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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)

#131

Post by eli_gottlieb »

wavefunction wrote: post #97
Delmania wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are advantages to going to college over a boot camp or self learning. In fact, CS and SE degrees are ones that pay for themselves. If you're not willing to put in the work, that tells me you won't last long at Google.

I had to leave college early due to a family thing and start working to contribute. That was eighteen years ago, and I've put in so much work because I run into attitudes like yours. Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. The a…

>The average developer can't even CSS,

What do you mean by that? How sophisticated is it to "do CSS"? When I've dealt with it, you basically look at the inspector and at your CSS libraries of preexisting classes, and basically do a combination of attaching classes and writing new ones with custom styles until you get it all to look right.

What should I be looking to learn?

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

#132

Post by CydeWeys »

driverdan wrote: post #83
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…

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let alone not having a degree.

Most of my SWE coworkers at Google did not graduate from a "top college". Not sure where you're getting this impression from. There simply aren't enough annual graduates of the top programs to fully populate all tech companies, and there are plenty of people from other schools (like me) who also do well.

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

#133

Post by drchickensalad »

bambataa wrote: post #128

What strikes me about this is how little weight recruiters put on referrals from current employees. I would have thought that being recommended by an internal employee would get you an initial interview at the very least. Surely a trusted employee’s recommendation is more reliable than whatever random sift the recruiters have. Does anyone with experience of recruitment have any stats on how successful referred applic…

I've always known referrals to do exactly that; guarantee an interview.

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

#134

Post by CydeWeys »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #131
wavefunction wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to leave college early due to a family thing and start working to contribute. That was eighteen years ago, and I've put in so much work because I run into attitudes like yours. Of course, in the past twenty four hours I've created an app and potential side-business from a technology stack I had absolutely no experience in any of it just to prove to a potential employer I can do 'front-end' stuff for them. The a…

>The average developer can't even CSS, What do you mean by that? How sophisticated is it to "do CSS"? When I've dealt with it, you basically look at the inspector and at your CSS libraries of preexisting classes, and basically do a combination of attaching classes and writing new ones with custom styles until you get it all to look right. What should I be looking to learn?

He means do it well. There's a lot to doing CSS well, and frankly I just don't have any interest in learning all the ins and outs. It's not a fun platform to work in, it's very fiddly, and it's not exactly programming either.

There's an art-form to doing amazing pixel perfect web designs, and I really respect the people who are good at it. That's not me though, and it's never going to be me.

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

#135

Post by matwood »

driverdan wrote: post #83
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…

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let alone not having a degree.

I didn’t graduate from a top college and google has pinged me numerous times to interview. I always turn them down because I like my company and do not want to move. I may also fail the google interview, but they certainly talk to me.

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

#137

Post by alexasmyths »

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…

I think you have a valid point.

Also I think you mean 'hipster' instead of 'hippie'.

But - there are a lot of said 'hipster companies' in the Valley, moreover, the cult has spread beyond: it exists even in the copycat cities of Montreal, Van, NYC, Austin, Boulder, yada yada.

I'm well into my 30's an the last few start ups I've consulted with - both in the Valley but not well known - were undeniably trying to be too hip.

I'm as cool as late 30's something can try to be without losing any dignity :) but I felt like Grampa Simpson (not my antiquated pop culture reference)

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

#138

Post by alexasmyths »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #50
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.

The reason 'not to hire people from finance' - is that it's generally not needed at most very early stage companies.

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

#139

Post by demygale »

bambataa wrote: post #128

What strikes me about this is how little weight recruiters put on referrals from current employees. I would have thought that being recommended by an internal employee would get you an initial interview at the very least. Surely a trusted employee’s recommendation is more reliable than whatever random sift the recruiters have. Does anyone with experience of recruitment have any stats on how successful referred applic…

I don't think recruiters keep metrics on anything. Once the candidate is hired, they consider their job done. Companies appear unwilling to measure recruiting and employee success, so the inefficient hiring processes continue.

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

#140

Post by alexasmyths »

driverdan wrote: post #83
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…

Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees. Good luck getting Google to talk to you if you didn't graduate a top collage, let alone not having a degree.

"Except all of those companies put an unreasonable amount of weight on degrees"

I don't think it's 'unreasonable' at all to put strong emphasis on education.

Surely, at the end of the day it's possible to be great without it, but having a good education is pretty strongly correlating factor with so many things.

'Being cool', I don't think is correlated with much at all. Unless it's super consumer facing and inner culture is gong to have to match outer culture on some level.

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