Ask HN: How to keep marginal employees

Then listen to Dave. He probably knows his work isn't as good as the rest of the team.

I worked on a team where I was Dave. The manager tried to avoid uncomfortable talks by making very indirect statements involving me, to my team. and my teammates would never, ever talk to me about my work. They all talked about it, though. Avoiding it created a _lot_ of resentment.

Getting laid off that team was, to date, the best thing I've experienced in my career. Talk to Dave. Listen to him. Practice the conversation with someone else, first.

If you send me a link to your employer's homepage, I'll list it at http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/

There is no charge for this service nor will there ever be. I am quite specifically trying to do away with the practice of paying for resume submissions. Consider that a recent study found that the average recruiter "reads" resumes for just six seconds apiece. For that you pay tens of thousands of dollars?

While not strictly necessary it is quite helpful if your employer's site has a "Jobs" or "Careers" page, as well as a "Contact" page.

If your site doesn't explictly say where your office is located, please tell me the city, state or province if any, and country.

You don't need to say that it's from you, specifically, if you wish to remain anonymous. I get submissions from lots of people.

Since it is already obvious that the person will be fired and yet it hasn't happened, company culture issues perhaps run deeper than you are in a position to change...e.g. an engineering culture where it is believed that a second set of eyes on work product is not just normal professionalism.

Also, the mentors themselves can benefit from this in terms of people skills.