in Musings

Snapping up talent

I just heard that a certain open-source software company based in downtown Raleigh sometimes takes six months from when it gets a job applicant to actually hire that applicant. That’s crazy. How can a company think that a top job applicant has that kind of time to spend for a potential employer to get their act together? What makes a company think that an applicant is still going to be around six months later?

I spent three months between losing my job and getting a job offer and you know what? It sucked. It was three months of suck. When someone wants to make a move, they often don’t have the luxury of spending half a year for a potential employer to get going. I appreciate being thorough and making sure things are a good fit, of course, but six months is an insult to any job applicant.

I contrast this with my most recent job search, where the HR “talent acquisition team” always responded promptly to my questions and treated me as if I was important to them. That’s the way it should be done. Any company that doesn’t make a priority of hiring good people will soon find itself in trouble.