Ambition is goal

When you are building a team of software developers there is one important factor. They need ambition. Ambition to grow in a role, to be the best, to be better then average. There is no such ambition as working ten years for the company. Don't hire those, they start enthusiastically and turn to an immovable object in the following years.

As a developer, when you have a job interview talk about ambition, both parties have them, there are personal ambitions and company ambitions. Throw them on the table, speak open about them. What do you want to do and how do you want to achieve your goals is more important then what you did in the past. It's the future you are hired for. Therefore hiring people shouldn't go about how many years you want to work for the company, but what the company can do for you. Of course the company needs to benefit from the effort of the developer; we are living in a capitalistic society after all. So both company and employee need to know each others ambitions and goals and need to agree upon how to achieve them both. We might even consider to use a temporarily contract when both parties know that the goals are not totally compatible and both parties can benefit from each other.

Even as employee I find it more and more strange that people want to have a permanent contract. The only benefit is that such a contract is it is needed to buy a house. From a company view an employee will surprise a company announcing his leave on the last day of the month.
Playing all the cards (be transparent) and use temporary contracts makes this go away. When the employee is done, why not help an employee in finding a new job to achieve his goals? Let him work for the company for a period and use his skills to the maximum. Let him grow, train him, benefit from him and make sure he is ready for a next job (in- or outside the company).

The main question is now, will the in- and outflow of employees rise? I don't think it will; i even think developers will be attracted by this approach. We are solving a mentality problem here: the focus on keeping a job, a world ready for mischief and lies. When we play open, there is nothing to be afraid of. If an employee sees opportunities within the company coach him and make it possible for him to stay and help the company instead of finding ways to get rid of him. When employees have problems (nine out of ten times it's all communication) help them. Make it work! They will get better because you have helped and coached them. They will love you and the company more and provide better value for money.

We need not only employees, we need happy employees. We need growing employees. We need employees with ambition!

Let's make things better!