Definitely harder to lay people off when they know them. I can remember my dad not sleeping for weeks after he made it to management because he was going to have to lay off 5 friends.
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That being said, I'm not sure the entire tech industry wouldn't benefit from less friction to switching - hiring is an insanely expensive and very low-signal process - spend 200 hours hiring a person and maybe they fit and work well, maybe they don't.
For employees, tech interviews are an insanely time consuming and stressful process where you know they aren't getting much signal. Not unusual to spend 20-60 hours in interviews for just one position. Look for a new job while you are employed? Hope you want 80 hour weeks...and same thing - no idea til you get in there what the culture is actually like, who was blowing smoke at you, if it matches your strengths...
And yet, still we continue down the same path of brutal on-sites, workers that feel stuck in a crappy job but definitely have skills to offer in a better place, etc
I haven't heard of anyone spending 20-60 hours in interviews. Most onsites are remote these days, and the entire interview loop is probably at most 6 hours including phone screen or coding assessment.
I find interviewing to be pretty frictionless for the most part. The hardest part is setting some time aside for for leetcode prep.
I haven't seen many interview processes less than 10 when we figure some initial rounds, some onsite or technical stuff, last rounds much less all the scheduling in between and the desire for everyone to meet during the work day when you are also working
a takehome can easily be 10+ hours
onsites have gotten a bit shorter since they went remote, but are still a lot. Let's say 8 hours. That means 5 companies, a whole work week to fit into full work weeks..
--
That being said, I'm not sure the entire tech industry wouldn't benefit from less friction to switching - hiring is an insanely expensive and very low-signal process - spend 200 hours hiring a person and maybe they fit and work well, maybe they don't.
For employees, tech interviews are an insanely time consuming and stressful process where you know they aren't getting much signal. Not unusual to spend 20-60 hours in interviews for just one position. Look for a new job while you are employed? Hope you want 80 hour weeks...and same thing - no idea til you get in there what the culture is actually like, who was blowing smoke at you, if it matches your strengths...
And yet, still we continue down the same path of brutal on-sites, workers that feel stuck in a crappy job but definitely have skills to offer in a better place, etc