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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?

#51

Post by VirusNewbie »

Anecdotally, last year I did loops with Netflix and Google and was incredibly impressed by how they were conducted.

The coding questions at both places were not anything I had seen before (despite studying on leetcode), however none of them needed any esoteric tricks or algorithms. Recursion, loops, hashmaps, lists, etc was all that was needed to pass the coding portions.

I'd say the questions would be considered 'hard' on leetcode, but still only needing fundamental understanding of DS&A. And I was given about 40 minutes.

I also had some coding rounds that were 100% practical stuff. Basic 'data munging' kind of stuff. It was non trivial but again nothing weird or funky.

System design rounds were practical and engaging and fun.

I think the template is pretty solid, it's just most places have poor implementation (and from what I've heard, it's very possible to roll poorly at Google and get someone who asks a super weird or challenging question).

When I first started studying for interviews, I would absolutely panic with someone watching me, I could barely do a proper for loop. But after enough practice it became fine.

Overall the interviews were challenging but NOT what I was expecting, I thought they did a good job of asking unseen questions that tested coding fundamentals.

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

#52

Post by p1esk »

noirbot wrote: post #23
sfe22 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you get it after 90 days, by then they will probably know if it is a bad fit.

Sure, but if it's a bad fit, it's still tied to you. Your team or some other team is now blaming you for their bad hire and you don't get the money.

I never felt like that when recommending someone. First of all, before referring someone, I'd personally interview them and make sure I want to work with them. And after that the candidate would still go through all the usual interview rounds (sans the initial recruiter's screen). The decision would still be collective - everyone on the team still has to write a review and give thumbs up.

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

#53

Post by BeetleB »

sokoloff wrote: post #13
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #4

> 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. > Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements. > Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants. Employers should stop casting such a wide net, then. If you…

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

As I mentioned in another comment, the problem with 2 is that employers routinely hire people who don't meet the minimum requirements. If you don't apply to those jobs because you don't satisfy that one bullet out of the 6 they listed, you're hurting your chances.

They can fix it by actually posting minimum requirements.

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

#54

Post by noirbot »

BeetleB wrote: post #42

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 t…

I was going to ask about Cover Letters. Why do you think that's such a big improvement, especially in the current AI Generation zone? Most of the time I've written a cover letter, it may as well have been written by an AI, or I simply recycled another one I'd written and changed the names.

If you're actually going to reject someone for having a bad cover letter, does that not heavily bias against people who aren't as proficient in your chosen language?

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

#55

Post by donatj »

newswasboring wrote: post #49
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.

I kind of feel like it's no department wanting to feel left out of the process.

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

#56

Post by noirbot »

sokoloff wrote: post #43
noirbot wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what would a company do about that? That feels like complaining people don't read their email because of spam. You can't unilaterally prevent spammers, you can just improve filtering, which is something that's more on the company than something to blame on applicants.

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

#57

Post by yamtaddle »

ghaff wrote: post #40
yamtaddle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just require applications to be sent by mail. Explain why you're doing it up-front. The tiny hassle and tens-of-cents cost should cut volume down tremendously. [EDIT] Incidentally, in the age of ChatGPT, I suspect I'm going to be recommending this more and more often for a lot more use-cases....

It's an interesting idea, especially if you largely automate the analog->digital ingress process. Unfortunately, you probably would have an adverse selection process. Anyone who can (or thinks they can) easily land a job will be F this crap. And the truly desperate will jump through the hoops.

> Unfortunately, you probably would have an adverse selection process. Anyone who can (or thinks they can) easily land a job will be F this crap. And the truly desperate will jump through the hoops.

I usually think that's the case when adding barriers, but I think it's also the case that the best devs aren't usually shotgunning résumés anyway, so if they really want to apply, it's not that big a deal.

Personally, I'd find "mail your résumé, with [name of role] on the envelope" less onerous than filling out the same fucking work-history shit that's already on my résumé on yet another form... for the dozenth time in a day. Hell, I bet I can have Kinkos or something do it for me for a couple bucks—print this PDF, mail it—if I don't want to do it myself.

It'd be less off-putting than "do this automatically-graded l33tcode exercise before we even look at your application", certainly. I'd actually find it encouraging that a human's likely to be the first one to see the document, without any gate-keeping in front of that, and knowing that the volume's likely to be much lower than all-online processes, so I'm less likely to just get lost in the pile.

Meanwhile, I think the desperate might skip it in the name of pursuing volume. Differs too much from normal procedures.

But, I might be wrong.

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

#58

Post by p1esk »

BeetleB wrote: post #47
p1esk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course you would. That is exactly the problem.

I am more productive (and generally happier) when working with people I like, and can relate to. Communication is better too, which is pretty important.

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

#59

Post by wobbly_bush »

roland35 wrote: post #12
p1esk wrote: post #2

In one of the startups I worked at, when we really needed to find good people, CEO raised the referral bonus from 3k to 10k, paid 90 days after start date. In another startup, management asked every IC on hiring teams to find at least one potential candidates - every week. Time to find them was allocated into sprints. The referral bonus was raised from 2k to 3k. The first example was more successful from what I remem…

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!

Interestingly, one of the actual AIs from DEI teams is to ask for referrals from existing diverse candidates.

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

#60

Post by e40 »

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…

It does sound like a good idea. I worry about the unintended side effects of it, though. It will make "who you know" much more important and people with few connections will be penalized, regardless of how good they are.
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