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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?

#41

Post by elbigbad »

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'…

This is so on point, back in the 20s I got my first tech job by putting an onion on my belt (that was the style at the time) and going to the company with a resume and shaking their hand and not releasing until they agreed to give me a job. Kids these days don’t know the value of a handshake and a drop by. I grew with them as a family and still hold the job to this day. The name of that company? The International Business Machines Corporation aka Big Blue.

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

#42

Post by BeetleB »

A lot of this is game theory at play.

> 1. Applicants must wade through large volumes of job postings, which are often poorly written, and frequently lacking key information which is important to the applicant.

This is nothing new - it's been this way for over 20 years. Job postings are not more poorly written than in the past.

> 2. Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements.

Because many/most employers are willing to hire people who don't meet the minimum requirements. Or rather, they are sloppy when they made the job posting. Therefore, applicants who actually honor the minimum requirements are at a disadvantage.

> 3. Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants.

Same reason as above. Employers got themselves into this mess because they are not strict with their minimum requirements.

I don't have solutions for the whole system, but a given employer can do much to improve things:

1. Employer posts accurate postings and are strict about minimum requirements. Applicants who submit applications where they clearly are not meeting the requirements are blacklisted for a year (make this clear up front).

2. Do not let people apply to more than 3 positions at once.

3. Require a proper cover letter.

4. Develop a reputation for good candidate management. If someone applies, they should hear from you in a decent timeframe (even if it is a simple rejection).

5. Write in reasonable detail about the interview process. Will it involve Leetcode style questions? Etc.

Most applicants will just not apply to you, but that's fine. The key to making it work is step 4. As an example, I almost never include a cover letter, because it consumes a lot of my time, and I discovered that over 90% of openings that have an option for a cover letter never read them. If I'm submitting a cover letter, I want a strong commitment that it will be read.

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

#43

Post by sokoloff »

noirbot wrote: post #30
sokoloff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the problem in 2 is on the applicant side (shotgunning applications to every opening).

Sure, but that's a classic tragedy of the commons. I've been applying selectively to some places over time, and have had less than 10% even send me a rejection letter. As an applicant, if I actually needed a job, I can't afford to send out a handful of applications and wait 2-3 weeks to find out if I'm even being considered before sending out more. EDIT: Now that I think about it, I've often had companies who did int…

If you’re applying to jobs that you (more or less) meet the qualifications for, there’s nothing at all for anyone to object to.

What I do find negative (and unlikely to succeed anyway) is people shotgunning to roles that they aren’t remotely qualified for.

I think qualified applicants have a hard time believing the volume of utterly unqualified applicants who knock on the virtual door of every SWE opening.

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

#44

Post by noirbot »

ldehaan wrote: post #25

Using all of these hiring tools is the issue. They didn't work 20 years ago, still don't work, however interviewing someone like they're a person, asking questions, finding their passion, that has had 100% return for me and my companies. Word of mouth has been the best way I've been able to hire a lot of really skilled people. My team members have told me many times that I'm the best manager they've ever had. It's be…

I'm curious though - if I'm a skilled person who wants to find "a place worth working for" how would I do that? Especially in a remote work world? Most of the places I've worked over the years are smaller and more niche companies and teams that I wouldn't have known to look for if I didn't already know someone working there.

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?

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

#45

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

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'…

I like that.

I was a hiring manager for 25 years. I hired experienced C++ engineers, for fairly hairy algorithm work (image processing pipelines).

Leetcode was absolutely worthless. There was no way to test for the stuff we did. The algorithms were nowhere to be found in most textbooks (they could be found in some textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars, though).

Also, our company was cheap. They offered "competitive" salaries. This probably reduced our candidate pool by 90%. We were a marquée imaging company (great to have on your résumé), so the only folks that applied, were fairly serious about the job.

I had to filter for folks that had the basic tech chops to get into our codebase, and also had the ability to learn the stuff we did.

It was challenging.

Also, once we hired someone, Japan wouldn't even acknowledge their existence, until they'd been on the team for at least a year. Training them on our algorithms was also a multi-year process, so I hired for the "long haul," and keeping people for many years was important.

I didn't look for people that would work crazy hours, but I wanted folks that would be dedicated enough to the job, that they would be conscientious in their work, and put in extra time, if needed (which I was careful not to do too often).

I looked for folks that I thought could work in an extremely diverse team; spread throughout the world, and that were capable of treating their teammates with respect; not competition.

I did OK. Never had a technical bomb, but I did make a couple of mistakes, when it came to folks that could integrate into the team. They generally found it uncomfortable, and went their way, but that still hurt, because of all the time we had to invest.

All very old-fashioned stuff, and probably not representative of most of today's companies.

I will say, that, towards the end of my tenure, there, the HR started to get really rapacious. They were run by the Corporate General Counsel, and tended to treat the employees as threats. Shielding my team from them was pretty important, and it meant that I was occasionally called on the carpet.

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

#47

Post by BeetleB »

p1esk wrote: post #19
roland35 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One unfortunate side effect of referral bonuses is that they don't really help increase diversity since employees are most likely to refer friends from their existing social circles. I didn't realize that at first!

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

Of course you would. That is exactly the problem.

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

#48

Post by kelseyfrog »

To answer the title question, because that's the subjective experience of commodifying oneself for the market. It's specifically the cognitive dissonance resulting in the erroneous assumption that social relations are primarily not economic relations in an environment, more than almost any other, that is evidently the opposite. The sooner that one realizes that one's job search is primarily a performance in commodification of labor, the easier it is to get over it and move on.

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

#49

Post by newswasboring »

donatj wrote: post #34

In 2006 when I got my first dev job, I sat down with the lead developer for about half an hour and we largely just had a very friendly and informal conversation talking about how I would hypothetically build things, what software I enjoy using, etc. I very vividly remember talking about how great I thought it was you could do basic math in the Firefox search bar at the time. He left to talk to the owner, came back wi…

> When I started at my current gig over a decade ago I had a three-day ordeal of interviews. In person, telephone, full day of in person again. Spoke with at least six different sets of people.

These kinds of processes just feel designed to dilute the blame.

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

#50

Post by georgeecollins »

This isn't a fix exactly, but for a long time now the only jobs I ever take are either with people who know me or people who know someone who recommended me. Like a lot of people here I had to randomly apply to all kind of jobs and got rejected for practically everything when I started.

So my suggestion would be: think about people you know or could meet and ask them if they like where they work? Are they hiring? Then, if you have a position somewhere you don't need to be perfect, but it helps to be memorable.

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