[fierarul]

Well, you assume that training actually produces results. It might well be that after spending considerable time and money on the new employee he's still not a very good match for the original tasks. Then you are stuck with a loss and an employee you can't fire (since, for example, the 'testing' period is something like 2-4 weeks -- this might depend on the country/state, etc.).

Or, training does work but the investment is usually so big (not just on the trainer but the lost productivity of the team members involved) that the employee would need to stay employed a number of months/years at least, to recuperate costs. So if the employee resigns before that (since he gets a better offer) you are still in the red.

I've personally had people work for me that didn't actually fit the task, but only because they were quite smart and I was certain they could pick up the domain (any domain) quite fast.

But right now, for example, I'm looking at CVs of student candidates and I'm reluctant to invest in their training because I have a small company and the risk of them leaving after they are trained is high.

[stevejobs]

Why do you fear an employee would leave you after you invested in training him? Unless you are particularly abrasive, most employees would look favorably at an employer who helps them advance in their job than one who doesn't invest anything at all.

[fierarul]

From what I've seen students here like "big brands". So most would pick working at BigCorp "in the first years" (or so they say). They seem to value the stability BigCorp provides and they also assume they'll learn a whole lot at the job. Being a small company means I don't "look" as stable nor as impressive in the CV.

This means that generally students see the 1st job as something transitional. It also means that a big chunk of the CVs I get are from people that didn't/couldn't make it into BigCorp, ie. people I also don't need.

Changing jobs is also a traditional way of getting a raise and I wouldn't want to get into the counter-offer game too early.

But this time I think the problem is the CVs I've been receiving aren't that great, so I am reluctant to invest in training because I'm reluctant to pick any candidate.

[quicksilver03]

In France some employers have a clause in the employment contract that prevents employees from leaving the company within X months of having been trained (called "dédit formation").

The definition of "training" varies quite widely, and also the actual enforcement of the clause can vary between companies. It happened once in one of my classes, the company had the trainees sign this particular clause and it made for a very interesting monday morning.