[PreludeSH]

I checked the first post of this thread. Its about IT companies. They should be allowed to rant ?

In Tyranny of Merit (deals with hubris of meritocracy) something also comes up about what we contribute to common good of society. IT workers contribute tax and Foreign exchange !

The layoffs globally might help Indian service companies.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I believe @mohanrides was referring to the attitudes especially on social media during the pandemic and the lack of empathy towards folks in other sectors...

Correct. I mentioned WFH merely for context. The real point of discussion was the sentiment among information workers during that time with regards to others who couldn't work from home - "You should sacrifice your source of living (and possibly your life) for my safety and the safety of my kids and my old parents". This was the undercurrent that fed most online posts from the IW community at that time.

Originally Posted by androdev

..To a large part, this goes with age and it's for the good...

That youth = immaturity is an axiom that is becoming long in the tooth.

Aamir Khan in an interview said that young actors these days are incredibly skilled and are able to fulfill the requirements of a scene exponentially faster than when he started his career. He said, "we used to get yelled at by the director and require 10 or 15 takes before we got the shot right. These days, almost all of these young actors crack the scene in just 2 or 3 takes. They have all invested time in learning the important aspects of not just films, but also about the business of films."

We can think of the above statement in isolation or view it as a commentary on the state of youth in general. My personal experience isn't too far from it, albeit in the IT field. Most young people who work here are amazingly mature and very few among them take stupid decisions. They are especially careful with money and almost every decision they take is aimed at maximizing their financial positions.

In the context of this thread, I would argue that in all likelihood many of the youngsters knew full well that the big paycheck jobs wouldn't last. They took those jobs anyways because in their calculations, getting 60 lacs today is better than getting 60 lacs over 3 or 4 years. If they lost their jobs, they would have 3 or 4 years of earnings in their pockets and they would still have time to look for the next opportunity.

Whats more, even the social media posts about their job losses appear to be carefully calibrated. Especially those on Linkedin. Typically people are likely to be more impulsive on FB and Insta. But, on a professional network like Linkedin everyone thinks twice before posting, because your profile contains your real identity and your entire work history.

Take this story for instance - https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/...926-2022-11-04

There are two possibilities here.
1.) The post is genuine and he is saying what he is feeling. At just 25 years of age, he is likely single without major liabilities. He recognises that at this point in his life, the experience of working in big tech (notwithstanding the job loss) can only yield positive results in the long run. If this is the case, good for him for recognising it and I would not be surprised at all if he is actually this mature.

2.) What he is really feeling is far from gratitude and hope. In effect, he is just whingeing, but doing so under the cloak of "positivity". He achieves two things by doing so - a.) he projects himself as an incredibly mature young person to all prospective employers. And b.) he cleverly creates an explanation for a gap in his resume that is likely to ensue. All in all, a real win-win.
Like I said, no young person today is stupid. The internet has made learning pervasive; and the life lessons that many of us learnt by paying heavy dues are sought out and digested by the youngsters today at a voracious pace.

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

....in this largely mercenary and self serving world, the concept of ‘organizational loyalty’ in the context of employment, is oftentimes most loudly espoused and touted by the men of straw who are otherwise unemployable..

Too simplistic and one dimensional. Like all truisms, this one too isn't monolithic. There is some truth to it of course. Some employees are indeed loyal because they can't hack it elsewhere. But, there isn't just one dimension to loyalty. Let us examine some other aspects of how and why loyalty ensues:
a.) Lack of support on the personal front - Remember that for one to keep changing employers and continously ascend, lots of ancillary factors have to fall in place. Some typical roadblocks are as follows:

• Less than optimal health in dependents tends to suck time and energy out of a candidate's career endeavours.
• Chaotic personal lives with conflicting requirements do not allow career focus.
• The inability to relocate for various personal reasons.

b.) Organizational loyalty - Many people stay in the same org because they feel respected, and because the org stood by them when they went through tough times in their personal lives. Here are some examples.
1.) A close friend suffered through a liver affliction (Hepititis of some variety) that kept him in and out of hospitals for almost 18 years. Through it all, Accenture stood by him. He never left the company despite his top B School creds offering him other opportunities. He only finally quit Accenture for a different job when the people who stood by him inside Accenture themselves moved on.

2.) My voice was feeble with fear when I told my boss of my father's diagnosis which would require lots of my time and attention. He said, "Do what you need to do for your dad. Don't worry about a thing. No one will raise a single question. Koyi poochega tho mein dekh lega (if anyone asks, I will handle them)." After having gone through 4 lay offs where I had been cast aside like common trash, my boss's words that day were almost unbelievable. So, 13 years later I am still here.

3.) Another colleague just left us last week after having clocked 25 years in my organization. Yes a full 25 years. An exemplary employee about whom our clients and colleagues had only positives to report. He could have left long back. But, he has a special needs daughter who dictates all schedules and all actions of the family. These are hardships that most people cannot even imagine. Here is a screenshot of a recent conversation I had with him.

c.) The inadvertent virtuous circle created by loyalty - Over a span of just 10 or 15 years, an org (any org) will likely go through at least a few set-backs. And if an employee hasn't left during those troubled times (for reasons mentioned in a.) and b.) above), then it typically means that I can depend on him to not leave me high and dry when I need him in the business. This is actually a huge positive from a management perspective. So, the org backs such an employee and puts him/her in charge of important clients / projects. This in turn produces more loyalty from said employee. This virtuous circle continues until something changes in the circumstances of either the org or of the loyal employee.
What I am saying is that so far in this discussion we have been viewing loyalty only through the lens of opportunity for the candidate, and interpreting the candidate's actions as a reflection of his calibre and abilities. Instead if we view loyalty from the perspective of churn, both in the employee's personal life and within the organisation, we will come to a few other interpretations.

Ultimately, the only real skills required are:

• An ability to think clearly and then to communicate those thoughts clearly.
• A willingness to work.
• A willingness to learn.
• Generosity and consideration for those you work with.

If you have the above traits, there isn't a job that you cannot do given the opportunity.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

After having gone through 4 lay offs where I had been cast aside like common trash, my boss's words that day were almost unbelievable. So, 13 years later I am still here.

Truly a boss in a million! Over the course of a 20-year career, I've had a grand total of exactly 1 manager who inspired that kind of confidence in the team. I too would have stayed at that company for as long as she was around. But...

She was sacked soon after an acquisition. Another good lesson on how things happen when you least expect it. Managers like these are rare in the IT field. (Most of my managers have been nice folks, but not people who'd stick up for you in front of clients or senior management, they'd certainly chuck you under the bus when things get tough. Which is fair I guess, good learning, independence, business and all. But difference between 'manager' and 'leader' and all that jazz...)

(And superb post overall! I'm saving it to read once in a while when I need some re-centering.)

[IndieGooner]

There seems to be an observable reduction in job postings online. Could this slump be attributed largely to a general reduction in hiring due to year end?

I haven't done a serious job hunt in quite a while and hence I could be off the mark widely. Back in the day, it was a well accepted rule of thumb that hiring slows down during year end and picks up again towards middle of first quarter next year as more budget gets released for hiring. So, if one thinks of a job change during year end the advice was to hunker down and prepare for turn off the year.

Of course past two years could very well be exceptions to any such trend observed before. Do you guys think there would be spike in hiring after a few months or is it going to be a gloomy 2023?

[Ambersariya87]

I have just one point to make. If we as employee fire company (read resignation) then isn't it fair vice-versa. Unless someone is getting ousted unlawfully. We change N number of organizations and i believe organizations also have the equal right.

PS - I am also an IT employee

[BombayDragon]

I don't have any statistical data however based on the posts from people on linked in my observation on the tech layoffs are as follows:

If we were to categorize employees of tech companies into tech workers i.e. developers / programmers / coders etc. and non tech workers i.e. other departments like marketing, sales, HR, branding, operations, PR, Finance etc. then at least in India the lay offs are almost completely in non tech departments and almost none of of the tech workers are being laid off.

If I look at linked in posts from USA then mostly non tech workers in tech companies have been laid off but there are also a minority of tech workers being laid off in the USA. What I have noticed is that most of the laid off tech workers in the USA are the ones on H1B visas.

These are just general observations based on what I see on linked in and I am happy to be corrected, but it appears that there is still a requirement for developers at least in India and to a great extent outside India as well.

[am1m]

One aspect of layoffs that might have escaped HR department's consideration - the impact on employee referrals. Companies are increasingly becoming reliant on referrals from current employees. Personally, if I'm looking to interview someone for our team, I'd much, much rather consider a resume I received from someone already in the company than from some shady recruiting agency. (Based on several past experiences, recruiting agencies don't seem capable of even doing basic filtering to see if what we need is even being met at a minimum.)

But if I'm at a company that has had several layoffs, I'd naturally be hesitant about recommending it as a good place to work to my friends, especially given the LIFO (last-in, first-out) nature of most layoffs.

Perhaps not a big deal in the scheme of things of companies that take in hundreds a quarter. But for smaller companies that depend on each resource being of a certain standard, could be a consideration. This actually happened at a former workplace. We needed someone badly, I knew someone who was a great fit and a good performer, but since I had already seen 2 rounds of layoffs at that place in just 3 years, I didn't even consider recommending that person. What if they left a stable job, joined us and was then let go in a year? What would I tell that person who was also a good friend?

[SafeDrive]

I'll probably get a lot of backlashes for this post but here goes it comes anyways:

There was a time a few decades back when the priority of companies was customers, employees and shareholders (in that order). The salary of top management wasn't as linked to the share price (options) as it is today. The company made a good product, treated its customers well and made sure that its employees were happy. This is what drove sales and that drove revenues. Revenues and the assets (physical and non-physical) decided the valuation of the company and that determined its share price. Economic classes during those times taught you to look at the book value of a share as one of the factors when determining if you wanted to buy a share.

But like everything else, change happened here too. Shareholders now get top priority; the salaries are directly proportional to the share price and employees are more disposable. Valuations are no longer bound by physical assets of the companies. Companies that have not made a penny in profit are valued more than established brands. Beating street estimates became paramount and labor cost with the help of technology became one of the easiest things to reduce in the short term if required.

And that's what's happening now. A company like Facebook can take losses but not at the cost of the happiness of shareholders and the market. Instant actions need to be taken to show the market that they're serious about their business and labor cost is probably the easiest bucket to take the money from. So, chop, chop, chop of the employee counts.

Is this fair, I don't know. However, this is how the world behaves today and we lesser mortals will just have to run with it. In every system there are ways to come out ahead and that is what we as individuals need to focus on. Make changes to the way you work, your plans etc as things around you change.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by BombayDragon

I don't have any statistical data....

For sure in downturns it is the cost centers which are at risk first. But having said that, the majority of those laid off are indeed techies because the largest employee segment in big tech are in fact techies.

In my experience, employee ratios that skew so heavily in favour of techies have both positives and negatives. From a productivity stand point, ROI is high when most of the employees are those that directly do the work. But, I feel that many big tech companies suffer difficult work conditions because of homogeneity in skill sets. A lack of plurality in skills results in similar (and typically alpha) personalities who lack of empathy. Most tech trenches are brutal with ultra-competitive workers who will spite each other without a second thought. This reduces as you start climbing the ladder and feel more secure in your job. But, for sure the lowest rungs feel like viper pits.

Coming back to the lay-offs themselves, every line of business or activity that isn't laser welded to the core product or business will be at risk. But, if we were to get into specifics, the cuts tend to happen along two main lines of action -

Engineering Operations - A good example would be a giant like Amazon. Their main e-commerce business runs on established software. While new features are introduced from time to time, the product itself remains largely unchanged. But, the product sits on an infrastructure that is constantly in flux - new servers and data centers with new tech getting added, etc. So, aside from the regular hardware engineers who manage the DCs and the main product team that writes the core code, there typically can be a huge software engineering team to keep the product afloat on top of a changing hardware structure. Certainly, the last thing that an Amazon or a Flipkart or even a FB can afford is an outage. So, these operations teams are staffed well; and if the org feels that activity could spike, they will err on the side of caution and hire more people here.

But, when big spikes in revenue don't happen (because big spikes in anticipated activity don't happen), why do you need a huge pool of engineers to keep the product problem free? So, these software engineering teams see cuts. Hardware engineers escape unless the physical infrastructure itself is taken out of circulation. But, they could also see a slight reduction in their team sizes.

Product Development - An economic downturn injects real clarity as to what customers will actually pay for. So, engineering teams which were formed to write new and untested products typically see themselves at risk. Efforts are also expressly made to identify teams (separated by geography) that are working on similar products or features. Once identified, the teams with weaker employees are among the first to be asked to go.

My feeling is that the above two streams are primarily what drove the current fiasco. The lockdowns and the WFH situation led everyone to think that everything was going to be digital moving forward. They invested heavily in shoring up their products and operating environments against potential failures from huge anticipated increases in usage. That didn't happen to the extent they expected. They also invested in writing new products for what was going to be the new digital utopia. That too didn't pan out; at least not in the short term. So here we are.

Originally Posted by SafeDrive

I'll probably get a lot of backlashes for this post...

Why would you catch flak for saying the truth? You are absolutely on point. Valuations these days are laughable. My father was shaking his head that a Zomato or an Ola with no physical assets and no noticeable profits were being valued higher than brick and mortrar companies that have built this country and its economy.

The problems today can be traced back to a fundamental (and age old) question in business. What is the purpose of a for-profit company? Is it to constantly maximize shareholder wealth? Or is it to stay profitable enough to provide for its employees? If we take these questions as the basis of examination, we will realise why there are umpteen small to midcap software services companies where there are so many lifers who will never leave.

Let us be clear that a loss making company can never survive because it can't pay its people. So, these companies are indeed revenue positive. But, their management has never chased valuations, and consequently, the employees there are much happier given the stability. Some of them may be unemployable as @shankar.balan says. But, many just don't want to move and risk everything they have built.

For what its worth, the race for valuations is about only one thing - unloading the company on some other sucker at fat price, and you making off with a fortune to play golf for the rest of your life.

Originally Posted by am1m

Truly a boss in a million!...

There is a nice analogue to this episode.

I spent the next year living out of a suitcase as I juggled my professional and personal responsibilities. Sometime that year, a big tech HR sought me out for a multi-stage interview. I was already in town to help my Dad and so I decided to go along. The first day comprised of 5 stages and as far I could tell, I didn't put a foot wrong. When I left for the day, the recruiter expressed lots of confidence about my subsequent conversations scheduled for the following day.

More importantly, I felt the familiar thrill of being courted by Big Tech - the snazzy offices with amenities and downtime areas; the huge cafeteria with city views and multi-cuisine stations attended to by chefs in spotless whites; the top notch equipment in futuristic conference rooms; the housekeeping staff at your beck and call; and people walking around looking busy and doing important things. The soft glow of big money was everywhere. Certainly, I was starting to looking forward to the next day.

That evening as the chemo medicine was coursing through my dad, I sat next to him and mulled my options.

Assuming that I got this job, should I move yet again and risk getting laid off in exchange for a triple-decker paycheck and a big prestigious logo on my resume?

Or should I stay in Mumbai and protect the modest base that I was starting to build by continuing to work for 1/3rd the money in ancient offices housed in almost dilapidated buildings with interiors that hadn't been changed since the 80s; but where the management had just reposed faith in me that no one else had until that point?

Interesting dilemma indeed!!

The next day, I went in and positively sabotaged my interviews to make sure that I didn't have to face that dilemma in reality.

Of course, an easier way would have been to simply skip the second day of interviews. But, my wife knew I was interviewing and it was just much easier to tell her that I didn't make the cut than to say that I did not go for the interview. Thankfully, unlike @androdev's wife, mine doesn't read my posts and is oblivious to all things automotive and Team BHP.

After this episode, I always wondered if I had chosen poorly. Then validation came 4 years later. Two years prior, one of our best and most senior Azure Architects had got into the big tech firm that I had interviewed at. Imagine my surprise when I walked into office one day to find him sitting on the desk next to me. At lunch, I asked him why? He said, "Bahut peesthe hain re udhar (they squeeze you a lot over there). Atraah atraah ghanta kaam aur woh bhi mahina bar (18 hr work days for months on end)!! The money was brilliant and I travelled business class and even first class sometimes. But, I was travelling 25 days in a month. They extract 4 times the work from you for the money they pay you. Mereko nahin karna hai utna kaam (I don't want to work that much). I need time for my family."

I smiled and felt happy with my professional decision for the first time ever.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by am1m

Companies are increasingly becoming reliant on referrals from current employees... What would I tell that person who was also a good friend?

Isn't it funny that large companies are relying on hiring techniques that are usually employed by small companies?

You are right. Hiring in large companies should be impersonal since they hire and fire in large numbers. If they try using personal connections to hire, are they going to consult the same personal connections while firing? They don't, so this is not right.

Right now, I am trying to hire someone (5-8 years exp) for support/operations role, with skills in Linux system administration, Hypervisors, PBX, etc. Just unable to get anyone even after 6 months of looking, even though we can pay well. Candidates simply ghost us at different stages of recruitment process. Some right in the beginning, some after 1st round, some after 2nd round, etc. No response to repeated phone or email. This is even before an offer is made. Just say not interested (professional behavior), instead they all pick ghosting as the standard method, which is very unprofessional. If a support person can't respond to a phone/email, they are worthless in that role. So we reject them after a week worth of ghosting.

Now we are too scared to consider someone working remotely and someone without personal connection. They could ghost us after joining, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Originally Posted by mohansrides

Or should I stay in Mumbai and protect the modest base that I was starting to build by continuing to work for 1/3rd the money in ancient offices housed in almost dilapidated buildings with interiors that hadn't been changed since the 80s; but where the management had just reposed faith in me that no one else had until that point?

After I returned to India in 2004, random folks would ask me why I came back instead of settling in USA. But the best rebuttal I could give came when my dad was undergoing cataract operation in 2015. After the surgery, I was talking to my parents in the post-op room. Then a distant acquaintance saw my mom and came to chat. While exchanging some family news, she happily boasted that both her married kids are now well settled in US with great jobs. My dad got a bit irritated and replied that his son (pointing to me) was also in US for a decade before returning. That lady immediately turned to me and said "Why!!! Why did you return?". She said it in a tone that implied I must have been forced to return at gun point. I said, "so that I can be around when my parents are old and need my support". Her face just fell... she was in hospital herself, and she had no one with her. My parents were chuckling after she left.

[ralto]

Originally Posted by Samurai

just say not interested (professional behavior), instead they all pick ghosting as the standard method, which is very unprofessional. If a support person can't respond to a phone/email, they are worthless in that role. So we reject them after a week worth of ghosting.

If you go to LinkedIn it is filled with employees speaking against employers and company policies, which is fine in its own way.
But what's shocking is that seniors and people from important roles such as Support and Business development/management also resort to such practices and that just shakes your trust as an employer/interviewer.

Last week I was ill and still went to the office on Friday to conduct 2 senior-level interviews for our business team, and imagine my shock when both of them didn't turn up even after confirming the meeting 24 hours prior. I would have happily done a Zoom call had they mentioned their reservations. But this is the team that will be representing the organization to our customers and clients and if they can't be professional at this stage, then what will be their future behavior even if they get up getting hired with us?

[am1m]

Originally Posted by ralto

...to conduct 2 senior-level interviews for our business team, and imagine my shock when both of them didn't turn up even after confirming the meeting 24 hours prior.

That's crazy. When you say senior, how senior in terms of years of experience? Not that anyone with any years of experience should break any meeting commitments without calling ahead, but good to know. (These days, in the IT industry 5 years is considered "senior" )

Sad thing is HR at times forces you to continue pursuing the candidate, saying they have no choice, lack of candidates. Couple of times I've had candidates show up more than a couple of hours late without any explanation (everyone has cell phones, they could have called). I told HR I wouldn't go ahead with the interview, but they insisted ("we're not getting anyone else"). Sure enough, they didn't bother responding after that either. I also once had a candidate inform me quite confidently that he "was just here at the interview for the experience". That was the limit, I politely told him that in that case, there was no point in either of us wasting time here. (Could have been a pre-negotiation tactic, it was raining and I wonder who comes in the rain to attend an interview that they have no intention of following up with.)

But bottom line- lots of job seekers seem to be getting bad advice. Whatever the situation, however great your skill set, or however great the job scene seems, there's no good reason to not maintain the basics of business etiquette - follow up, call if plans change, and communicate your decision frankly and politely. Hardly takes any effort and has several benefits. Even if you don't want that particular job, a recruiter who has a good professional exchange/experience with you (especially when their days are filled with bad interactions!) will remember. And recruiters also move around, someday that recruiter could be at an org you want to get in to.

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by Samurai

..Right now, I am trying to hire someone (5-8 years exp).... Candidates simply ghost us..

I am surprised that you all feel sandbagged by such behavior when by now you should be expecting it. No point in blaming the attractive girl (with many suitors) for not calling you back. In the context of this discussion ask yourself this - if you were in the position of the candidates you are interviewing, would you work for your org?

The question you need to be asking yourself is, what do you bring to the table? And the answer cannot be that you pay well. Because however well you pay, you can never pay as well as Big Tech, nor can you provide them benefits like Big Tech - huge life / health insurance packages, health club memberships, discounts at major retailers, comfortable transportation for the commute to work and back, fully paid business travel, attractive work environments, subsidised food at world class cafeterias, etc.

I have two concurrent experiences from 13 years ago that offer some insights.

a.) I was helping a small private org (Company A) scale. Just FYI, this org still exists and it is profitable today as it was that day. We needed 2 Java developers. I spoke with some 300 candidates on the phone and asked them all to come for a personal interview. Exactly one showed up and he got an offer. Then he took that offer back to his boss at a big services org and got himself a nice raise; and I realised that he had absolutely no intention of joining us in the first place.

When I mentioned this to the propreitor, he smiled and said, "You are shocked because you just returned from the US where such things don't happen. Here all this is normal. Naraya paeru officea vandhu veliyaenthu patthuttu thirumbi poyirppanga (Many would have come and turned back as soon as they saw our office from road.)"

I chided him for being too hard on his own org. Only, he was right and I was wrong. The next weekend, on a Sunday no less, I had reason to visit the IBM campus when they were conducting a "walk in" day of recruitment. The huge open space was filled with a sea of people and there was a dude standing on a desk waving his arms to organise the crowd saying the following: "Java pasanga ellam valathu pakkam vaanga pa; Dot Net pasanaga ellam ennoda edathu pakkatthukku vaanga. Appudiyae nadanthukittae irunga, koottam koodathinga pa. (Java guys come to my right and dot net guys to my left. Don't congregate in one place and create congestion. Keep walking)."

I had actually gone there to meet a friend. But, I couldn't but be stunned at how the recruitment exercise at IBM was playing out. I couldn't get anyone to come to the office for an interview, and this dude was sifting through a virtual human sea of people like he was doing crowd control at Tirupati or at Siddhivinayak.

That's when I got my first big lesson in management in India in tech. Small private companies with less than 1000 employees are every potential candidate's last resort. There are many reasons for this. But, the biggest one is a lack of brand image. As I said in an earlier post, young people today are far from stupid. They have youth and flexibility on their side and a long career ahead of them. So, at this point in their lives, it makes little sense for them to choose to work for no-brand-name companies which will add zero value to them in the short and medium terms. One can't fault them for not thinking long term because they haven't likely gone through any major life events to sober them up.

b.) While I was consulting with Company A, I interviewed with an org that is quite famous now. They were cordial and respectful towards me. But, at the end of the conversation, I knew better than to expect an offer. Their senior manager told me that their model is to go to interior TN and recruit youngsters who had just cleared class 12, and who would otherwise not be able to break into Big Tech given their circumstances. This org recruits them, pays them a stipend and trains them on English, Math, and on various technologies. The guy made it about giving back to society and all that. Indeed, I have little reason to doubt the integrity of his pitch because their CEO is now famous for abandoning the Valley for a base at Tenkasi in TN.

But, I realised what a smart play this was. Small orgs have difficulty selling themselves to smart and well-qualified candidates in big cities. But, kids from rural TN without a proper college degree come cheap. More importantly, they can never leave you because most orgs have HR policies in place that do not allow them to recruit such candidates irrespective of merit. And by the time, the candidate realises this, he is already 23 or 24 and it would take lots of gumption to overcome life inertia to go back and get a college degree; especially when you have a steady paycheck rolling in from your org.

So, my suggestion to most of you who are trying recruit at your private companies is to look outside the common pool. Look for candidates who have less flexibility and who are older. Pay them above what they are expecting. They may not be young and quick. But they have experience and wisdom and they will stay. That counts for a lot. Indeed, on a parallel, half the job of being a parent is just about being present. The rest takes care of itself.

My own uncle accepted an area manager role in Mumbai at 60. No young person with options was willing to sit in this company's office in a dingy industrial estate in Central Mumbai and my uncle was looking for a place to spend his final working days. It was a marriage made in heaven. He was there for 5 years until he decided to retire and become annoying on whatsapp. But, during those 5 years the company saw the stability they needed. Many customers openly said that they felt reassured with a senior person who will not disappear in 6 months and they had real visibility on when to expect him to leave; because he told everyone that he is going to retire at 65.

Even at my org, I frequently advise PMs to simply skip the interview step and to shorten the onboarding process to reduce uncertainty. Like they say in Punjabi, "Chat mangni, pat byah (Quick engagement and an immediate wedding)." Meaning the longer the gap is between the betrothal and the wedding, the higher the chances of something untoward happening to stop the auspicious occasion.

I tell my PMs that we anyways have a probationary period when both parties can walk away. So, why are we interviewing and wasting time? If he / she says on the resume that they have the skill, just get them to start. If they are not cut out for the job, we will know in a couple of weeks; which is much shorter than the time you will take to get them on board anyways.

The second benefit of asking people to join without a big interview is that you quickly see if he /she is genuine. If they are just shopping around, you won't hear from them again. But, at least you will know them for what they are well before you invest your time interviewing them.

Originally Posted by ralto

..what's shocking is that seniors and people from important roles ....resort to such practices and that just shakes your trust as an employer/interviewer...

I won't pointlessly assuage you that you have been wronged. The truth is that this is what happens. There is only one dynamic at play in the world - who has the power and who doesn't? In the employer-employee context, an org is always more powerful. So, the only thing that disgruntled employees or prospective employees can do is to vent. These days that happens on social media. Accept it. Expect it. Move forward. You can in turn talk to the recruiters who sent you these candidates to let them know that you are speaking to your entire network of people to warn them about said candidate. Trust me, that news will trickle down to the badmouther pretty quick.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by mohansrides

I am surprised that you all feel sandbagged by such behavior when by now you should be expecting it. No point in blaming the attractive girl (with many suitors) for not calling you back. In the context of this discussion ask yourself this - if you were in the position of the candidates you are interviewing, would you work for your org?

Well its not about accepting a counter offer. Its ghosting. We also interview people, and many do not accept and they tell the recruiter that they have a counter offer they have accepted.

Similarly recruiters tell candidates that they will not move forward.

However what Samurai is talking about is unprofessional behavior. It exists on both sides. Sometimes recruiters ghost candidates instead of telling them "no", and sometimes employees ghost companies. Both behaviors are unprofessional.

In this case its not like Samurai is saying he approached a candidate on attractive girl job site and then she did not reply to his email. That happens all the time. Many people ignore the countless recruiter emails on linkedin.

He is talking about the scenario where candidate applies for the job, then gives interview, and then vanishes without telling them "no"

[mohansrides]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

…He is talking about the scenario where candidate applies for the job, then gives interview, and then vanishes without telling them "no"

Yes I know exactly what he is talking about. But thanks for spelling it out to me in any case.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Well its not about accepting a counter offer. Its ghosting….what Samurai is talking about is unprofessional behavior. It exists on both sides.

When did I say that it is professional and acceptable behaviour? What in that long post (in which I gave examples of I myself having been at the receiving end of such behaviour) gave you the impression that I approved of this behaviour?

All I said was that this is par for the course. We can expect professional behaviour from candidates. No problem. But at lower rungs where people are young “ghosting” is the default behaviour. No one wants to say no because a.) they don’t have the stomach for a difficult conversation, and b.) they don’t want to shut any door of opportunity by themselves. If they say nothing, they have an out at a later date if they need to get back in to the game. The typical story is “Sir… I was in the middle of a life crisis and couldn’t focus on this… yada yada …”