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Destroy all hiring processes

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Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#2
> even if we don’t have a sense of ethics we do have a problem of numbers, and more desks and seats and spots than people to fill them

I get this a lot, but it is amazingly self-inflicted. Almost all of the random job offers i seem to be getting from people i don't know are from clients who:

- underpay

- demand on-site only

- don't even look at the copious provided code samples, only at the CV

The reason for that is simple: A lot of companies view developers as identical to factory workers. There is nothing more to it.

--

Sadly i think this is not something that writing blog posts about can possibly help. The people making these mistakes when looking for developers make them because they are ignorant and do not care enough to gather the required knowledge. Until they realize their "illiteracy" and wish to fix it themselves, the scale of this education problem makes it unassailable.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#3
> Even among the most common demographics for developers (American, male, white, skewing young and middle-class background), we are absolutely abysmal at this..

How does nationality, gender, race, age, and income level have _anything_ to do with this at all?

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#4
I disagree with this. Coding interviews are great. The interviewer needs to realise though that they're not there to be an adversary or a judge, but to help the candidate demonstrate their skills, to help the candidate get the job.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#5

> Even among the most common demographics for developers (American, male, white, skewing young and middle-class background), we are absolutely abysmal at this.. How does nationality, gender, race, age, and income level have _anything_ to do with this at all ?

People tend, consciously or not, to recruit most heavily from among people like themselves (for lots of reasons which aren't necessarily bad: a lot of referrals are based on knowing someone, for example, and a lot of peoples' social circles/contacts tend to be pretty homogeneous to begin with).

In other words, even on the easiest default approach (recruiting from people similar to ourselves), we suck. God help us as we try to recruit from people dissimilar to ourselves.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#6
I would offer that the subtle point missed in coding interviews is the ability of the interviewer to judge the flexibility, poise, and social skills of the interviewee. That seemed very important during my interviews. This may be why the best advice is to "talk it out"

Any yay-or-nay judgements based on hastily-written program output should be taken with a grain of salt by both parties.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#7

> Even among the most common demographics for developers (American, male, white, skewing young and middle-class background), we are absolutely abysmal at this.. How does nationality, gender, race, age, and income level have _anything_ to do with this at all ?

People tend, consciously or not, to recruit most heavily from among people like themselves (for lots of reasons which aren't necessarily bad: a lot of referrals are based on knowing someone, for example, and a lot of peoples' social circles/contacts tend to be pretty homogeneous to begin with). In other words, even on the easiest default approach (recruiting from people similar to ourselves), we suck. God help us as…

IMHO you are subconsciously profiling if that is what you're doing in your hiring i.e., making assumptions about people's skills/talent based on any of those attributes.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#8

> Even among the most common demographics for developers (American, male, white, skewing young and middle-class background), we are absolutely abysmal at this.. How does nationality, gender, race, age, and income level have _anything_ to do with this at all ?

Most examination / testing procedures rely more or less overtly on various cultural assumptions to obtain comparable and acceptably accurate results. In the western world these assumptions are generally those shared by white, somewhat affluent people (I recall reading an interesting explanation from David Foster Wallace to his students on the necessity of being able to use "correct" - i.e. not ethnic dialects - English).

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#9
As both an interviewer and interviewee at Weebly, I'm pretty confident in saying I prefer our approach of the trial week. It really gives a great opportunity for the candidate to show off their skills without the on-the-spot pressure of a coding interview. A great side-effect is the candidate gets to determine if they like the team, and vice versa. I honestly wouldn't work somewhere else where I couldn't come in for at least a few days to meet and work with the team.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#10
post #4

I disagree with this. Coding interviews are great. The interviewer needs to realise though that they're not there to be an adversary or a judge, but to help the candidate demonstrate their skills, to help the candidate get the job.

I feel like all you're saying is 'Coding interviews could be great' not 'coding interviews are great'.
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