How The Dot Commers Are Adjusting To New Jobs
from the lessons-learned dept
Back at the height of the dot com boom everyone started talking about how there was "no risk" involved in jumping to a dot com. If it failed (and very few were failing), you'd just jump on to another one or (if you were crazy) back into a "corporate job". However, now in the post-bubble years, some of the execs who made the leap are discovering that going back to a corporate job isn't so easy. Those who didn't make the shift and kept their corporate jobs are in some sense taking out their glee at the dot com collapse on those who did. They often look on dot com experience as a negative experience. However, as the article points out, those in the dot com world learned a lot - though, half the time it was about things you could do, and the other half the time it's about things you shouldn't do. Of course, that's mainly for those who started on the corporate side of the line, and then went over to dot coms. The younger generation that went straight to the dot com world is having a little more trouble making the leap to the other side. Still, the important point isn't that someone did or did not work at a dot com - but rather what they've learned from all of their experiences, and how they might apply that knowledge to the job at hand. Anyone who simply counts someone out because they worked at a dot com is missing the point - and probably wouldn't be a good person to work for anyway.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I don't think so...
>there was "no risk" involved in jumping to a < br>>dot com. If it failed (and very few were >failing), you'd just jump on to another one or
>(if you were crazy) back into a "corporate job"
There is always risk. It was a different type of risk than just finding another job - but its still risk.
>Anyone who simply counts someone out because >they worked at a dot com is missing the point - >and probably wouldn't be a good person to work >for anyway.
Not so.
A lot of these dot-com jobhopping losers were only looking
out for themselves - hit the gold mine of options
or IPOs, get out, find another. Their skills and
business value were very overrated. There was no
loyalty to coworkers, company, or anyone else.
First sign of a cloud on the horizon, they were gone, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces.
If I see a resume with 6+ jobs in the past 10 years, red flags go up fast. Whats to keep this
person in my company longer than 12 or 18 months?
You know they are going to bail out as soon as the economy improves. Internal transfers and promotions are one thing, company hopping is another.
Unless they have a critical skill I need (not likely nowadays) those resumes get pushed to the back of the pile.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: I don't think so...
(a) I didn't say there was no risk. I said that everyone was *saying* there was no risk. The whole point of my post was that there really was a risk.
(b) Again, I'm not saying that everyone who went to a dot com *is* qualified for every job. And you point out a perfect situation where it's unlikely the person would be qualified for the jobs you have to offer. But, that was because they were job hopping - not because they went to a single dot com.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: I don't think so...
http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-5067482.html
My take on reading the article was that it was a bit obvious: some .com-ers are well suited for corporate jobs and some aren't; some learned from their experiences, some didn't; some are just happy to be working and aren't taking risks, others haven't changed, etc.
The obvious conclusion is that everyone is an individual and it will take away different experiences from their past and apply it to the present in different ways. So it was an easy to write article with the ".com" hook to get people to read it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: I don't think so...
Regarding (b), I think that most people who went the dot-com route had a certain common personality trait: - highly confident in their skills, abilities, and themselves. Perhaps too confident. Others might call them arrogant and full-of-themselves. After all, it did take some guts at least to make the jump from corporate (in)security to an unproven startup. BUt most of them left me with the sense of used-car auto-salesmen looking for the next big thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: I don't think so...
[ link to this | view in thread ]