by by_Seeing on 8/30/13, 11:18 PM with 45 comments
by cpursley on 8/31/13, 12:04 AM
Not sure what type of poverty he's talking about, but I certainly cant afford to fly off to Thailand at the moment...
by ponyslayer on 8/30/13, 11:55 PM
From my count, he has had 3-4 jobs in 3 years. Why would you want to hire someone who can't even stick with his own company?
So, this isn't a parable to apply to entrepreneurs in general. It only applies to quitters.
by ultimatedelman on 8/31/13, 12:26 AM
by awakeasleep on 8/31/13, 1:41 AM
Brooks, you sound like you were made for sales. Maybe try catering your resume towards those positions?
Anyway, I'm an unfulfilled critic, so I don't know if your reading this, but here are the things that made my head spin about your post.
1) You editorialize a third party synopsis of your life into a headline without any indication that you're making a parody or something. "One accidental entrepreneur is finding it hard to" (This reminds me of someone during a manic episode)
2) You build your story out of clichés, but they seem incompatible with each other. (described as both "accidental entrepreneur" and "serial entrepreneur")
3) Totally ignore all important or interesting details that might indicate something about you or what your experience is. (leaving company i started for all the 'normal' and uncomfortable reasons? What?)
4) Generally weird stuff. Give me a job? If you're an entrepreneur, you'd know you wouldn't hire anyone with that attitude! Jetsetting in poverty?
Anyway, best of luck. I'm sure you'll find somewhere you fit in. You sound like you're made out of enthusiasm, and that rocks. It'd be interesting to know more of the facts of your story- I think sometimes the more specific detail of a thing you can share, the more powerful it can be. (I bet one uncomfortable thing that happened to you would be cooler for me to read about than a two paragraph synopsis of the last few years of your life even!) Also I want to know how much money your parents give you =D
by kunle on 8/31/13, 12:22 AM
by robomartin on 8/31/13, 12:14 AM
You typically run into two scenarios. The first is a manager --your would-be boss-- who, upon seeing what you've done feels threatened. A CTO might not feel good about hiring an ex-CTO as a rank-and-file engineer. The second scenario is that of a business owner who, upon learning about your entrepreneurial experience is concerned about hiring someone who might come in, learn the business and potentially become a competitor.
Yes, there's also the concern about someone pulling anchor early to go off on their own in an unrelated direction. It costs a lot of money to bring someone onboard.
My conclusion at the time was that in this fashion entrepreneurship can be a curse. It can be nearly impossible to land a "regular" job because of it. In my case, after much frustration I decided that my only path was to run my own show again and off I went.
by 7Figures2Commas on 8/31/13, 2:06 AM
Constructive criticism: I think the author's difficulties are probably more about his overall positioning than his history of entrepreneurial pursuits. For better or worse, positioning can mean the difference between getting lots of job offers and getting none.
The first thing I noticed in looking at the author's LinkedIn profile, which is the first result when you Google his name, is that it tells me more about what he's done than what he has actually accomplished. That's not helpful because prospective employers don't just want to know where you've worked, they want to know what you've achieved. If I were the author, I would rewrite my job descriptions to focus on the tangible benefits realized by my contributions. Right now, I can't figure out what value the author has created for his companies/clients/employers because it's simply not described.
Also, certain red flags simply aren't likely to be overlooked. Examples of these red flags include:
1. No full-time roles.
2. A history of job hopping (i.e. most/lots of stints under 18-24 months)
3. Jobs with overlapping dates.
4. Unexplained gaps in employment history.
5. No discernible career "path" (i.e. being all over the place in terms of what you've done).
6. Lots of moving around (geographically).
7. Bizarre job titles.
8. Job title progression that is inconsistent with a traditional development path (i.e. a jump from an entry-level job title to a senior-level job title in less than a year is likely going to be questioned).
9. Public musings in which you paint yourself as financially strained, burnt out, confused, etc.
Obviously, you can not and should not lie about your work history, so when these sorts of red flags exist, there might not be an easy way to deal with them. But I don't get the impression that the author has really looked at his CV and made an effort to argue compellingly that he brings a lot to the table. So blaming his entrepreneurial past for his failure to find a job is, in my opinion, misguided.
Finally, the author can't expect a good outcome if he's not where the jobs he's interested in are. If, say, I was interested in meeting the author for lunch next week to discuss a job opening, I would be unable to do so because he's in Thailand. And I, like most other employers, am not going to wait until "mid-September" for the privilege of interviewing him.