Ex-Googlers Reveal Their Reasons for Leaving
Michael Arrington, over at TechCrunch, has gotten ahold of some of the contents of a private Google Group that Google HR set up to get some feedback on why people left the company. Reading through the thread, it all seems like your typical gripes that ex-employees have about why they left the company, with some exceptions.
The big complaints seem to fall into the areas of:
- Lack of proper management
- Poor salary
- Miserable interview process
- Weakening benefits
The first three have always been commonly heard criticisms of Google. One, that the company had too flat a management structure, which left managers essentially on their own trying to get noticed by their management. Similarly, the large teams reporting to those managers have a difficult time “standing out”.
The salary one, to me, seems like a red herring. Google, even more than many companies, seems to leverage stock-based compensation, and they’ve traditionally had the stock price to maintain it. For example, one ex-employee comments on how he got a job offer with another company for 2x his base salary at Google – without specifying how the total package at the new company compares to his total Google package.
The interview process is the complaint I hear the most from people who have interviewed at, and even been hired at, Google. It seems like Google has a really difficult time treating people with respect during the interview process. Even above and beyond the interview stories in the TechCrunch article, I have heard stories that make Google sound like they’re full of elitist snobs who don’t care about you if you’re not a developer. Why would I ever want to interview someplace where I’m not going to be treated well?
The folks at Valleywag, which is now folded into being a subsection of Gawker, have been running roughshod over Google for the decreasing benefits being offered their employees. Google has been trimming back food services, childcare, and other perks that they had been offering, citing cost concerns. Certainly, Google is doing what many companies are doing and belt-tightening ahead of bad economic times. But when you’ve attracted employees and created an image around yourself based on the idea of a perk-filled work environment, there’s going to be strong backlash when that changes.
One late note – while it is fairly standard to try to figure out why people left a company, and useful information, it is far more useful to try to make sure they don’t leave in the first place. Looking at those comments, very few of which are a surprise to me, how can they not already know these are concerns for people?
