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Ask HN: How to hire when your company and Glassdoor reviews are genuinely bad?

35 points by hkai ↗ HN
The company I'm working for right now is genuinely bad. They started 10+ years ago as a small software vendor and they've kept their engineering practices since that time.

There is no agile, no source control, no meetings, no discussions about projects, nobody heard of automated code testing.

Since we are profitable (because the in-house IT of our clients is even worse), we decided to use that money to branch into an AI startup but they have been unable to hire anyone but one person in the last 6 months.

However, we do have trouble hiring developers because 1) Glassdoor reviews are bad 2) compensation is small 3) work is frustrating 4) you don't learn anything from colleagues, unless you learn it yourself and push others to follow suit.

I am about to leave the company (which was my first developer job) and I want to give advice to the management at my exit interview on what they should be doing to hire the people they want.

59 comments

[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] thread
tiredwired
They can try rebranding and get a clean Glassdoor profile under the new name. You don't even need to change the legal company name or move offices. They will still be a bad company though.
lewisflude
Why do you think anyone would want to go and work there? One easy way is to lie, but that's pretty unethical.

If the lack of ability to hire hasn't stopped the companies ability to make money, is it really a problem (in their eyes)?

hkai
I think people may want to work there either by accident or because they can't get hired anywhere else. So there is this good chance that by accident people of average capability who are not aware of better options will stay there.

Then, the more they stay there, the less marketable they are, so they stay longer.

I think it is a problem in the management's eyes because they are trying to hire a new sort of people (startup-minded, not software vendor-minded) but they are failing at that.

DrNuke
There is not much to say, it seems a no-frill business that stays afloat doing grunt work, just like the majority of b2b IT ventures out there. Managers are probably having their perspectives a bit skewed by recent fashionable fields, something they will not be able to sustain economically.
hkai
Oh, good point. So just to confirm, it's probably unrealistic for them to venture into B2C AI business without a competent team and a clear vision?
PeterisP
Going from B2B to B2C by itself is a major turnaround in company policy, it's easy to fail (and crash the existing business doing so) even for a very well run company.
matfil
There is no agile, no source control, no meetings

If you stop there, it really doesn't sound so bad... Is there a way to present this as an opportunity for reasonably experienced introverts to "own" something without too many interruptions? Or is there enough incidental stuff that it doesn't work like that in practice?

(The "no source control" would probably bug me a bit, but presumably not much stopping someone running their own?)

hkai
Good point, I guess this is what I will be writing on my own glassdoor review - there is literally zero office politics and there is every chance to use whatever tool you learn. I personally learned vue.js and secretly transitioned some internal tools to that.
toast0
There are a solid group of people who seek out jobs with no agile and no meetings. No source control is a bit out there, I don't want code reviews, but I do want to be able to rely on the source code for what's running on prod to be in the repo within some reasonable time (before it gets to prod is better, but after is ok too, as long as its consistent).

Edit to add:

> hiring developers because 1) Glassdoor reviews are bad 2) compensation is small 3) work is frustrating 4) you don't learn anything from colleagues

Of these, only one is important -- compensation; pay more and people will be willing to put up with a frustrating work environment. Especially if "no meetings" means no meetings. (unlike where i currently work where "no meetings wednesdays" means everybody has room on their schedule on wednesdays, which means that's where the meetings are scheduled)

danhorner
This is an enlightened and contrarian POV and I'm glad for it.
pjc50
No source control means either no collaboration, frequent merge crises, or hyper-micro-services architecture. Either way it means siloed work and frequent re-work. And no history to help you get on board.

(Unless you're following the pre-git Linux flow of having patches merged by the dictator?)

If there's no agile and no meetings .. are people just doing their own thing?

gjvc
You owe them nothing. Keep your good advice to yourself. You will not get anything from them in return.
logfromblammo
There is nothing you can say at your exit interview that will help them, and plenty that could hurt you. Just say you saw a better opportunity elsewhere, and politely decline to elaborate.

This is especially relevant for a company that does not give honest feedback to interviewees after a no-hire decision.

If the company had a working process for self-improvement, you probably would not have such a strong desire to be leaving. Once you are gone, the you-shaped hole in their roster is entirely their problem, not yours. If they really still need your help, you can charge them for it at consulting rates, and they might even value it more because it wasn't "free".

jerkstate
Why do you still work there? Lots of companies are hiring. You don't owe them anything.
hkai
It's hard. I do feel I owe something.
gjvc
That wears off.
maxxxxx
You have to get over that quickly. The company doesn't feel that way.
pavel_lishin
That feeling is called Stockholm Syndrome, and exists entirely within your mind, with no objective external reality to correspond to.
[dead] locopati
You owe them nothing. They pay you in exchange for your work. Don't doubt for a second that they wouldn't get rid of you without much concern. If you want to stay, see if they'll give you what you need to stay (though you described it as genuinely bad so I don't know why you'd want to stay). Take your experience and find someplace you can grow in the directions you want to grow.
breckenedge
Why do you feel that way? Economically, you provide expertise and time and in return they provide you a salary. What feelings are causing you to continue to think that you owe them something?
stunt
You just mentioned all the reasons not to be there. Move my friend. You won't regret it. Go somewhere that you can learn something new every day of your life.
baq
tell them to compare glassdoor reviews of their company with the competition.
scottlamb
If the existing codebase and development practices are poor, you hire people who are excited to remake them, and you get rid of existing people who fight against this. Or you hire/retain only mediocre developers and muddle along forever with mediocre software. (Which I think is really what many companies do, though they won't say so.)

If execs don't support fair compensation, hours, benefits, psychological safety, physical safety (sexual assault is a thing...), and such, you don't hire. You watch the company burn.

SerLava
Advice to management: Improve. Then your past employees will not communicate to prospective employees that you have not improved.

Alternative advice to management: Murder everyone who works at Glassdoor? Murder the next employer review startup that replaces it? Murder the people who report on the murder?

That's really the two options. I'm serious. Put up a kanban board, or overthrow the government and install a totalitarian dictatorship.

lkrubner
From the description, the startup where you work is similar to PrivCo:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/PrivCo-Reviews-E659519.htm

Except PrivCo encourages its employees to post positive reviews, so PrivCo maintains a fairly good rank on Glassdoor. You'll notice that all of the reviews are either 5 stars or 1 stars.

The company that you are currently with could encourage its employees to post good reviews on Glassdoor. While this may sound dishonest, I think most companies do this, so you are not being any more dishonest than most other companies.

I see some comments in this thread on HN where people saying "leave there, go work somewhere else." But such startups can be interesting turn around possibilities, especially if you are experienced enough that you can pitch yourself as a senior level tech consultant who can turn the company around.

That was my experience at PrivCo: I actually had a good time when I was there, because I was brought in as part of a turn around effort. When I left, a year later, the place still had problems, but it had improved.

lkrubner
This comment is getting a lot of upvotes and downvotes. I wonder why? Every time I check, it's score has gone up or down a bit. Whoever is downvoting it, can you say which part made you decide to downvote this? I wasn't aware that I was saying anything controversial.
PeterisP
The obvious solution to half of these problems is to bring in good, qualified, experienced people and give them enough free reign to turn the ship around and improve the environment.

The way to get such people to join despite the problems is a) be truthful about the problems before hiring them; b) explicitly hire them for the job of changing these problems (so, management support for these changes); and c) pay them a lot of money. There are people who are up for a challenge and mess cleaning, and they can be hired if the management wants to.

However, from your story it does not appear that the management wants to fix these issues and is not willing to invest nontrivial effort and money into such changes. In that case, they won't fix them, and as they're profitable, they'll stay that way forever or until (if!) more efficient companies start pushing them out of the market.

lordnacho
Give them the Joel test as something to strive towards. I know not everyone loves it, but you gotta start somewhere, and if they can't at least implement some of those items, why have any sympathy?

After all they may have damaged your capacity to get new work.

maxxxxx
Fix 2), hire a few good people and they will fix the rest if they get left alone.
pavel_lishin
> I want to give advice to the management at my exit interview

Your management probably doesn't want to hear any of your advice. You're welcome to tell them whatever you want, but be cognizant that it'll be about as effective as going to a confessional, or complaining to your bartender.

You're about to quit. Why are you taking on the task of improving the company hiring process? Are you out of personal projects to work on? These people are busy digging their own grave, don't knock the shovels out of their hands, they'll just hit you with them.

linuxlizard
> These people are busy digging their own grave, don't knock the shovels out of their hands, they'll just hit you with them.

That is just beautiful. Beautiful.

justbees
I agree with you completely. The OP has a really positive impulse, but it's not going to be accepted in the same spirit in which it's offered.

Also, you just made my day with that last sentence. I've never heard that before and it's so perfect. Thanks!

chadash
> it'll be about as effective as going to a confessional, or complaining to your bartender.

It'll be less effective. Chances are you will never need the bartender as a future reference. In fact, I'd recommend that the OP say nothing at his exit interview and find a good bartender to talk to instead.

bradknowles
Yup.

Anything you say can and will be used against, in the worst possible way.

Feel free to learn as much as you can about the larger circumstances of the company during your exit interview, but don’t give them any negative feedback.

Don’t lie, but don’t give them any negative feedback.

codegeek
Exit interviews in my opinion are stupid. The time to give constructive feedback is when you are employed with that company. At the time of leaving, just say goodbye with a smile and move on.
ravenstine
It's pretty funny how management rarely takes complaints seriously until the exit interview, and even then they probably won't end up doing the right thing.

If I'm asked for "fix-it" advice in an exit interview, you can be sure I'll request a nominal fee for data they'd otherwise have to pay a research firm to get.

jiveturkey
Exit interviews are not for the company to learn and grow from your feedback. It's for them to remind you of your NDA obligations and that they own everything you worked on. That kind of thing.

So they are not stupid, they are just not for what you think they are for.

user5994461
If only they were used to remind you of any NDA and not to ask stupid questions like "if you had a magic wand that could do anything, what would you change in the company?"
cweagans
> However, we do have trouble hiring developers because 1) Glassdoor reviews are bad 2) compensation is small 3) work is frustrating 4) you don't learn anything from colleagues, unless you learn it yourself and push others to follow suit.

You just identified all of the things you need to fix.

1. Glassdoor reviews are bad because the company is bad.

2. People (usually) don't work for the fun of it. Pay your people more.

3. Figure out where the frustrating things are in a given persons day, fix them, rinse, and repeat. Maybe start with adding version control and tests. Those are two big quality of life things that can make things substantially less frustrating for any developer.

4. Set up a required lunch and learn or something. Have the company buy pizza, and have one or two people every week teach the team something new and how it could make your lives better internally and/or how it could make your customers' lives easier.

You're not gonna get good engineers for an AI startup if you don't have your ducks in a row first, IMO. Backburner the AI startup, fix your company first, then re-evaluate.

All of that said: don't try to give advice in an exit interview. If the management cared about this stuff, they'd proactively ask about it. Telling management why their company is bad on the way out the door is a good way to burn bridges, and while you probably won't ever go back to this company, your managers might go to other places where you'd want to work.

archi42
Just to be clear: The first half should be obvious to the asker, and you're totally right about it. But the real reason I upvoted you is the "All of that said:" paragraph. That's the real lesson to be learned here.
cweagans
Sadly, this is a lesson that I learned more directly than I would have liked. Hopefully OP learns from a helpful HN comment instead. I imagine it's a much easier path.
Jade_Jet
You didn’t specify how many people they are looking for but if it is multiple people, you could reduce the headcount and double the salary. This makes the pay more competitive and will attract more engineers.

With that being said I’ve always avoided giving real feedback during an exit interview to prevent accidental bridge burning.

caconym_
I don't think it should be a mystery to management why employees hate working at their company.

Maybe you can help them figure it out by explaining that working at company X is miserable and enumerating the reasons why, in specific and actionable detail. Then the HR person who conducted the interview can duly note your thoughts down and file them away, never to be seen again, as the gravy train keeps rolling, but you will have honestly done your best.

Congrats on your escape, and best of luck at your new job. Employment is a business relationship; don't feel like you owe company X anything.

[dead] paulgrant999
skip the advice. "replace upper management with professional" is unlikely to happen.
rajacombinator
As others have said, don’t give advice - they don’t care. If they cared they would have taken steps to address things by now. Just keep it cordial but tight lipped.
thrill
If they wanted your advice, they'd pay for it - seriously. Find your own acceptable path, and don't look back.
jiveturkey
don't waste your breath. they aren't listening. get over your emotional attachment and move on with a clean break.

also, exit interviews aren't for that. exit interviews are an exercise in liability control. the company doesn't care about your feedback.

neffy
I once had an interview with the partner of a major consultancy who did turnaround kind of work. I had been in your kind of situation, and at the end of the interview I asked him how this kind of situation was handled.

Without missing a beat, he said "you have to completely replace the senior management" - which I thought at the time seemed a bit extreme - but some number of years and experience later, I fear I now have to completely agree with.

Management is making the decisions that lead to these situations, they know it, and for whatever reason - probably money they can´t or won´t fix it. There´s nothing you can tell them that will change that.