Beware: NET-A-PORTER
Good morning, Perl Mongers, This is a followup to my post to the Perl jobs-discuss mailing list. Terrence picked it up here: http://livingcosmos.posterous.com/beware-of-net-a-porter-perl-jobs and the original can be found here: http://www.mail-archive.com/jobs-discuss@perl.org/msg01469.html About six weeks ago, I was contacted by a recruiter and asked if I was interested in a team lead position in New Jersey, and so begins my story. I was wanting to get back into the community after a limiting contract, but this wasn't really the sort of splash I hoped to make. I've never been moved to do something like this in the 10+ years I've been programming professionally. I've experienced some less than honest recruiting techniques and companies that had no issue jerking people around, but I was made aware this morning that there were at least two other Perl programmers affected, including junior candidates that probably had more hanging on this than I did. I sent the following list of events to both NET-A-PORTER and the recruiting agency 7 Dec. Earlier today (8 Dec.), the recruiter called me and confirmed this, point by point. NET-A-PORTER has, as of yet, not replied. 1) That NET-A-PORTER was fully aware of the contract rate during the interview process. 2) That NET-A-PORTER selected me to lead their US team and I was asked to wait for final sign off. 3) That NET-A-PORTER was aware that I let another opportunity go based on my understanding that my employment was pending a 'final signature'. 4) That as a condition of final sign off NET-A-PORTER asked that, at the end of the 6 month contract period, I would be willing to accept $30K less than the original budgeted salary with the proviso that the salary would be open to renegotiation based on the market conditions at that time. Furthermore that I agreed to this. 5) That NET-A-PORTER decided to withdraw the position at this point and no longer build out a US-based Perl development team. The reason given is that it would cost 1/2 as much to build out a team in the UK. For a company that espouses their programming culture and community support, I can't understand how they could think this was even remotely acceptable. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me. The recruiter gave permission to share contact information with any interested parties regarding this situation. I know I'm not in the UK but, short of trying for slashdot, I thought this was the most appropriate venue for informing those who should be most aware of their actions. -r
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
I suspect this is a symptom of the GFC rather than anything more sinister. I'm sorry you and your not-to-be colleagues appear to be friendly fire in this circumstance. I can tell that GFC][ has people twitched. Although I live in the best functioning developed economy in the world (fsvo), the bank I've recently been going through the motions with were asking some weirder-than-the-last-time questions about my situation. (disclaimer, I barely know who net a porter are as they don't offer telecommute positions). -- Sent from my phone, so apologies for any spelling errors, top-posting, brevity, etc. On 09/12/2011, at 14:13, Rudolf Lippan rlip...@remotelinux.com wrote: Good morning, Perl Mongers, This is a followup to my post to the Perl jobs-discuss mailing list. Terrence picked it up here: http://livingcosmos.posterous.com/beware-of-net-a-porter-perl-jobs and the original can be found here: http://www.mail-archive.com/jobs-discuss@perl.org/msg01469.html About six weeks ago, I was contacted by a recruiter and asked if I was interested in a team lead position in New Jersey, and so begins my story. I was wanting to get back into the community after a limiting contract, but this wasn't really the sort of splash I hoped to make. I've never been moved to do something like this in the 10+ years I've been programming professionally. I've experienced some less than honest recruiting techniques and companies that had no issue jerking people around, but I was made aware this morning that there were at least two other Perl programmers affected, including junior candidates that probably had more hanging on this than I did. I sent the following list of events to both NET-A-PORTER and the recruiting agency 7 Dec. Earlier today (8 Dec.), the recruiter called me and confirmed this, point by point. NET-A-PORTER has, as of yet, not replied. 1) That NET-A-PORTER was fully aware of the contract rate during the interview process. 2) That NET-A-PORTER selected me to lead their US team and I was asked to wait for final sign off. 3) That NET-A-PORTER was aware that I let another opportunity go based on my understanding that my employment was pending a 'final signature'. 4) That as a condition of final sign off NET-A-PORTER asked that, at the end of the 6 month contract period, I would be willing to accept $30K less than the original budgeted salary with the proviso that the salary would be open to renegotiation based on the market conditions at that time. Furthermore that I agreed to this. 5) That NET-A-PORTER decided to withdraw the position at this point and no longer build out a US-based Perl development team. The reason given is that it would cost 1/2 as much to build out a team in the UK. For a company that espouses their programming culture and community support, I can't understand how they could think this was even remotely acceptable. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me. The recruiter gave permission to share contact information with any interested parties regarding this situation. I know I'm not in the UK but, short of trying for slashdot, I thought this was the most appropriate venue for informing those who should be most aware of their actions. -r
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
Hi Rudolf, There a couple of NaP people on this list. I don't know if they can comment though. That said, I agree with Kieren. The simplest answer is usually correct. I know it doesn't make a difference to you as you feel jerked around, but NaP likely spent a lot of time and money interviewing people, working out logistics, planning. This wouldn't have been free for them to do. It feels pretty crappy to be in your position - believe me I've been there more than once. I quickly learned that if you're unemployed, the right thing to do is take the first offer you get (or, the first good one if you can get a few in around the same time). Deal with the consequences of that later - at least you'll be eating and sleeping soundly. That said, if you're looking for work in the US, and you know PHP (sorry perl guys :) ), we're hiring at Etsy. Drop me a mail off-list if you're interested. And we're definitely up front about things! On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Rudolf Lippan rlip...@remotelinux.comwrote: Good morning, Perl Mongers, This is a followup to my post to the Perl jobs-discuss mailing list. Terrence picked it up here: http://livingcosmos.posterous.com/beware-of-net-a-porter-perl-jobs and the original can be found here: http://www.mail-archive.com/jobs-discuss@perl.org/msg01469.html About six weeks ago, I was contacted by a recruiter and asked if I was interested in a team lead position in New Jersey, and so begins my story. I was wanting to get back into the community after a limiting contract, but this wasn't really the sort of splash I hoped to make. I've never been moved to do something like this in the 10+ years I've been programming professionally. I've experienced some less than honest recruiting techniques and companies that had no issue jerking people around, but I was made aware this morning that there were at least two other Perl programmers affected, including junior candidates that probably had more hanging on this than I did. I sent the following list of events to both NET-A-PORTER and the recruiting agency 7 Dec. Earlier today (8 Dec.), the recruiter called me and confirmed this, point by point. NET-A-PORTER has, as of yet, not replied. 1) That NET-A-PORTER was fully aware of the contract rate during the interview process. 2) That NET-A-PORTER selected me to lead their US team and I was asked to wait for final sign off. 3) That NET-A-PORTER was aware that I let another opportunity go based on my understanding that my employment was pending a 'final signature'. 4) That as a condition of final sign off NET-A-PORTER asked that, at the end of the 6 month contract period, I would be willing to accept $30K less than the original budgeted salary with the proviso that the salary would be open to renegotiation based on the market conditions at that time. Furthermore that I agreed to this. 5) That NET-A-PORTER decided to withdraw the position at this point and no longer build out a US-based Perl development team. The reason given is that it would cost 1/2 as much to build out a team in the UK. For a company that espouses their programming culture and community support, I can't understand how they could think this was even remotely acceptable. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me. The recruiter gave permission to share contact information with any interested parties regarding this situation. I know I'm not in the UK but, short of trying for slashdot, I thought this was the most appropriate venue for informing those who should be most aware of their actions. -r
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
On Thursday, December 08, 2011 at 11:23:35 PM, Kieren Diment wrote: I suspect this is a symptom of the GFC rather than anything more sinister. I'm sorry you and your not-to-be colleagues appear to be friendly fire in this circumstance. I don't know if I buy that: 6 December 2011: ...Net-a-porte[sic] has decided not to build a team here in the US. Apparently it's half the cost for them to build a team in the UK vs. here in the US... 7 December 2011: http://jobs.perl.org/job/14442 Posted: December 7, 2011 Company name: Net-a-porter Internal ID:Junior Perl Developer - New Jersey Location: New York, NY, USA -r
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
On 9 December 2011 06:54, Rudolf Lippan rlip...@remotelinux.com wrote: On Thursday, December 08, 2011 at 11:23:35 PM, Kieren Diment wrote: I suspect this is a symptom of the GFC rather than anything more sinister. I'm sorry you and your not-to-be colleagues appear to be friendly fire in this circumstance. I don't know if I buy that: 6 December 2011: ...Net-a-porte[sic] has decided not to build a team here in the US. Apparently it's half the cost for them to build a team in the UK vs. here in the US... 7 December 2011: http://jobs.perl.org/job/14442 Posted: December 7, 2011 Company name: Net-a-porter Internal ID: Junior Perl Developer - New Jersey Location: New York, NY, USA Your recruitment agent could well be telling porky pies NaP, are a pretty reputable outfit - anything you didnt hear directly from them I'd take with a pinch of salt, and I'd never turn down another offer without a written offer or signed contract, certainly not on the word of a recruiter. Could be worth re-applying directly to that ad, if you haven't just marked your own card by your posts about them to perl lists cheers, A -- Aaron J Trevena, BSc Hons http://www.aarontrevena.co.uk LAMP System Integration, Development and Consulting
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
On 09/12/2011, at 5:54 PM, Rudolf Lippan wrote: On Thursday, December 08, 2011 at 11:23:35 PM, Kieren Diment wrote: I suspect this is a symptom of the GFC rather than anything more sinister. I'm sorry you and your not-to-be colleagues appear to be friendly fire in this circumstance. I don't know if I buy that: 6 December 2011: ...Net-a-porte[sic] has decided not to build a team here in the US. Apparently it's half the cost for them to build a team in the UK vs. here in the US... 7 December 2011: http://jobs.perl.org/job/14442 Posted: December 7, 2011 Company name: Net-a-porter Internal ID: Junior Perl Developer - New Jersey Location: New York, NY, USA Despite that information, I still buy it. Business entities that no longer fit the small definition can hit the wall of stupidity/psychopathy (whereby the becoming one of the two become interchangeably unidentifiable, despite prior good work) pretty fast. So I'm still reading this as *symptom* of the GFC rather than caused by NAP being a bunch of bleeps. However, it still sucks. I'm just reluctant to point fingers etc.
Re: Beware: NET-A-PORTER
On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 2:10 AM, Aaron Trevena aaron.trev...@gmail.comwrote: On 9 December 2011 06:54, Rudolf Lippan rlip...@remotelinux.com wrote: On Thursday, December 08, 2011 at 11:23:35 PM, Kieren Diment wrote: I suspect this is a symptom of the GFC rather than anything more sinister. I'm sorry you and your not-to-be colleagues appear to be friendly fire in this circumstance. I don't know if I buy that: 6 December 2011: ...Net-a-porte[sic] has decided not to build a team here in the US. Apparently it's half the cost for them to build a team in the UK vs. here in the US... 7 December 2011: http://jobs.perl.org/job/14442 Posted: December 7, 2011 Company name: Net-a-porter Internal ID:Junior Perl Developer - New Jersey Location: New York, NY, USA Your recruitment agent could well be telling porky pies NaP, are a pretty reputable outfit - anything you didnt hear directly from them I'd take with a pinch of salt, and I'd never turn down another offer without a written offer or signed contract, certainly not on the word of a recruiter. Could be worth re-applying directly to that ad, if you haven't just marked your own card by your posts about them to perl lists Indeed. My impression of NaP was also that they're very good. Given that I know people there and have only heard good things (you know a company is good when people don't want to leave). So if you're a) good, and b) lucky and c) NaP understands the recruiter might have screwed you both, talk to them directly. At least here in the US, bypassing recruiters is the much preferred method. I don't know why they're still so heavily relied on in the UK.
