I sometimes feel self-conscious asking deep questions about morale, especially when I'm on the fence about working at a place and am just being polite in case I need this as a Plan C.
There are some questions where if you get the person to take them seriously you may pop whatever bubble they're living in that helps them get through the day.
One place, I was not doing so great. I was participating in the interview process, mostly trying to make sure our candidates were better than our status quo, so new people would make my life better. This one kid asks, "what do you like about working here?" and I froze. I didn't have an answer. Luckily there were three of us, and I had time to come up with a half-assed answer that didn't consist of "Run!"
Shortly after that I decided to leave, and just making that decision let me make it to the next bonus payout, which was something on the order of 10% of salary after taxes (so ~8 weeks?), plus a few more options vesting. And then I was out the door, along with about 1/5th of the engineering department. It's like people forget there's a door until someone else goes through it. Afterward, the members of the exodus sat around over beers to celebrate the check clearing. Someone (possibly me) asked if sticking around for the bonus was worth it. Almost all of us said no.
Interesting. It seems almost immoral to interview new hires when you know there are insurmountable problems at the company that make you consider leaving.
Not saying you are immoral here -- just that it does seem to pose a dilemma. I have not had to interview someone for a company that I want to leave. It sounds like it would suck and require some level of internalized rationalization to go through with it.
Two things. One, you don't always know the answer to a question until someone asks it, and then you can't un-hear the question. I thought I was just grouchy until asked, and then I realized I was properly unhappy in this role. Which I said makes me uncomfortable about asking hard questions of people I don't know and probably will never work with.
Two, it's easier to leave a place when you know you've left a project in good hands, instead of knowing things will unravel if you do. Mostly, it's an ethical problem if you sabotage the hiring.
But I'll agree that there is a tension between professionalism and social responsibility. What do I owe to my employer, what do I owe to the local developer community? The next time I interviewed, a guy I had a lot of respect for referred me to a used-car-salesman of a recruiter for a place he was leaving. I did contract-to-hire, walked away from that one. Felt a bit like a meat shield to cover his retreat. I realized all the things I respected him for were past tense, and honor that but stay the hell away from him now.
Sounds like maybe the whole team was handcuffed to the bonus, then everyone left after that? I remember one job where I put in my resignation on the day the bonus money was a confirmed transaction in my bank account, and not a day earlier!
There are some questions where if you get the person to take them seriously you may pop whatever bubble they're living in that helps them get through the day.
One place, I was not doing so great. I was participating in the interview process, mostly trying to make sure our candidates were better than our status quo, so new people would make my life better. This one kid asks, "what do you like about working here?" and I froze. I didn't have an answer. Luckily there were three of us, and I had time to come up with a half-assed answer that didn't consist of "Run!"
Shortly after that I decided to leave, and just making that decision let me make it to the next bonus payout, which was something on the order of 10% of salary after taxes (so ~8 weeks?), plus a few more options vesting. And then I was out the door, along with about 1/5th of the engineering department. It's like people forget there's a door until someone else goes through it. Afterward, the members of the exodus sat around over beers to celebrate the check clearing. Someone (possibly me) asked if sticking around for the bonus was worth it. Almost all of us said no.