We all know the story about why people work at Google. Innovative technology, market power, one day in five to noodle around with your pet project, lavish benefits, blah blah blah. But why do they leave?
The commute sucks.
Well, at least that's one of the five reasons headhunter firm Binc included in a list of five common gripes listed by departing Google employees Binc has interviewed.
If you're an engineer who wants to stay in Silicon Valley, leaving Google might not fix your commute, and it's pretty likely your new boss won't provide you with free Wi-Fi-equipped buses. So take that with a grain of salt.
Here are the other reasons for leaving:
• The stock options aren't looking so spiffy these days. Google's share price has dropped significantly since 2007.
• Google isn't a hot start-up anymore.
• It's bogged down by corporate culture. "The environment in which engineers were able to create their own products and services is decreasing since it has to go through a full review process that can take months before the product is released to market. Although engineers enjoy being creative, they might as well create a product/service that they can monetize on their own."
• Google is "not a dream job anymore...When Google was the revolution, it was the most amazing thing on the market, but it's not that anymore."
Google's voracious appetite for new hires has eased off for the first time since the company went public in August 2004. In the last three months, the search giant added only 6 percent, or 889 people, to its employee roster--bringing Google's worldwide headcount to 16,805, according to the company's latest quarterly filing released Thursday.
That percentage is down nearly a third from the previous quarter's hires (2,130 new employees from June 2007 to September 2007) and off a third of its average quarterly hiring rate since June 2004, according to CNET News.com calculations.
During the company's quarterly conference call Thursday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt explained that six months ago, the company brought on employees a little ahead of itself. But now, Google's returned to normal hiring rates, he said. CFO Georges Reyes also said during the call that fourth-quarter hiring tends to be slower than usual because of the holidays, but that Google will continue to invest "in its core business in the United States and internationally."
Still, with signs of an economic slowdown and the fact that Google missed analyst estimates, it's hard to know whether the company will restart its hiring spree once again. On average, Google has packed on 15 percent to its total workforce every three months since it went public, with highs of 20 percent hiring rates during quarters in 2005 and 2006.
To translate this latest dip: an average of 13 Nooglers (as new staffers are called) showed up at Google every workday last quarter for their employee training session and first free meal. But during the three months before, Google's human resources dealt with as many as 32 Nooglers per workday.
As Google's stock falls back from a high in the $700s, it might also follow that its hiring rates ease off. After all, Google's workforce has risen by more than 600 percent since it went public in August 2004--a nearly identical trajectory to its stock price. (Its shares were down about 6 percent to $525 in after-hours trading Thursday.)
Schmidt didn't hint at any slowdown, however. Google plans to hire more international employees and a balance of technology and nontechnical staff, he said. "We are a very difficult place to get a job at and so we look at the very top...talent."
If you're looking for a job in the next few years, here's some good news: A college degree is not required for over 81 percent of the jobs on the list. Well, I suppose that's good news if you want one of the jobs that doesn't require a degree. Funny enough, I'm betting that the vast majority of people reading this blog don't actually need a degree to do their job, so perhaps Pink Floyd was right. Perhaps "we don't need no education."
Here are the top-10 jobs the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected the U.S. economy will add through 2016:- Registered nurses (587,000);
- Retail salesperson (557,000);
- Customer service representative (545,000); ... Read more
The Seattle-based company operates a Web site where anyone can supply details about their compensation and the service will tell them how it stacks up against peers.
Employees have typically dug up info on pay scales by asking friends employed in the same field--an inexact and frustratingly limited amount of information. Who knows if Joe or Sue is telling the truth?
"This throws light on information that has always been hard to find," Michel Floyd, chief technical officer at Knowledge Networks, said during the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit here on Wednesday. Floyd was in the audience during a presentation by PayScale CEO Mike Metzger. "This is information that businesses are going to want as much as individuals," Floyd said.
The Seattle-based service, which last month announced it had received a $10 million round of funding, is free to individuals. The company makes money by charging for premium services. For instance, after completing a report about myself (that lasted about 5 minutes) and being shown where my pay and benefits rank among journalists in similar positions, I was given the option of obtaining more detailed data for $20.
Based on the quality of information I received from the free search, I'm tempted to buy the premium package. In addition to informing me about my field, the service provided fun facts, such as average compensation of software engineers who graduated from the University of Southern California, my alma mater.
I could also create a set of scenarios or "what ifs" that could help me learn how much I might be making with an MBA or if I lived in New York.
Most of PayScale's revenue comes from employers. Companies pay $100 for a single report or $350 for five. The 5-year-old service also offers annual subscriptions.
But is PayScale's information any better than querying friends?
People hate sharing information about how much they earn but are more likely to share if their identities are kept anonymous and if they get something in return, according to Metzger.
"There isn't any motivation not to tell the truth," Metzger said. "People are motivated to give accurate information so they can get accurate information back. We also do a lot of validation tests and flag answers that look iffy."
PayScale has accumulated 8 million profiles, and the number doubles annually. As the company accumulates data, the less a phony response is going to matter, Metzger said. And PayScale isn't just for executives. About 40 percent of visitors are hourly workers.
"We see a broad range of positions," he said. " We get nurses, attorneys, coal miners, truck drivers, rabbis and phlebotomists."
The immigration battle brews on Capitol Hill.
(Credit: U.S. Senate)Much of life is timing. And in this case we have video of lawyers saying things that will only add more fuel to the already burning issues of immigration and controversial H-1B visas.
Speaking to his law firm's clients, Lawrence Lebowitz advises them, "Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker. And that, in a sense, that sounds funny, but it's what we're trying to do here."
A lawyer working with Lebowitz outlines what employers may have to do if a qualified U.S. citizen does apply for a job: "If necessary schedule an interview, go through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this particular position."
Later a representative for a lawyer's professional group said the seminar from Lebowitz and friends was for employers who already had temporary foreign workers and wanted to make those workers permanent.
How do we, the public, get to hear this lawyerly advice? Video clips of this legal seminar have been posted on YouTube, of course. This, in turn, aroused significant attention and media coverage. This occurs as there's a heated battle in Washington D.C. over immigration law.
So we know that Lebowitz and his associates work for Cohen & Grigsby, a law firm with offices in Pittsburgh and Florida. Lebowitz is listed as a director on the firm's Web site. He's one of 14 associates of the firm who were recognized by Pennsylvania Super Lawyers 2007. C&G uses the motto "progressive law."
So Mr. Lebowitz seems to have leap-frogged his colleagues, going from advising lawyer to national celebrity, all via YouTube. And how did this happen? Somebody who apparently disapproved of Lebowitz's suggestions alerted a Californian who fights H-1B visas. At one time the entire presentation was posted online, deliberately, by C&G. From there the edited video got onto YouTube via ProgrammersGuild.org.
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