Can You Tell if a Vendor is Doing Well Based on Their Job Openings?
Andy Sernovitz has a simple rule of thumb for determining whether or not a vendor is healthy: look at their Jobs page.
He writes:
1. If they are hiring, that’s a good sign of growth.
2. If they are hiring engineers, that means that they are investing in building a better product
3. If they are hiring more sales people than engineers, they may be using sales to cover for a weak product.
Interesting analysis. I’m not sure what Andy has to support his analysis, because other people certainly see it differently. Pat Moore left a comment on Andy’s blog with a completely different view.
One thing I know for sure — people do look at a company’s job page or career site to gage the company’s health.
I don’t think most people look at the specific breakdown of jobs; they just want to see if the company is hiring at all. I would never suggest that you post jobs on your career site for the sake of it, just to look like you’re alive and well. But, I would suggest that you post jobs on your career site even if you’re not hiring immediately, if you believe you’ll be hiring for those jobs in the future. That’s just smart planning.
You should always be:
- in recruiting mode; and,
- building a talent pipeline.
This reminds me of why I enjoy working in startups so much. In one I’m called on to add value to a product or build one from the ground up. The emphasis is on potential value. In an older company it could go both ways. Either the programmers are seen as an investment(R&D mode) or an expense(maintenance mode). A bit of both is alright but when the scale way heavier on the maintenance side it’s a very bad sign.