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We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

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Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#41

Post by santialbo »

chirau wrote: post #30
santialbo wrote: post #14

I´ve recently been in charge of hiring a lot of people and have probably done +100 interviews in the last year. I generally don´t mind the stack/language candidates have been using but I always value very highly that they have used different stacks and languages during their whole carrer. When I interview 5+ years .NET developers who haven't used another language, not even in their spare time, the result is usually a…

If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been recruiting for and what size/type of companies are you recruiting for? Top tier, Fortune 500 or just mere funded startups? Context is everything. Also, I find people abuse the word signal. How are you generating your signal? And is it just within your domain of companies you recruit for or across the whole industry?

Small consulting company (~30 developers).

I only interview for developer positions.

For me a signal is something (good or bad) that hints about a the developer skills and curiosity. They can be as simple as knowing about their preferred programming environment: if you claim you are a 5+ year senior .NET programmer and you haven't even heard about .NET Core to me, that is a bad signal.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#42

Post by flor1s »

qxzw wrote: post #25

How important is GPA? I will soon get my Master's degree in CS, but it is via the path of least resistence. Therefore GPA is not shiny. I decided that spending my finite time and energy can be better, so I concentrated on coding (my own projects) and socializing, sports and games etc. When I studied for exams, at point where I knew that I was going to pass, I shifted to other projects. Next year when I join the workf…

It depends (TM)

Some companies value GPA a lot, others do not value it so much at all. See https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-GPA-matter-when-applying...

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#43

Post by ssijak »

grabcocque wrote: post #18

I always forget how much the enlightened community of Hacker News loves to downvote comments drawing attention to the heavily young white privileged male-centric hiring policies of many tech companies. Honestly, you'd think I'd learn, that this community does not like to be reminded quite how regressive our gender, class and racial politics looks to the outside world.

Keywords much?

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#44

Post by hvidgaard »

santialbo wrote: post #14

I´ve recently been in charge of hiring a lot of people and have probably done +100 interviews in the last year. I generally don´t mind the stack/language candidates have been using but I always value very highly that they have used different stacks and languages during their whole carrer. When I interview 5+ years .NET developers who haven't used another language, not even in their spare time, the result is usually a…

I've been at the other end of that scale. I've had a fair few candidates that have used 10 different stacks, but wasn't truly good at any of them. On the other hand, I've had candidates with 10 years of C#, but used it in different settings, web, backend, actor based system, ect, and they blew the socks of most other candidates. What I look for, is that they show versatility and depth. The combination is really important.

I usually sift through candidates based on CV, and then a first interview where I try to asset how good the candidate is at his/hers prefered stack. Then I throw them in the deep end of the pool to see how they cope in the unknown. That can be having a pure C# OOP guy write some SML, or Java/VB/C++ guy write Haskell. I've also tasked a guy that worked with OCaml to write some workflow component in JS.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#45

Post by steve19 »

bertil wrote: post #5
orf wrote: post #3

> We like to think that we’re different from all those industries that judge people based on appearance, but we do the same thing, only instead of saying that people are a bad fit because they don’t wear ties, we say they’re a bad fit because they do, and instead of saying people aren’t smart enough because they don’t have the right pedigree… wait, that’s exactly the same. This is a great quote and an interesting poi…

Also in the UK, and I would definitely not be surprised to see candidates show up with suits at places where that’s obviously not required. No one cares. “Pedigree” that’s another question. I did show up in a tailored three-piece suit with a tie and pocket for my interview at Deliveroo (a notorious streetwear influencer now). There was an eyebrow justifiably raised (by a guy in a t-shirt who, I learned afterwards, wa…

> was an eyebrow justifiably raised (by a guy in a t-shirt who, I learned afterwards, was the CEO)

Sounds like they really do care what you wear. If they did not care, they would be happy for you to turn up White tie.

Here is an app idea:

http://WhatToWearAtMyInterview.com/Deliveroo

http://WhatToWearAtMyInterview.com/Google

http://WhatToWearAtMyInterview.com/Google/Software

http://WhatToWearAtMyInterview.com/Google/Marketing

http://WhatToWearAtMyInterview.com/Google/HR

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#46

Post by consp »

qxzw wrote: post #25

How important is GPA? I will soon get my Master's degree in CS, but it is via the path of least resistence. Therefore GPA is not shiny. I decided that spending my finite time and energy can be better, so I concentrated on coding (my own projects) and socializing, sports and games etc. When I studied for exams, at point where I knew that I was going to pass, I shifted to other projects. Next year when I join the workf…

In my experience there are three types. Note: We don't have GPA, but some companies look at study grades (some only masters, others bachelors grades) and some even go further back to high school/middle school which would be sort of GPA.

The types I've met (companies/recruiters alike):

1) Don't care, look at what you think you can do and your motivation for that assessment. They usually also give some form of shorter first contract or traineeship with reduced pay while in training but at least you will get a chance. On the other end, they hire you simply because you have the relevant skill set and show good work ethics (e.g. can work on your own, which is somewhat deducible from your curriculum).

2) Select solely on bachelors/masters grades and don't care about GPA/High school. In my experience this dies out as soon as you have +3 years of work experience. There are so many levels in this category from only looking at relevant fields or looking at all even non relevant.

3) Look at GPA/High/middle/etc school grades and everything else to 'properly select' their employees. They pay good though and usually wear suits, most of them to hide their incompetence in the field they should excel in (I'm not claiming they aren't any good, but usually not in what they are supposed to do).

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#48

Post by arethuza »

lmm wrote: post #34
arethuza wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I fear I might if they continued to wear something overly formal at work" Why would you be bothered about what someone wears at work - formal or informal?

I would be bothered that someone dressing excessively formal might act excessively formally - after all, dressing formally is normally a deliberate display of conformity.

How can be it be an act of conformity to dress formally in an environment where it isn't the done thing?

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#49

Post by dirktheman »

philliphaydon wrote: post #33
dirktheman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had an interviewee showing up in shorts and t-shirt. Turns out he wanted to combine the interview with a tee off time in the afternoon. While not customary (even though we don't wear suits/business attire at our company) he totally got away with it and it didn't affect the interview.

I’ve only interviewed in jeans and a tshirt, never had issue, but was thanked by one company for not showing up in a suit.

I did interviews in suit before, but if I ever have to do interviews again I'm not going to do that anymore. I hate suits, they don't fit me well and I don't feel comfortable in them. I think it is silly that it is 'expected' to wear a suit for a job interview where none of the employees wear suits. For finance/legal it's different matter, obviously.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#50

Post by CoolGuySteve »

chirau wrote: post #9

I disagree with this article, to some extent at least. Perhaps it's specific for trendy companies and startups. Most of which are just looking for the next shiny object, true. However, when you look at companies that move the needle in different industries, companies that have repute, market share and profitability, they couldn't care less what is trending these days. They look for domain expertise and excellence. I…

It’s funny you use Renaissance as an example. They won’t give me the time of day because they “don’t hire people from finance”. Which is just as much of a bullshit reason as the ones from the start of the article.
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