Internet firm offers new employees a lease on a BMW

20 lucky hires may drive away with a brand new BMW

February 22, 2000
Web posted at: 10:37 p.m. EST (0337 GMT)

From CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief Greg Lefevre

SUNNYVALE, California (CNN) -- If you can jump start a hard drive, Interwoven has a hot drive for you. The Internet software company is looking for a few good engineers and is offering 20 BMW Z3 Roadsters as incentives.

Jack Jia heads the recruiting effort at Interwoven. "In the last year, 1999, we grew over 300 percent, so we want to continue to grow at that fast pace," Jia says.

To him the car is more than a status symbol. It's a corporate symbol.

"The Z3 also really symbolizes the culture, the excellent engineering and plus the 'having fun' kind of a culture," he says.

He needs 20 engineers pronto. Interwoven now has about 250 employees -- not nearly enough to do the work.

"The work" is managing Web sites. Interwoven helps companies operate their presence on the Internet. It is also competing in a white-hot job market for the best software writers.

Interwoven ran radio ads, newspaper ads and got lots of word of mouth for its Beemer Bonus campaign. The company has hosted two open house events for possible recruits like Jose Bustamente, a project manager.

"It was a good catch," Bustamente says. "I like cars. I was like, 'Oh, wow.' It's a good hook, you know, to come here, but ultimately it also depends on the work, what kind of job it's going to be."

Bustamente was fine with the car idea but really wanted to know about life at the company once the lease was up.

"It has to be very challenging. I know it's going to be a lot of work, which I don't mind, and it has to be a fun environment to work at."

Sivaram Nayadu of Interwoven is already looking past the car. "That's like only a temporary thing. It's not going to be the one that basically keeps me here."

The car lease is actually a salary boost of $1,200 per month applied to the car payments. Jia jokes that if an applicant wants to skip the Beemer Bonus, he or she can opt for a $700 monthly payment.

"To buy a Geo Metro or something," he jokes.

It's really a job seeker's market. And down the road at Veritas, Fred Van der Bosch knows it well.

"It's very difficult to get people to move to Silicon Valley," he says.

Housing costs are zooming, and a headline locally did not help last week: A one-bedroom home in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon valley, sold for more than $580,000.

Add to that the long commute -- some folks drive as much as two hours to their jobs.

Some set up cots at work, like Bill Cuan at Interwoven, who has a futon under his desk.

"It's pretty much an apartment in itself. I shower here, kitchen here. Sometimes I just need to rest, to re-energize and plug along and get a project done."

For his bosses, the projects are mounting fast -- as is the need for talent.

Jia says the search is never-ending.

"The response has been extremely great. It has been really a sort of phenomenal response. We got so far on average we're getting one resume every 15 minutes. We're getting about 20 times more resumes than we would normally."

Software engineer Thom Franklin admits the car incentive got him to consider Interwoven. But during his visit to the open house he got to like other things about the company as well.

"I think the most important benefit really is corporate culture -- to know that the company has ongoing care for the employees and takes care of them all the time. It's not just something flashy at the front end. It seems like the culture here is good, that they're sincere as well as having a very good offer at the front."

Present employees are not envious of the new BMW recipients. It was their idea. Other ideas that they'd kicked around included paying off a recruit's student loans, offering to buy up apartment leases for employees or provide laser eye correction surgery.

The "Beemer Bonus" won out -- that and stock options.

The company placed an application form on its Web site. It asks for all the requisite information: name, address and qualifications.

And it asks for the important facts, too: What color will your BMW be?

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