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Ask HN: How do you “try before you buy” jobs when internships aren't possible?

2 points by ccajas ↗ HN
Internships may not be an option if you are not going to school, but you may want to think about choosing between several places to work in a way where you want more time to judge each company, and also without the stigma of switching jobs a few months at a time.

This is just an outsiders perspective looking in, but internships look like a very long, drawn-out job interview, in a good way. They are testing you to see if you are a fit for a real job while you are present at the company, except that it lasts for months rather than days or hours. With that period of time you have a much better way of soaking in the work environment of that particular company, instead of just having a few hours to make a judgment of the company, team, and potential peers.

What options are there to "try before you buy" in that regard? Internships seem like a unique proposition that unfortunately are being limited to college students. If I want to try out working for Tech Company X can I propose a 3 month contract job for X as a possible similar experience?

2 comments

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gtsteve
I've tried writing this response a few times. Really I don't think this exists. Of course, you can usually resign if you don't like it inside a 3 month period with a shorter notice before the notice period goes up.

However, regardless of how you structure it, it'd still need to be something acceptable in the mind of whoever reviews your CV after you've tried out 3 or 4 companies. You might be able to talk a company into structuring it as a short contract but I don't know if that'll be possible.

As an employer, if I was recruiting for a permanent position and a candidate suggested a 3 month contract before committing to a full-time position, I'd probably pass them on because I need reliability and this structure represents a risk. I want to structure the deal from the point of view that it will work out as opposed to that it won't.

To conclude, you can structure a deal in any way you want but I think what you're talking about is a change to working culture itself which is a lot harder to do.

cimmanom
Well said. I’d add to this that it’s not uncommon for a developer to need 3 months to get sufficiently up to speed on processes and codebase to be meaningfully effective. Salary up to that point is an investment in future employment, and wasted if the developer leaves after that period.

Not to even mention team time spent on the hiring and onboarding process. There’s a reason most companies strongly prefer to hire people who will stay at least a couple years.