Netflix wants managers to ask whether they would rehire their employees

Managers got way to much power over their subordinates. The looming one-sided threat of being instant-fired cultivates such a psychotic inducing culture of ass-kissing it is not healthy for a company.

I guess Netflix could make the rule bilateral? "Should we hire your boss right now?" being asked each quarter.

Looking back at every job I've ever had, I would not pass the current hiring bar two years after being hired. Companies are just getting pickier and pickier, more and more conservative and risk adverse, and shrinking rather than growing the pool of candidates they are considering. Sometimes it seems they are acting as though a single bad hire will torpedo the business.

It's ironic that while they keep raising the bar, they also keep complaining that they just can't find talent anymore...

I think it's an interesting question to turn around - for the current "good" employees, would Netflix's current hiring process allow them to be hired, or would the hiring team look at their resume and pass? Seems eminently testable too, just ask for resumes and anonymize them. You could even bring in current employees for interviews if they were willing to "red team". :-)

Second half of the headline, possibly cut for length?

"—and fire them if the answer is no"

Which escalates things from how I initially read it! I know many companies have an eligible for re-hire bit and at least a couple of the FAANGs have an additional soft version of that bit [both set at separation].

edit: phrase for clarity

The keeper test has been at Netflix forever. This is very much a non-story.

this is in response to the just-updated "culture deck". but netflix has for ages (always?) had their so-called keeper test.

I used to work for one of their biggest hubs and was one of their most senior employees. I saw a lot of highet-ups come and go. They wanted perfection, or something damn close to it. Good thing I was content being a QC inspector and driver, because I wouldn't have taken any kind of management position even if one had been offered to me.

Reminds me of a quote possibly from Warren Buffett, "If you wouldn’t buy it today, you shouldn’t hold onto it."

I was a department manager at a Fortune 500 Company that required every department head to rank all the department employees from 1 - (n) based upon performance and importance to the department.

Senior VPs had to do the same for the department managers who reported to them.

We were instructed to fire the bottom 10% every year.

Title edit results in nonsense, here is original

Netflix wants managers to ask themselves whether they would rehire their current employees

1. Go to https://jobs.netflix.com/culture

2. Search for "keeper test"

It says:

>“if X wanted to leave, would I fight to keep them?”

> Or “knowing everything I know today, would I hire X again?”

> If the answer is no, we believe it’s fairer to everyone to part ways quickly.

This is better than the "stacked ranking" methodology.

Netflix is Disneyland for Psychopaths

or

This all makes sense to me as a survivor because I'm in the in-group

(Disclosure: I worked at the company for three weeks and then fired it to go to a real FAANG, so I guess it works both ways.)

See also: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SRLtGOjEHkI

I really hate how a lot of people treat a manager as a "mini-boss".

A manager should really just be another role on the team, with the possibility of firing a team member being a decision for the team, not a single managerial role.

Everyone should get a vote in who stays, otherwise you just end up with a bunch of sociopaths running the show.

Netflix should stop trying to be a tech company or some amazing new management culture company and focus on quality content. So much waste Netflix produces.