Are you at least tracking where in the funnel you are losing candidates?
Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
391–400 of 794 posts
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…
> perhaps pay people to complete the assignments. Assuming this is legal at all according to current employment contracts, it's a huge pain for the new employer's payroll and more stuff to keep track for the employee's income tax.
I've interviewed twice at a place that pays for time spent in the technical assessment, since it involves writing actual production code for them, and never had any issues on my end. I'd rather do this than grind leet code for 2 months.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. Completely agree here - like a fool I recently went through an entire day's worth interviews for a role (hello Stripe recruiters!!) that required both me and my wife taking PTO, with her looking after the kids while I talked to one junior dev after another abo…
> like a fool I recently went through an entire day's worth interviews for a role whats the alternative though. why do you consider that foolish?
I personally 'rank' my full day interviews. I put them off until I have a good sample of companies lined up. Then I line up my 'best' company first, and the 'worst' company last. Basically, the goal is that by the time I get to the company i'm not as interested in, I have an offer from another one. That way I can frankly tender my resignation in before I get to that interview. I may or may not complete the last interviews depending.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#394I am going to add one thing that I haven't heard here. You probably need to raise the cash in your offer by a lot. Most mid-size companies think that they can get away with offering equity at a ridiculous valuation and attract people who aren't true believers. Most people aren't true believers in miscellaneous DevOps that doesn't involve a lot of code. I have spoken to a few series-C and D companies that wanted to gi…
You're either undervaluing common stock or vastly overvaluing preferred stock. Probably the latter? If you join with options for preferred stock (assuming anyone is going to do such a thing), you're probably getting a 1x liquidation preference. But preferred stock has a higher fair market value than common stock. So the strike price will be higher. Probably close to the liquidation preference. Which means, you're ask…
Oh no, that calculation was for equity, not for an option. An option would have totally different pricing models, and it would likely be closer in value due to the strike prices. However, options are probably overvalued a LOT by startups. They think they are like equities, when they are a lot more like... options.
Also, 10x is a little off, but I also work on infrastructure and infrastructure companies tend to get acquired rather than IPOing.
Edit - as for the actual terms of the stocks in question, it was never what you were thinking (1x preference), but I probably can't say what it was.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes companies pay for the time it takes to complete a take-home project. I think it’s a good idea, especially now given all the hiring freezes and especially for a remote position where the applicant has no idea how many other applicants (around the country/world) they might be competing against.
In the past often the ones that didn't pay would at least fly you over to headquarters and wine/dine you and put you up at a hotel for a night or two, which was a nice "off the books" payment.
Sounds like a deep penalty to this senior: I have learned to hate flights, corporate hotels are mostly crap (even expensive ones), it is very unlikely I desire another trip to that city, I hate wasting a day for that, and I really care about how good my food tastes.
That could sound nice to an inexperienced junior?
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#396 - Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#397POST THE SALARY. Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment. Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs. They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an…
I've tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don't want people primarily motivated by money...
Respectfully, I think that's nonsense.
It's called "work" because it's what you do to get money. It's not a hobby, nor an idealistic crusade (both of those are fine things, but they're different to "work").
The reason you work is to get money. That's the only motivation. You might choose between different work options on another basis, but the reason you're there at all is money.
Anyone trying to recruit people who doesn't accept this will fail.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the hiring manager cannot distinguish a smooth talker for a senior role position, maybe the hiring manager is the problem. There is nothing a work sample can provide what a conversation cannot show for a senior role.
Okay so now we're hiring a hiring manager and a developer, great. ...or maybe people in this thread just don't like having to prove they know things in an industry where a lot of people don't know things.
> having to prove they know things in an industry where a lot of people don't know things.
The number of people I have interviewed who have been unable to code fibonacci or fizzbuzz, even the number of people with "senior" in their resume, is genuinely remarkable. I can appreciate the tiresome nature of interviews, but someone having to demonstrate that are not simply fakers is, simply, critical to the hiring process.
For people who are "hired by network", that is a different story. But if someone is coming in through the front gate, I will insist on having some kind of technical scrutiny, in technical and documented form, rather than simple conversations.
Work sample tests, according to the literature HN member `tokenadult` has gathered, provide the best predictor of future work.
My druthers today is for senior engineers to provide two work samples: code and design. Neither _particularly_ long or _particularly_ challenging, in a time frame that is not onerous. If the engineer has a portfolio with recent work, that is, IMO, a suitable replacement for code. Again, the point is to elicit fakery and have a demonstration of being able to do good work.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#399> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
Seriously. Pretty insulting to assign a senior a 4 hr take home assignment when the hiring manager can just pick up the phone and talk to references, look up authored papers, etc. Ridiculous. Glad the tide is turning in favor of workers.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm super happy that you found such a fulfilling role! Was wondering if you could elaborate on this a bit: > I set up a small company, so I could buy toys, and started following my own muse.
The Great Rift Valley Software Company[0] is a small corporation that allowed me to use a bit of my retirement money without tax penalties. [0] https://riftvalleysoftware.com
Could you expand on the tax side of that a bit?
This is the first time I've heard of using a personal retirement account to pay business expenses without tax penalties, and I'm not finding any relevant hits on Google.