Getting Over the Stigma of a Previous Job?

Subm asks: "Some friends-of-friends worked at a company with such a high profile downfall their past employer became a liability. They weren't involved in causing the downfall, but with the name 'Enron' on their resumes, interviews were spent defending their past employment. SCO is more focused in its industry than Enron, was and its reputation is in a downward spiral in that industry (Unix and GNU/Linux, not lawsuits, that is). SCO's staff will have to look for other jobs sooner or later, and most within the Unix/GNU/Linux community. Can good workers get over the stigma of an employer's reputation? How will working at SCO affect its staff's careers? Does anyone at SCO talk about this?"

Comments

Depens on where you apply

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Don't send resumes to places like this.

Re:It's about skills, 99.9%

[FortKnox]

Thank God someone said this.

Yeah, if you had a hardcore Linux Zealot interview you, you wouldn't get the job. But 99.999% of the people that will interview you won't be hardcore Linux zealots, they'll be phb and people down to earth.

SCO employees may have a hard time gaining employment at IBM and Redhat (and other Linux distro's), but in any other company employing Unix software, they'll have a shot.

Re:It's about skills 99.9%, only to the short sigh

[Spazmania]

You leave no room for the concept that a current employee has a job, gets up in the morning, goes to work, does their work, goes home, goes to bed just so they can get money to pay the rent.

I leave plenty of room for that concept... But outside the lowest ranks, I'm looking for someone who is dedicated to their career and not just "looking for a job."

If the individual is as dedicated to their career as I think they ought to be, then how could they be willing to work for SCO during the Linux Lawsuit period? Either they have "flexible" ethics or they're a nine-to-fiver. I don't want either type on my high-talent IT team.

Also, in a cost-heavy field like IT I'd prefer someone with enough fiscal sense that they're not living paycheck to paycheck. I've heard every excuse, and it just about always boils down to choices that individual made that they should have known better. Sometimes the choice was made 10 years ago, but it was always a choice. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd really prefer to hire a pinch-penny.