Google just stole my employee #3
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?
39 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 95.5 ms ] threadMind you, an employment contract has been signed with the candidate. However, I'm not upset at the candidate because he was apologetic.
You could've said "Google handed my third employee a $25K raise" ;)
Realistically, there is nothing a startup can do to compete with Google for employees unless you are a founder/co-founder.
You guys can't be seriously about thinking that I was actually pissed off at Google for this?!
While we are making good money, I was just shocked that we would be competing with Google for talents since we are so tiny.
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.
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).
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.
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.
1. Interview 2. Make offer 3. Candidate accepts offer 4. Signs employment contract 5. Done
Now, it seems that nothing is certain.
The hiring process is very hard, and is usually the thing that ends up burning most businesses out.
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.
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.
Between a startup and a prospective employee, things are more on a level of parity.
The level of impact is higher for a startup compare to a big company because I've spent hours in posting job ads, interviewing, preparing contracts, going back and forth in negotiation, and so on.
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.