Google just stole my employee #3

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640936

by felixdennis • 13 years ago

16 37 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I offered a job to an applicant recently and signed the employment contract yesterday.

The candidate phoned me today indicating that he just received a Google offer. He offered to stay if I insist on enforcing the contract.

I told him to take the Google Offer because there is no point in forcing someone to stay whose heart is not here.

I had a previous experience where someone who accepted an offer but flaked out at the very last minute. I'm just surprise to see that I would be competing with Google...

Your thought?

OGinparadise2• 13 years ago

Stole? Nah, they made him a better offer and he chose them. (Unless they had inside info and used it against you. Or something like that)

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

Obviously, the word "stole" is not used in the literal sense here.

Mind you, an employment contract has been signed with the candidate. However, I'm not upset at the candidate because he was apologetic.

OGinparadise2• 13 years ago

Still it's used in a negative way, suggesting Google did something bad.

You could've said "Google handed my third employee a $25K raise" ;)

facorreia• 13 years ago

Your choice of words, "stole" and "my" implicates a mindset that is not very aligned with the reality. They didn't steal. He was not yours, but free. He evaluated his options and made a choice. Now, we could find fault in his character for signing a contract and breaking it soon after. But startups offering below market compensation packages would do better not thinking about employees as their property.

lsc• 13 years ago

>Mind you, an employment contract has been signed with the candidate. However, I'm not upset at the candidate because he was apologetic.

I assume you are in California? From what I understand (and I'm no lawyer, but I am an employer.) if you think that you can force someone to work for you because they have an employment contract, well, I believe you will be disappointed. "at will" employment cuts both ways.

I mean, really, the "validation of your hiring decisions" is the only rational way to look at this. Handle it properly, and you have another contact at google who speaks well of you. Handle it poorly, and, well, you just end up looking like a dick.

mtgx• 13 years ago

But it is used to incite strong emotions against Google.

Just like "stealing movies", isn't really "stealing", but "copyright infringement", but the studios call it stealing anyway ("pirating movies is just like shoplifting", etc).

outside1234• 13 years ago

Welcome to the game! :)

The good news is that you are reaching high quality folks if Google wants them.

Make sure they understand what they are getting into. Google is great (I'm a Xoogler) but they will be toiling in a very large machine and will have a very narrow locus of responsibility. There is nothing wrong with that -- but make sure that's what they want versus a broader startup role.

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

:) I guess this indirectly validates our hiring standard.

7Figures2Commas• 13 years ago

I wouldn't look at it that way. Perhaps it shows that you were able to verify the candidate's technical chops, but it also shows that you didn't do a good job assessing the candidate's motivations and career goals.

If you're hiring your third employee, it's probably safe for me to assume that your company is relatively young. Google, obviously, is a big, established company.

While you almost certainly cannot compete with Google compensation-wise, there are plenty of things startups like yours can offer that a big company like Google simply cannot. Playing up these intangibles, and identifying candidates who are truly interested in those intangibles, is something you can't afford not to do with early hires.

Put simply: you need to look for candidates who are excited about becoming Employee #3 at a young company, not candidates who are excited about getting a great job at any company.

alanchavez2• 13 years ago

I'm facing a similar situation in which I've job offer from 3 big name companies and I don't know which one to accept. Those 3 jobs could easily be my 3 dream jobs :( Tough call.

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

Good to be in this position!

glitch273• 13 years ago

First world problems.

alanchavez2• 13 years ago

LOL. That's exactly what my friends told me.

joelmaat• 13 years ago

After working at Google for a while, I think this person, unless he is really lucky, will end up looking elsewhere to find a more satisfying job. You could pick any random Engineer at Google, and end up with someone unsatisfied with what they are doing. If they are good, then you can steal them away. Or maybe not. Maybe they are constantly spammed with job offers.

orangethirty2• 13 years ago

My thought? Welcome to the business world. Wait until an employee starts a competing business.

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

Thanks. I agree that it is a good lesson. Prior to these experiences, I always thought that HR goes like this:

1. Interview 2. Make offer 3. Candidate accepts offer 4. Signs employment contract 5. Done

Now, it seems that nothing is certain.

orangethirty2• 13 years ago

Allow me to LOL. Employees are hard to manage, and will follow your lead. If you are unstructured and disorganized so will they. Start by being your own best employee and then have people follow your lead. Then train them to work just like you do. And then leave them the fuck alone.

The hiring process is very hard, and is usually the thing that ends up burning most businesses out.

dangrossman• 13 years ago

If someone's on the market, they need to apply to multiple positions to make sure they find something in a reasonable time. You should assume anyone interviewing with you is also interviewing elsewhere. Some of those other companies may make offers, and since they interviewed around the same time as you, they're going to come around the same time as yours. "Flaking out at the very last minute" indicates normal job search activity, not a flaky applicant or poaching competitor.

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

Thanks. How do you deal with this situation:

1. The candidate signed the 1. offer and 2. employment contract and backed out at the last minute 2. Rejection letters were sent to other applicants

Should employers always be on-guard of employees leaving at-will? On the slip-side, since employee can quit at anytime when a better offer shows up, should employer be able to fire any employee at-will when a better offer (cheaper and better candidate) shows up on the table?

I find this very tricky and lopsided. It appears that when company layoffs people to cut cost, they are labelled as evil. On the other hand, when employees jumpship when a better offer comes around, it becomes "it's the logical thing to do". This biased view doesn't seem to be very fair.

ScottWhigham4• 13 years ago

> How do you deal with this situation:

You suck it up and move on.

> Should employers always be on-guard of employees leaving at-will? ... should employer be able to fire any employee at-will?

I live in Texas which is an at-will state. Of course we business owners are prepared and ideally so are the employees. Each state is different but, even if it's not an at-will state, you as a business owner need to prepare for replacing employees. Your comments imply that you think that the worse thing that could happen is that an employee decides to leave. That's crazy. What if you find out tomorrow that your employee has been posting source code on a P2P site? What happens if the employee has been found embezzling/stealing? Or what if said employee had a heart attack tomorrow? Or their spouse/child died and they needed an extended leave of absence? Those lost two are horrible situations, yes, but they are very real possibilities. You need to have training/policies/documentation in place to help with such. We spend no less than 2 hrs per month per person on maintaining/creating documentation.

See my other post in this thread for more details.

_delirium• 13 years ago

If it's lopsided, on average it's lopsided in the opposite direction: companies have massively more leverage than the average employee, and the damage to employees for no-justification layoffs is much larger, on average, than the damage to employers for no-justification resignations. Think of it from Google's perspective: if someone turns down a Google offer, even at the last minute, Google hardly cares. But if Google rescinds an offer at the last minute, it is a pretty big deal for the opposite party.

Between a startup and a prospective employee, things are more on a level of parity.

jfoster• 13 years ago

Never reject good candidates outright. Call them. Let them know they weren't chosen for the role, but ask if you can invite them to apply for future roles that might be a good fit. That saves you in situations like this and feels much better for the very capable candidates you don't bring on board.

anywherenotes• 13 years ago

Companies should have some redundancy built in. Employee might have an accident (car/plane/etc.), and be unable to work at all. Business should be prepared to lose one or few employees.

throwaway1979• 13 years ago

No! Big difference between interviewing multiple places and flaking out after accepting an offer. I've seen candidates do this and think it is a bit uncool.

ScottWhigham4• 13 years ago

Signing an offer letter, to me, is very old school - it's not a legally binding document that says, "You must come work for me for x days" as we all know. The offer letter is really more for the candidate - it spells out clearly what your opportunity is. It's their last chance to have you spell out the job, perks, and PTO on paper. So his/her signing the offer letter is really his/her mentally saying to themselves, " What he said on the phone and during the interview is represented here - no surprises... This is a good opportunity. It fits me. I'm doing it."

The part that sucks the most is the you sent out the rejection letters already. I think that's just sort of "par for the course" sometimes. It will happen to you always and forever. I had someone sign my letter, show up and work for one day, and then email me at 9:00AM the next morning to tell me that she had re-joined her previous job as the head manager. She had told me during our interview that her boss really wanted to keep her but just couldn't come up with the money. Well, clearly the boss came up with the money and more. What can you do? Nothing. You start over. Yes, you can go back to your other candidates but I tend to not like doing that. After all - this was the best candidate. Why settle for #2? I'd rather just start the whole process over and find someone else completely.

My advice: have good training and solid policies in place that help you churn faster. Also have solid hiring plans and work hard to uncover what you can. It will pay off in the long run.

ScottWhigham4• 13 years ago

And FYI - the headline here is absolutely and totally off-base/inaccurate/scandalous/you-name-it. No need for that...

ScottWhigham4• 13 years ago

I'm surprised this comment received a downvote. Did Google "steal" your "employee"? Of course not - it's a linkbait/lying title chosen by OP to get more attention. Period.

bmeckel• 13 years ago

Yeah I think the advice about not going for your number 2 is really important. Of course that doesn't apply if you were dwelling on two people and ended up choosing one by a hair, but for the most part you didn't choose those people for a reason, and whatever it may have been it will bother you if you go back and hire them.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

It's purely a rational option. You can't blame them. It's a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum world. One person's rational action benefits them and hurts someone else.

felixdennis11• 13 years ago

I agree. I believe in free economy and freedom of action. However, it just seems that if employers do something like this, they will be immediately vilified.

meerita• 13 years ago

You just were about to hire a mercenary. My guess is, most of the people will go like this unless they contact you to work on your company because they first believe on your product than the money they can win.

Google just stole my employee #3

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