount of time that has passed.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by adisan

There are people who returned to their previous organization within weeks, as well as some who took 5-6 years after exiting.
I feel that the key is the previous organization is truly keen to have a person back with them, and not the amount of time that has passed.

Around an year ago, I switched jobs just for better timings, and not greener pastures. Clearly updated my boss regarding this and even the Top Management. Had to get back in two months, the job I had switched to somehow later on had me traveling around 100 kms a day. Ended up piling more kms. on my car. Getting back to the same job was possible due to reasons you specified. After a certain time frame, a lot of confidential data, trust builds up. Finding replacement isnt easy as training (which is possible) and trust takes some time to build up. ERP licenses, etc. cant be granted easily as it has tons and tons of information. Not everytime, but sometimes an old reliable horse carrying consistent momentum is better than a race winning one.

[OffRoadFun]

Originally Posted by FiestaST

I work for a blockchain startup and I started there in January 2022.
Looks like the party is over. The company had laid off 10-15 people that I worked with and many that I do not know of. Absolutely no notice given. I saw the slack going from green to deactivated. This is my first time seeing a layoff firsthand. I cannot start to think what they must be going through.

Not to be unsympathetic to the ones who were laid-off, but it has a silver lining. It makes one stronger, because professionally one has seen the worst. One of my previous managers, who himself had encountered a lay-off, told me this. Never again is he afraid in corporate world. And trust me, almost everyone who gets laid-off, especially in India, will get another job very soon.

[Slick]

The signs of a slow down in hiring are definitely there, For the last one year, every offer that my org sent out, initially got accepted and then in the last week, the candidate would share a counter offer 30% above our offer and not join.

Now this month alone we have an almost 80% strike rate in people joining.

As far as quoting figures,
Some time back we had a 7 yrs Exp person earning 12L (not a high flier), he resigned with an offer of 18L, by the time we reached out to him with a counter offer of 18 he had a new offer of 27L.

This is not an isolated instance, we have had 'N' such cases. We had to let go most.

Also a very unsettling trend that I have observed is people putting down papers, then negotiating and retracting their resignation only to again resign in 5-6 months. Leaves a very bad taste.

Such folks are not welcome back in the org(Simply because they will never be satisfied) , else all are welcome back.
Nothing wrong is resigning but if you negotiate, at least stay a year or don't retract at all.

- Slick

[SnS_12]

Originally Posted by Slick

The signs of a slow down in hiring are definitely there, For the last one year, every offer that my org sent out, initially got accepted and then in the last week, the candidate would share a counter offer 30% above our offer and not join.

This unethical behavior by some employees is what will ultimately comeback to bite them. Once you have accepted a job offer and agreed on the salary how can you expect the new company to agree to match a new offer you received after your offer letter has already been issued by them. That just means you yourself don't know what you're worth and will never be loyal to a company and will jump ship on the next immediate opportunity. Once you have agreed to a salary honour it as if the same company asks him to join at a lower pay just because they have now identified a candidate who will work for lower pay I am sure he would be furious about this new sudden development.

Also, if salaries make 70% of a companies outgo then are they able to generate and sustain business going forward to make up for the 200 to 300% salary hikes to retain or add on new talent?

Such employees/candidates don't seem to be bothered to look down where they would stand in a couple of years and are currently happy making hay when the sun shines.

[Captain Slow]

Originally Posted by Slick

Also a very unsettling trend that I have observed is people putting down papers, then negotiating and retracting their resignation only to again resign in 5-6 months. Leaves a very bad taste.

Such folks are not welcome back in the org(Simply because they will never be satisfied) , else all are welcome back.
Nothing wrong is resigning but if you negotiate, at least stay a year or don't retract at all.

- Slick

You hit the nail right on!, We were supposed to get a couple of new people last moment they backed out saying xyz was paying 30% more, This left us in a bit of trouble as last moment we had to restart the search.

Our management gave a junior a 40% hike sometime in OCT of 2021 - Last week of Dec this resource resigned. This resource went on getting offer letters from other companies to negotiate everywhere.

As a policy I asked my management and HR not to even consider anyone who says we already have an offer for x but want y. These guys can go hunt else where.

Things were not like this 2-3 years back.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

This unethical behavior by some employees is what will ultimately comeback to bite them. Once you have accepted a job offer and agreed on the salary how can you expect the new company to agree to match a new offer you received after your offer letter has already been issued by them. That just means you yourself don't know what you're worth and will never be loyal to a company and will jump ship on the next immediate opportunity. Once you have agreed to a salary honour it as if the same company asks him to join at a lower pay just because they have now identified a candidate who will work for lower pay I am sure he would be furious about this new sudden development.

Also, if salaries make 70% of a companies outgo then are they able to generate and sustain business going forward to make up for the 200 to 300% salary hikes to retain or add on new talent?

Such employees/candidates don't seem to be bothered to look down where they would stand in a couple of years and are currently happy making hay when the sun shines.

The employees aren't there to prove loyalty, they need to take the highest offer before their time runs out. Neither party has any illusions about the trade here, if you are offered 2x and then 2.5x, you can forget about the 2x offer. Isn't it unethical of the company to lowball the candidate? How did you reach the conclusion that they don't know their worth? It's the only thing they're successfully finding out.

A simple calculation, your friend takes a 2x pay hike and get hikes over the next three years, versus you loyally holding on, after about 3 years, he would have your the equivalent of your entire earnings as savings/investments. This is from changing jobs early in your career, you will never catch up, the effect is that your quality of life will drop and you will end up with coworkers and juniors who make more than you. In service firms, onsite employees' savings used to be nearly 5 times annual gross pay of offshore, some people who never got the opportunity can jump and claw back some of their lost earnings now.

If salary outflow is 70%, then that offering must be a high price item to justify the input costs, otherwise the company goes under. In few years time, the employees who jumped will get higher salaries and better offers, those who stayed will either get fired and unable to get better offers because their low pay indicates poor skill levels to prospective employees. Loyalty will be paid back with HR getting a couple of bouncers to escort you out after giving you 10 mins to clear your desk. If you don't take the risk and jump ship, you end up with nothing.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

Things were not like this 2-3 years back.

I think that a bit like each generation thinking they had the best of something (music, cars, <whatever pop-cultural reference>), we also tend to look back at previous years of work experience in some sort of idealistic light.

Truth is in my 20+ years of IT industry experience, I've seen pretty much the same behavior. I remember HR from every org I've worked at complaining about candidates accepting offers and not showing up. Heck, 2002, after a year at my first job, the new person they hired to split some of the work I was doing just showed up for one day and never bothered to return! Found out later it was because she accepted another offer. I remember a stellar performer from one of my companies from a decade ago resigning 3- yes 3 times and staying back each time after getting a promotion! And the company gave in because they needed him. (Finally he left for good the 4th time!) Back in 2004 itself I remember a colleague outlining his plan to jump the next x jobs to reach a certain salary level.

On the other side of the coin, as far back as I can remember, I've seen companies flip-flop on offers too. I've seen how HR keeps freshers dangling and offer candidates who were worth a lot more, a lot less, even below market rate simply because they knew that candidate didn't have much choice. And for reasons like they had a career break to have a child (yes, that used to happen, even in the hallowed world of IT! And not too long ago.) I've seen truly good performers being swept out in a day after years of loyalty. Only for the company to start hiring for the same skill set the next quarter. (And pay a lot more to get that back, minus the years of on-job experience!)

Neither of this really affects either the companies or candidates. I don't think there is an industry-wide blacklist of candidates that all companies maintain. Neither do companies get excessive negative press for hiring and firing, some of the best brand names in the IT industry do that and still attract enough applicants.

I've also heard this "India is getting too expensive...matching US salaries...the whole industry is doomed" thing since at least 2004 (first heard it at my second job, which worked on a pure outsourcing model).

So perhaps the scale is more these days, simply because the industry is a lot bigger now, but nothing has really changed. I'm not trying to make it an employee vs. employer kind of thing, but what I think is it's always been a constant "let me see what I can get/what I can get away with asking for/giving" on both sides.

And I think that's fine, free-market and all that. Both sides should just have a realistic awareness of their true worth and demand based on current market conditions, that's all.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

Things were not like this 2-3 years back.

Actually none of these things are new. I have seen above cases happen in the companies I have worked atleast over the last 10 years.

There will always be those employees who will look for the best option for themselves no matter what means they leverage to get there.