Destroy all hiring processes • Hacker News Board

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#101

Post by thaumasiotes » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 2:48 AM UTC

redblacktree wrote: post #100

thaumasiotes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? That's the only way to even measure your false negative rate. I'd call it an upgrade to what almost everyone does now.

Sure, but as the linked article emphasizes, these are humans you're talking about. I would never intentionally create a hiring process where we accept a large false-positive rate (I think you meant false positive? As in, we thought he was good, but he wasn't) with the expectation that we'll just fire the poor performers. It's inhumane.

No, I meant the false negative rate. Imagine you have a hiring process. It marks some applicants as "should hire" and some as "shouldn't hire". False negatives are marked "shouldn't hire" when really you should have hired them.

The only way to determine your false negative rate is to hire a bunch of "shouldn't hire"s and see how they work out.

Easy hire, easy fire is inhumane to people who believe that once you get one job somewhere your problems are over. Never-hire-because-we-never-want-to-fire is inhumane to people who interview poorly and do good work -- they're humans too. You can't win them all.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#102

Post by Schwolop » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

eveningcoffee wrote: post #99

msoad wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't say all the array includes all numbers with no repeats ect ect...

This is also case with the job interviews. Some information is actually missing/not obvious and interviewers may actually evaluate your reaction to this situation because this would also model (to some degree) a real life situation. So I added the missing bits (and fixed typos). You have an array size of n of integers from 1 to n, that is not sorted. There are no duplicate numbers in this array. One of the numbers go…

FWIW I've had this same question in an interview years ago in Australia. Don't recall seeing the second part (which is more interesting, mathematically), but it just goes to show how many questions end up re-used by different companies as their employees travel.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#103

Post by jbapple » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 10:45 AM UTC

dustywusty wrote: post #27

larzang wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you handle the currently-employed with a such a setup? Having to either give notice or use up a week's worth of vacation days just for an extended interview at a single company sounds like a real horror show from the interviewee end. Contract-to-hire at least gives you a couple months of fairly sure income.

I was employed when I did my trial week at Weebly, and I had to use a week's vacation to do it. Weebly paid for my time, not to mention the trip to SF. Obviously it was worth it to me, but I can see where you're coming from.

Many employees have contracts that do not allow them to do outside paid work.

Re: Destroy all hiring processes

#104

Post by JB8130 » Fri, Oct 23, 2015, 11:06 PM UTC

I didn't read the entire article, I stopped after a couple of paragraphs. The problem as I see it is companies are trying to hire coders when they really want Software Engineers. Or maybe I should say they are trying to buy a Software engineer but only willing to pay the coder rate.

A good Software engineer can design a program or system and not even have to know the programming language, they understand software and how it should work. I have on many occasions told our SQL coders/programmers where problems are and how to fix them without ever having programmed in SQL.

The key is the Software Engineer understands the fundamentals of the system as an engineer and understand how everything goes together and should work. For example, if you are designing a business system, you engineers understand how the business works and how the program can help it. The coders know how to implement the design but not the why's.

If you are hiring outside vendors then it is even worse. They are coders that know nothing about your business or your project or what you are trying to do but they do know how to code something, let you try it, have you change it and try it again and change it again and try it again an...you get the picture. If you hire a software engineer that understands software and learns your business, they can develop design documents that can then direct your vendor. This creates a better product the first time and at a lower cost.

The schools today are creating more and more programmers and fewer Software Engineers.