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Hire Literally Anyone

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21–30 of 78 posts

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#21
It's a great idea but the reason why this won't work is because after you have invested time to train them from nothing, they will leave for another company.

There is plenty of precedent for this, during the dotcom days and in India the last 10 years.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#22
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardized testing doesn't measure the same skills needed to be successful at creative work. Please don't ever do this.

Sure, that's why every college relies on them for admissions, not to mention everyone taking the GRE / MCAT for grad school. Are applied sciences grad programs not "creative work" in your mind? Standardized tests statistically predict success within those programs. http://portal.scienceintheclassroom.org/sites/default/files/...

What if reality is politically incorrect?

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#23

It's a great idea but the reason why this won't work is because after you have invested time to train them from nothing, they will leave for another company. There is plenty of precedent for this, during the dotcom days and in India the last 10 years.

I'm reminded of the cliche posts I see on LinkedIn about this.

What happens if we invest in our people and they leave? What if we don't, and they stay?

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#24
post #23

It's a great idea but the reason why this won't work is because after you have invested time to train them from nothing, they will leave for another company. There is plenty of precedent for this, during the dotcom days and in India the last 10 years.

I'm reminded of the cliche posts I see on LinkedIn about this. What happens if we invest in our people and they leave? What if we don't, and they stay?

Exactly this, people leave for other reasons and generally it isn't because you're investing in them. Sure it happens but it isn't the usual case in my experience.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#25
That's fine, you do that, but I do not want to be an engineer at your company. I already have a junior engineer I'm working with and it's hard enough spending hours a week making sure their PRs get fixed, every PR has 20 to 40 comments in it. With someone who doesn't even know how to code? Forget it.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#26
one of the best ways for someone who wants to start coding is to join a smaller technical company as customer support. You'll know the product intimately and you'll know how to improve quality of life for users. If you're motivated enough, start talking to engineers and contributing to the codebase and you're on your way.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#27

Isn't this what they do in Germany? http://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-pro...

Do keep in mind that the author already knew some programming before he started his apprenticeship:

"They did things differently than everyone else. Most of the company used an esoteric programming environment called Rosie SQL - which seemed like death to my Demo Szene honed sensibilities (Assembler, Pascal or bust!) - these guys used Delphi."

MathWorks is doing a similar thing to

"The first 3 months in the cafeteria meant I quickly met everyone in the company and learned what kind of coffee or tea they liked."

Mathworks starts everyone off in support, to make sure they know the products and the customers.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#28
post #7

Teaching people to develop software is hard. It requires commitment. In the framework author is describing if those people want to succeed they will not be able to do it part time while doing non-technical work for you. Also rubber ducking with the actual developer takes a lot of developer's time (and it's hard) - so the organization will take a big productivity hit if developers work half time as programming teacher…

If it is too hard to train anybody, if you don't have time to train anybody, that's okay. Just don't hire, and make sure you retain your current employees.

But if you want to grow, it's not reasonable to expect to walk down to the 7/11 and get someone who is perfect for your company. Training is hard? Growth is hard. Who promised you that running a business would be easy?

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#29
I like how he assumes that test engineering and project management are things you can just "fill someone's time with" until they learn something useful, like coding AND that someone will take 30k a year for. Really? In the valley, both test engineers and PMs for software eng projects are >90k/year positions.

I've done both of those jobs and they've both required me already knowing how to code, writing code, and having a CS degree. I think it's sort of ironic that he manages to devalue the very same non-software engineering skills he ostensibly says to value.

Re: Hire Literally Anyone

#30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standardized testing doesn't measure the same skills needed to be successful at creative work. Please don't ever do this.

Sure, that's why every college relies on them for admissions, not to mention everyone taking the GRE / MCAT for grad school. Are applied sciences grad programs not "creative work" in your mind? Standardized tests statistically predict success within those programs. http://portal.scienceintheclassroom.org/sites/default/files/...

More and more colleges are NOT using them for admissions because they predict NOTHING.
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