This has been bothering me for a while, thought I’d share it here. I was reached out by a recruiter from an early stage crypto startup - GM role for a region. I went through the process - screening > round with hiring manager > exercise (apparently they loved the deck I made) > next 2 rounds w/ Head of product & marketing > finally, CEO. All this within 2 weeks or so. Now starts the weird part. Given the pace of the above rounds & all the positive reinforcements at each stage, I got hopeful (Had fair reasons to be, right?). They got back and said they’d like to offer an Expansion role instead of GM role. Pitched it as a super important role. Seemed a level junior for sure but they convinced me it’ll grow to become Regional GM. I bought in. Next, they asked me to share expected package (SO+Cash). Given the fact I joined Uber about 4 years ago, my equity component has high $ value - I shared clearly that I didn’t expect it to be matched at all but I was looking for stock options and not just cash. Turns out they don’t give out equity to their employees in general, only early stage employees had some (They are ~100 employees right now). Anyway, after getting my expected package, they went silent for a month! Reply to my each follow up: “we’re working on remuneration, CFO is modelling it out since it’s a first for us”. A little later it became: “CFO & CEO are travelling”. Seemed fair but I was starting to get a bad feeling about it. After a month + some pretty rigorous follow ups + creating an urgency that I’m sitting on another offer so timing is crucial - I got a call. “So, we feel this role is junior for you as it’s mostly admin. As for the GM role, we want a local. So, we won’t be going ahead with this.” What the actual fuck! Is it normal to expect this experience from an early stage startup or is this a one-off? Shall I put up my experience on their Glassdoor? Recruiter folks, would love to hear your take on this as well, and possible reasons why this happened.
Yeah. You should be glad you're on the out. Definitely put it up on Glassdoor. It will help future candidates. Even them, if they care.
You dodged a bullet. Put it on Glassdoor for sure.
Welcome to the world of startups. By definition they don’t have much experience. They’re learning.
Nor do they have much of an HR department or workplace hierarchy.
Start ups are the Wild West. Hiring managers will want the absolute pie in the sky super candidate but will be only willing to pay them mid quartile and sell hard on the future of the company. You definitely dodged a bullet here. Write them up on Glassdoor and move on. It’s Silicon Valley, startups are a dime a dozen.
Especially in 2018 vs. 2008, startups, like Apps, are really a dime a dozen.
Stinks, put on glass door. What startup was it?
Done! Posted on Glassdoor.
Newer startups often can’t come remotely close to the comp packages from the major players. They pretty much don’t make sense financially, especially if there’s not even a hope of equity
I'm starting to think that any startup post-2009 is not a good idea. You'll never look at your employees the same way again.
Which country is it in?
Some bullshit for sure, but also you should feel somewhat grateful you dodged a bullet
That’s how I’m taking it too. Thank god, I guess :)