We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else • Hacker News Board

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#31

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #10

Gyonka wrote: post #4

I really agree with the sentiment of audition projects. The interviews I have enjoyed the most all involved some sort of take-home project, although I have never been paid for one. On that note, how expensive does it become for a startup to dole out many interview projects across a wide range of candidates? I think a better strategy would be to conduct preliminary interviews and then based on some granularity, assign…

Here's a problem with audition projects: I would never be able to take part in one, since my current job contract has a clause forbidding me from simultaneously working for any competitor in the same field. (This is a German job contract; I don't know if such clauses are common in the US or elsewhere, too.) So in order to work on an audition project, I'd have to be unemployed already.

Those clauses are really hard to enforce generally. They're effectively restraint of trade. Your time not working for your employer is your time. Your employer is on dodgy ground specifying what you can do in it. At least that's the interpretation most places I've worked (UK and Australia). Germany may be different.

But specifically if you were taking an interview rather than working a side job you could make the argument that the clause didn't apply in any case.

It all comes down to how much you pissed off your ex-employer by leaving, and how much they want revenge. No-one is going to gain anything from suing you after you've moved jobs.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#32

Post by Raphmedia » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

karterk wrote: post #6

This might be an unpopular opinion on HN, but another example of this problem manifests in the sheer volume of companies that require a HackerRank screening test these days. Apart from the clumsy web editor, recording someone under a time constraint means nothing in the larger context of how a programmer's actual work happens. Sigh. By using such automated tests, companies want to identify top talent by taking a shor…

To me those interviews methods are very helpful.

I know to get away from those companies and never come back. If our values differ so much at the interview stage, it won't get any better a few months from now.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#33

Post by struppi » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:24 PM UTC

Also: Give the "not-the-best" people a chance to develop.

The CEO of one of my past clients, a consulting company, always said: "You can teach everyone to be a great programmer". And he put his money where his mouth was: He hired people with no programming experience (even with no university education) and personally trained them for several months. Also, senior people in the company were encouraged to also help them and guid them.

He had to fire some of those people later, mostly because they were not a good fit for the company. But some of them became great programmers and software consultants.

"Hire only the best" is really only half of the battle. Give people an environment where learning is encouraged and failure is expected. And help them wherever you can. Most will learn and enjoy it.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#34

Post by OpenDrapery » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

elcapitan wrote: post #11

de_Selby wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like it would scale well for the applicant.

It works well in my experience, but we have only used it at smaller scale. 2-3 days working together with somebody is already way more telling than stupid interviews, buzzword compliant skillsets and unrealistic tests.

How would it work in "your experience" if you were the job seeker and not the interviewer? Taking a week of PTO to interview and then not get the job is a pretty big sunk cost. I guess you can only do one of these a year.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#35

Post by cubano » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

I've said it for many many years...hiring selects for those whom interview well and have good social engineering skills, not necessarily for those whom can get the job done and make the company successful.

The utterly meaningless "top 1%" metric always makes me laugh. By definition then 99 of every 100 engineers don't make that cut, which means, again by definition, your team has very few if any of them, no matter what hiring practices you employ.

Plus I've found that very often management uses the "oh we hired the wrong people" as an easy cover for its own failings.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#36

Post by ern » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #13

My team does take-home project, a small problem to solve that should take at most a couple hours. It's the same problem for every candidate so we're judging them on common work. It's not real work, it's made up. In interviewing discussions in places like HN, there is enough pushback against this idea, which is a bit surprising to me. I thought a few hours work was reasonable when I was interviewing. But my point is t…

You allude to a bigger problem: anyone outside the industry who looks at the hiring process for developers would be put off. I know anecdotally that the industry is struggling to get students interested in software development as a career, and good developers are loathe to leave their jobs. I don't blame either group.

Would I want my kids to spend their careers being put through the wringer of multiple high-stakes interviews or be forced to moonlight in order to get jobs, something that gets progressively harder as people reach their thirties and gain extra responsibilities? No. Rather stay away from the field entirely and look for a more stable career.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#37

Post by autotune » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

> Linux, Ruby, and JavaScript chops

One of these things is not like the others.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#38

Post by was_boring » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:32 PM UTC

OpenDrapery wrote: post #29

I work in the "boring" old insurance industry, based in the midwest. I love reading articles like these, and as I read them I get excited and say to myself "yea!" and "spot on!". But they seem to center around startups and Silicon Valley. The truth is, when it comes to building, maintaining, and supporting internal, line of business apps, management isn't even pretending to look for high end talent. They want predict…

I had a job like that once, and it was clear to me I didn't fit there for a variety of reasons so I left because I wanted to make a difference at my job and not be a "resource". I then got a job at a "stable" startup working remotely for twice the pay that the boring industry would pay.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#39

Post by Tenhundfeld » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #25

karterk wrote: post #6

This might be an unpopular opinion on HN, but another example of this problem manifests in the sheer volume of companies that require a HackerRank screening test these days. Apart from the clumsy web editor, recording someone under a time constraint means nothing in the larger context of how a programmer's actual work happens. Sigh. By using such automated tests, companies want to identify top talent by taking a shor…

People who ask for more complicated code than "reverse a string" or "fizzbuzz" in a remote code screen is doing it wrong. People who can't code, compile, and run a fizzbuzz in an hour are probably not fit to be hired. Asking someone to implement a proper Diffie-Hellman over Hackerrank is ludicrous, on the other hand. Interviewers should err on the side of stupidly simple problems. A surprising number of people can't…

>A surprising number of people can't code a loop in the languages on their resumes.

I guess you can reach two conclusions from that:

1) A surprising number of applicants are totally misrepresenting their abilities – either through deceit or wild ignorance.

2) Something about your interview process makes a surprising number of people unable to perform at their normal level – from nervousness, unrealistic and artificial constraints, etc.

Certainly many of those applicants fall into the first bucket, but I'm betting a large portion fall into the second. So, you might reconsider whether the false negatives and highly unpleasant experience for many interviewees are worth the perceived value. Maybe there's a better way to get the same insights.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#40

Post by mathattack » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

There's a very big time cost to hiring just the best. If you're afraid of even one bad hire, then a growing company must be willing to have all their managers and top employees commit 20+% of their time to hiring. Then you ask "Is the 1-2 standard deviation in performance improvement worth it?" If the answer is yes, then it's worth it.

And... Interviews are awful. Seeing how someone work is even better. This is one reason why employee referrals are so important, and audition or temp-projects a good second-best method.

In the end I think it's a Fools Game though - someone who is best in one environment may not be that great for the next. Managing people post-hire is something that can't be avoided.