Slashdot Mirror
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?"
SCO is more focused in its industry than Enron
Which industry is that? scamming and defrauding people?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
At least that's something respectable.
With SCO accusing the OSS world of stealing their IP, many companies will be a bit fearful of hiring a tech. It is not beyond reason that evil axis may be trying to place programmers to introduce SCO (or someone elses) code.
The other issue that I see is anybody from Management should probably be avoided. These are the ones that took down Caldera, Unix, and SCO.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'd imagine that pretty much the same would hold for SCO employees. If nothing else, being a former SCO employee makes the question "why did you leave your last position?" very easy to answer.
- Chief Financial officer of Enron: Not hiring
- Poor grunt at Enron who had no clue what hit him: Could look past that to his real experience.
- Lower level accountant at Enron: My get some questions asked in an effort to determine their position in all the mess
Obviously many don't think that way and wouldn't touch an ex-Enron employee with a ten foot telephone pole and I really feel sorry for them.However for every door closed there's a door open, consider writing a book about the mess or posing for playboy for example (they did a women of Enron IIRC)? You get the idea there...
IMHO there's always an opportunity for you...just look....
...in bed
I'd say it depends. I worked at one company, and then several years later was applying for work at its direct competitor. The stigma didn't carry over (they offered me a job); instead, they were far more interested in what I had done and how it matched up with the job opportunity. They went out of their way not to ask me questions that tread on possible NDA (non-disclosure agreement) territory.
Unless your friends-of-friends are actively involved in upper management (director level +), they shouldn't have problems. If they are involved in upper-level management, then they already know several executive-level headhunters who will find them new jobs in a hurry. Sucks, but that's how it goes when you play at that level.
It's tough moving away from a former employer. I recently left a position to pursue better opportunities. My former employer (really the owner) was furious that I had the gaul to leave. They threatened me with lawsuites, they harrased me. They just couldn't let go.
I gave that company three long hard years, and developed some absolutely killer applications for them. Now, if an prospective employer calls them, they make me out to be some malicious, spiteful Developer who left them high and dry. Three years of stellar work... down the drain.
With that said, I guess the best advice is that employment is like a marriage, you need to check them out, just as much as they do you. Else your left with stigma of the former employer, either you on them, or them on you. Either case, it's not good.
"reliable and honest" is exactly what SCO is known for. In fact, "reliable and honest" is exactly how my new Nigerian business partners describe themselves.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
So is McBride looking to get out while he can and using a Ask Slashdot article for tips?
SuDZ
Do what everybody else does: Lie. They can't check everything. Half the employers that you work for shouldn't even know your real name.
When your interviewer asks you what on earth a whorehouse was doing repackaging and integrating AT&T SYSV code, tell him it you were actually working at SCO back when SCO was a software company with a mediocre UNIX distribution, and that you left when you saw the writing on the wall when its then-CEO said Linux would never amount to anything.
Then say "But there's still less stigma that comes with saying you were a whorehouse piano player."
If you can do the work, and do it well - - and you're reliable and honest and willing to take what's offered in the way of starting compensation - - many doors will open.
Not to be argumentative, but this is not necessarily always true.
A past employer can be an awful liability, especially in the case of a high-profile fraud situation or a combative company. Many times if you are a former employee you are "guilty by association."
It's somewhat similar to looking for a job and being overqualified. You have the skills, you can hit the ground running and you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the best damn candidate for the job. BUT... You have a PhD. The employer will snub his nose at you because you're overqualified. Does it matter that you are willing to take entry level and 60/hrs a week? Not really, because then they'll wonder why you're willing to work cheap.
Yes, your past credentials and associations matter.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
The items I look for in hiring are:
If you are honestly doing your job and have nothing to do with any corrupt or questionable business practices, would you really want to work for a place that blacklists you based upon your commited work to a percieved "unethical" orginization?
Dude, I don't know if you are being serious or not. If you are, I am shocked.
I can not believe that you would put your wife at risk this way.
On the medical side of things:
HIV viral loads are more sensitive for early HIV infection. They were swabbing your various orifices because those are typical areas for gonorrhea and chlamydia that can be passed around during various sexual practices.
Davak
The original poster's point is not lost. If a scandal becomes apparent in June and people quit by July, I think that says well of them. Ultimately, I do think the rank-and-file gives implicit consent to bad behavior, and should hold themselves accountable. They can't know ahead of time, but they can be held accountable for how they react to what they do know when they learn it.
So let's see.
-You were paid to have sex
-with women
-and you're posting, looking for sympathy
-on Slashdot?
Talk about trying to get blood from a stone!
While that statement could be seen as inflammatory, perhaps I should share two examples to clarify my strong feelings on the subject...
My point is this: If someone comes from SCO with a skill set that I need, they'll get the gig. If they prove to fail at their skill, they're likely to loose their job.
As an employer I care about results, not politics.
Will I hire Daryl? If I need a scum-sucking-bottom-feeder - or was that a fish?
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They should simply be asked: Did you do your job to the best of your ability whether you agreed with management or not?
If they say yes, hire them, anyone that'll do a good job there will do a good one for you.
If they say no, I did my best to sabotage their antiGNU efforts show them the door and say thank you very much for taking your time to come down, then warn your buddies at lunch just in case the guy ever shows up at their business. If they have no more personal integrety than that you can't trust them enough to hire them, they'll do the same thing to you as soon as the coffee vender puts in a blend they don't like, their favorite candy is out at the machine, etc.
You hire people to get work done, not to go off on their own prima-donna crusades.
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs
Doh!
Where the hell is that Post Anonymously button.
You cannot seem to make up your mind if you use Redhat, back up the SCO claims or damn them, and what your business does, imbedded or bank software support....
7 42 943d =6709 401
Fsck'ing liar.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75388&cid=6
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=74902&ci
(first link text)
It's time that this FUD campaign come to an end. I own a small business that deploys five Red Hat AS boxes. SCO has already sent my legal department (2 lawyers) three letters (threats) regarding our "illegal use of the Linux operating system [sic]".
Like most users of Linux, we are at the point where we are not going to stand still while SCO trashes the entire Free Software movement. I have already authorized a payment of $10,000 to the FSF, and a payment of $5,000 to the Red Hat Open Source Now fund. If you want to do all you can during this waiting period before the trial, I would urge you to sign this petition [petitiononline.com] that signifies the unity of the Free and Open source communities against SCO's outlandish claims.
(second link text)
I work for a medium sized (137 employees) company that processes customer data for many retail outlets, as well as a multi-national bank. We were one of the first companies to drop our entire line of Windows servers (workstations unchanged) for a Red Hat Linux solution in the summer of 2000. Porting our internal applications was a real pain, but the significantly increased uptime and greater ease of administration made up for all initial shortcomings.
Fast forward to end of 2002, and we had become disgusted with Red Hat's road map for its' Advanced Server license. It seemed as though we had lost all of the benefits of the GPL.
There was no way we were going back to M$, but there was a movement from higher up top to change distributions. To make a long story short, we passed on SuSe and chose the often corporately overlooked Gentoo.
The benefits of this move are stunning. We have been able to hire 16 additional employees to handle our own fork of Portage, and 22 additional employees to provide support. Not only to we do a "ghost compile" for each box (many different Pentium and Athlon systems), we also take a minimalist approach. The combination of those two choices have enabled us to increase performance per box to something like 26% faster on average.
With the obvious help of the Gentoo open source community, we have created a low cost, self-sustained IT department that can function well into the next decade. Thanks Gentoo!
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.
If I worked at SCO, I don't think I'd want to work for you...
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... one can pretty much reduce their willingness to stay to a few possiblities, all negative qualities in a potential employee: Unethical: they stay because they value their income above personal ethics cowardice: they stay because they fear change more than hanging on to an ever-more untenable situation... Oh Yeah! I am sure that most of the overworked, underpaid staff who have no choice but to live from paycheck to paycheck and whose main concern is, "If I lose this job, my kids lose thier medical insurance," are just stupid, unethical or cowards. Before you jump all over this with, "I am talking about the programmers/techs, not the whole company..." Enter the real world - most people (programmers/techs/support, even admin assnt's) do not have the luxury of letting their ethics win out over a paycheck - especially when they are simply the innocent crew of a ship steered by a lunatic.
You also missed one important possible attribute that a SCO employee may have: the desire to feed his kids in a bad job market. The idea of explaining to your children why they're having to move into public housing and buy milk with coupons might be enough to make someone want to stick it out until their idiot CEO is replaced by someone more rational.
Talk about morality all you want, but given the current IT career options, it could be suicidal to quit a full-time job. If you're blind to the possibility that there may be good, talented people at SCO, then that's a shame.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Remember, the original SCO is now Tarantella, Inc., and a SCO employee of 5 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the actions of the current SCaldera. Do such people deserve the opprobrium anyway? Similarly, should Ransom Love be blamed for the actions taken by Darl McBride?
MCI/Worldcom was one of the early corporate adopters of PHP. If you were interviewing for an IT position and wanted a forward-thinking individual, would you pass over an ex-Worldcom employee based on the ethics problems of Bernard Ebbers and his (probably small) cabal?
A single individual can rarely take credit for large corporate efforts (i.e. implementing an ERP system, etc.). Similarly, outside of situations where corporate officers are legally responsible, individuals should not be blamed for corporate wrongdoings.
There was a great story that took place years ago (during the 1970's aerospace crash) where a guy with a Phd consistantly got turned down for every job he applied for because he was "over qualified." So he modified his resume, while still telling the truth ;-)
;-)" He got that job.
He put under education - High School.
He put under Hobbies - BS,MS,PHd.
His first interview with the modified resume - the guy doing the hiring states "We approve of hobbies
Some times it's how you put the resume together!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Integrity is the willingness to do what is right even when no one is looking. I have deliberately made choices knowing I would lose my job and career but did so anyway because it was simply the right thing to do. So it should be with the SCO employees.
I am the CIO of my company. What do you think the chances of any post-SCO-implosion employee being hired by me? Slim to none.
I'm sick and tired of people who know only about situational ethics.
The updated version would go something like this:
Dear Abby,
My mother, an alcoholic, is currently serving a life sentence for murdering my father after discovering that he was selling child pornography to support our family. I'm helping to raise the illegitimate child of my sister, who is in drug rehab and currently appealing a prostitution conviction. I spent most of my youth in foster homes and on the street, supporting myself and my cocaine habit by robbing the elderly. Finally I took a high school equivalency exam, enrolled in college and learned computer programming. I am now making a good salary working as a developer at Microsoft.
Recently I met a really wonderful girl. She is caring and loving, and I want to have a serious relationship with her, but I am afraid that if she finds out more about me she won't want to see me again. So the question is, should I tell her that I work for Microsoft?
I absolutely agree - let me say that up front. Given a such a choice, I would feed my family first.
Ethics, however, is a deeper topic than either/or in a given situation. While it is true that companies go bad (like SCO), this is somewhat rare, I think. At least, most of the companies I've worked with both as a consultant and as an employee (more than 100, easily) rarely was much more than disingenuous on the edge cases. When they were more than that, I was among many that pitched the argument in the other direction.
Truly nasty companies are easy to spot: they target a market that has a weakness they think they can exploit. SCO (at least publically) thinks it can use legal attacks against Linix; Telemarketers attempt to exploit old people; credit councillor companies prey on those in debt. Most (not all, but most) reasonable companies realize they are part of a chain of commerce. Think about how your company fits into that chain.
I believe evil employers are rare. Should you find yourself in bed with one, leave. Worse, should you be employed by one, leave quickly!
I must say, I'd be very hesitant to hire someone who tolerated, say, Enron or SCO's behavior. I've been the part of some creepy deals, and when they crossed the line, I stopped taking part. I've been involved with startups that wanted to "grow" though non-standard methods, and I have refused to take part. What "the line" is varies for various people, but one bright line is what gets reported in the news. On a personal basis, I've missed out on some things because I wouldn't be dishonest. And that's not only OK, but very important to me. Because that's important to me, someone who facillitated massive fraud would at the very least be subject to a good, hard look. At least until the EEOC comes down with the No White Collar Criminal Left Behind recomendation.
I suppose I can only say that if you find yourself at an ethically challenged company now, with constraints (family, debt, whatever) that don't give you much room, the single best thing you can do for yourself is to find a local company that can use your skills, think about how you can add value to their company, and go talk to them about your situation, and how you can help their situation. Odds are many will turn you down, but you will find a job with a company that doesn't fuck people over, and still be able to feed your family. And remember, for every company that turns you down, you're learning a lot by thinking seriously about the business they do.
I forget what 8 was for.
I propose the addition of a new entry into jargon files:
Enroned (v. p. p.), To have one's rsum or reputation tarnished by a former (or current) employer.
USAGE: Man, I was totally Enroned the second it hit the news that my CTO was skimming the pot I've got no chance at a good job until this dies down a bit.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Well if you kept hearing that you are overqualified why not simply say "I tell you what, I'm willing to make a commitment to this company and sign a contract for X number of years." Make a commitment to work for them for certain amount of time that way they are assured that you want leave. Obviously they have the upper hand and you are locked into the job for that period of time but if the compensation is acceptable why not take the job and make a commitment? I've always thought that having a job is better than not having one.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
While you can stretch the truth and obfuscate on a resume, its a really bad idea to lie. Generally you will get caught out and things can get really ugly.
Especially someone technical who had nothing to do with the decision processes that led to the Enron/Worldcom/Tyco/SCO type insanity should put an accurate employment history on their resume and be prepared to bring an interview back to the correct subject: their ability to perform the job they are applying for. It would be a good idea to have answers for "questions" like: "Why did you stay there?", "Convince me that you had nothing to do with their accounting practices.", etc. These will be issues for some people so be ready for them.
Be prepared to address someone who keeps drifting back to the company and its policies directly with a "I had nothing to do with the upper management who did this stuff." This is also a good place to brown-nose a little and say that one of the things that attracted you to the company you're interviewing with is their good repuatation, etc. since this also puts your role at Enron or whoever into perspective to the person interviewing you. It should bring up for the interviewer how little control they have over such things.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Oh, don't even get me started.