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Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#101

Post by p1esk »

BeetleB wrote: post #78
atmosx wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a problem?

Imagine you keep applying for jobs and you get none because all the existing employees are recommending their friends who are inferior to you in skills, but the company is prioritizing referrals. This is, and has always been, a real problem: That your ability to get good positions is limited not by your skill set but by your ability to network.

Generally if you have good skills people will want to network with you, unless you're anti-social or have some other personality issues. Keep in mind that technical skills are just one component in a good coworker.

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#102

Post by p1esk »

pkrotich wrote: post #93
p1esk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally would prefer to work with people from my social circle.

I used to believe in "culture fit" as well but it took me going to a tech conference to realize it was a codeword / gateway for alot of **isms. And I don't even mean racism - say your potential candidate is older with kids (assuming you're younger) would you pass them because they cannot go out drinking with you after work (a.k.a social circle)? That said, I agree that you want to work with people you get along with,…

By "social circle" I did not mean people I go out for drinks with - I'd call those "friends". I simply meant people I have something in common with, share the same values with, people I can relate to. If the candidate is older with kids (assuming I'm younger) - he/she should be someone I want to become in the future, someone I respect, someone I'd learn from. Race, gender, age, even education - does not really matter - as long as I'm genuinely interested in that person and feel like I'd enjoy working with them. After many years of interviewing and hiring at various startups this is more important to me than technical skills. Skills could be learned, personalities usually don't change.

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#105

Post by ghaff »

noirbot wrote: post #96
ghaff wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're a small company who has tapped out their current team's referral network, how do you get out the word that you're a good place to work, and how would people find out that you're a good place to work? One thing I might do is have a blog which had genuinely interesting content that's both related to what the company does and working there.

Perhaps, but I don't make a habit of reading blogs about jobs I don't currently have from smaller companies. Not that I have anything against them, but you still have a discoverability problem.

I'm not sure what you do besides networking in some form.

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#106

Post by klooney »

pkrotich wrote: post #93
p1esk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally would prefer to work with people from my social circle.

I used to believe in "culture fit" as well but it took me going to a tech conference to realize it was a codeword / gateway for alot of **isms. And I don't even mean racism - say your potential candidate is older with kids (assuming you're younger) would you pass them because they cannot go out drinking with you after work (a.k.a social circle)? That said, I agree that you want to work with people you get along with,…

I feel like programmer discourse goes in a circle every five years on agreeableness/human factors when hiring. You can say "rigid process and blind hiring!" And then you hire someone you knew was, er , difficult, and it sucks and they get fired and you have to adjust. Then on the other side of the spectrum, you have grumpy people pointing out that it turns out agreeableness turns out to mean coethnic drinking buddies, and how could you?

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#107

Post by [deleted] »

lolsal wrote: post #65
systemvoltage wrote: post #14

Hard take which is pretty much unpalatable to HN crowd: If I had a small dev shop, I would put out an hiring ad that says you must drop off your resume in person and we will only hire people from 50 mile radius. Like they used to do in 1970's. Not a fan of: 1) Global pool of candidates 2) Leet code bullshit 3) Remote work Fan of 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. 2) You will be part of our family, we'…

Interesting take. I have some questions: > 1) Global pool of candidates Why not? global pool could potentially get you a lot more bang for your buck. I've employed folks from outside the US and it was a joy to get really talented folks and pay them stupidly well for their location. They were super excited to work with us for that and we were super excited to pay them a lower rate than hiring in the US. Win-win. > 3)…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#108

Post by systemvoltage »

lief79 wrote: post #31
systemvoltage wrote: post #14

Hard take which is pretty much unpalatable to HN crowd: If I had a small dev shop, I would put out an hiring ad that says you must drop off your resume in person and we will only hire people from 50 mile radius. Like they used to do in 1970's. Not a fan of: 1) Global pool of candidates 2) Leet code bullshit 3) Remote work Fan of 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. 2) You will be part of our family, we'…

#3 doesn't seem to correlate well with being able to interview/meet with team members, unless hiring takes priority over emergencies, etc. Then again, with enough bodies that should be possible to do without much of a hit.

I think the expectation is that living in a mid sized towns, you'll probably get 1 candidate per month if that. I am thinking of a shop that is 30 devs or less. You don't always hire and we would put everything aside if someone shows up at the door.

I think the risk would be that no one ever shows up. :-(

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#109

Post by systemvoltage »

cloudedcordial wrote: post #95
systemvoltage wrote: post #14

Hard take which is pretty much unpalatable to HN crowd: If I had a small dev shop, I would put out an hiring ad that says you must drop off your resume in person and we will only hire people from 50 mile radius. Like they used to do in 1970's. Not a fan of: 1) Global pool of candidates 2) Leet code bullshit 3) Remote work Fan of 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. 2) You will be part of our family, we'…

> 2) You will be part of our family Treating business like a part of the family is a bad idea. You will end up with nepotism in the organization and shun out new ideas. Yet some real businesses embrace this mantra and bad things have been happening.

It's actually quite the opposite, the stronger underlying bonds, the more space for arguments. The less you know someone, the nicer you are to them.

Re: Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

#110

Post by swatcoder »

glass3 wrote: post #18

Applicants could organize in a guild. The members can rate each other in a friendly environment with constructive feedback. Then, the guild knows who are the best matches for a given job. Employers at first communicate with the guild and only have to evaluate 5-10 candidates. All interviewed candidates pool their knowledge about the employer so the next suggestions from the guild will be even better matches. Medieval…

That's certainly a way that our industry might mature (and it will need to mature eventually), but a guild becomes its own political organization with issues of corruption, bureaucracy, inaccessibility, inequity, etc that compete against quality of craft. It does ensure some stability in quality, but makes it much harder to break into the craft, much hard to approach the craft in different ways, favors artisans who can "play the right game and know the right people", and loses some efficiency to all the political overhead.

We might be close to developing that model, or we might not. I personally don't know that we need to rush there. I'm of the auto-didactic hustler crop of hacker/engineers and many of us wouldn't have fared well if there was already a strong guild culture as we were coming up. I'm not sure I'm ready to start building that wall behind me yet.

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