Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 653 posts

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

#151

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

> They won’t give me the time of day because they “don’t hire people from finance”

RenTech is a weird firm. The following is a fictional account.

Out of school (I was a finance/engineering double major), I interviewed at RenTech. They told me this was my last chance, that if I worked a day on Wall Street they wouldn't want me because they didn't want that culture (I think it's more about ensuring you have no industry connections outside the firm). They're geographically isolated, encourage employees taking mortgages to buy local homes and frown on industry interactions outside the firm. If you try to leave, they will enforce their non-competes (which are legal in New York) and sue your new employer [1].

I was wary of that need for control then. Today, I think it's morally wrong. Few people can predict what will matter to them ten years down the line. If I worked at RenTech today, I'd be depressed knowing (a) my work went to enrich the likes of Robert Mercer [2], and (b) there is no exit.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/renaissance-millennium/update...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mercer_%28businessman%2...

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

#152

Post by ProAm »

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…

You have never worked with someone from Oracle. They do not try to hire remotely the best, they hire cheap. Anyone that can churn out barely functional code, use their customers to functional test it, and take often half a fiscal year to provide a bug fix for you. Oracle is now more of a technical holding company than a software company, aside from their db, they merely pickup/purchase new companies and wring them out for revenue. Anything Oracle writes themselves is usually terrible.

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

#153

Post by jstewartmobile »

wolfgke wrote: post #93
jstewartmobile wrote: post #86

It would be nice if the process were a little more transparent. If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge difference. If X were stupid, they'd know they missed a bullet. If X were rooted in a misunderstanding, they'd have a chance to clear it up. There is so much side-channel information used in the corporate hiring process, and it gets mixed-up in HR far more often than an…

> If people just knew that a company rejected them for reason X, that would make a huge difference. Give a thanks to the discrimination laws. Companies don't want to give any leads for getting sued.

Discrimination laws are probably just a drop in the bucket.

Once you start getting into drug tests, references, background checks, credit reports, reservists, social media, etc., it's suicidal to share any more than the bare minimum.

In the US, we have a so-called right to privacy, but that's not really true with employers today. The information asymmetry is both astounding and obscene.

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

#154

Post by BatFastard »

Datenstrom wrote: post #98
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.

Being self taught I haven't learned a single thing in college. Besides networking I do not see any advantage. > If you're not willing to put in the work Why should anyone who already knows everything for a degree have to waste 4-6 years of their life?

I would like to meet the person who knows everything! I have met some 20 years olds who think they know everything! But as the old saying goes, "The more I learn the less I know"

Having two kids getting their CS degrees right now at top 50 colleges.

I am not impressed.

A friend of my son goes to UNFS (North Carolina State Film School). For four years he makes films. After the first year he has to choose between photography, directing, writing, etc. Then he spends 3 year fine tuning his craft. Great program!

CS Programs seem to be a little of this and a little of that, none of it coordinated. Quality is teaching is varied, occasional a great teacher or TA, much more frequently poor teachers or TAs.

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

#155

Post by emodendroket »

dustingetz wrote: post #144

Pattern matching has problems but it also evolved because other signals are even weaker, I'd like to see an analysis centered around this idea

But if they're using heuristics proven to have no value over recommendations, which probably have some value, then I'm not sure that's what's going on.

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

#156

Post by [deleted] »

wtetzner wrote: post #130
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…

> The most robust, relevant and profitable companies out there basically say, 'F* trends, show us your worth in salt'. It took me few tries to understand this, after reading about F*: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15582969 I think you're mostly right, though. I think the article is probably right that companies who _say_ "we only hire the best" don't necessarily even hire good programmers. I don't think the co…

[deleted]

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

#157

Post by bertil »

lostboys67 wrote: post #51
bertil wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A few years ago I went to AKQA suited and booted - I think I realised that I might be over dressed when on the way a passer by asked me if I knew where the Ivy was :-) The interview was a total bust the guy that interviewed me was wearing a t shirt so scruffy I would only wear it to do the gardening.

I’ve seen a lot of those t-shirts and generally what is printed on them is the important part: a memorable hackathon, a cool product, etc. For an outsider, it’s often tricky to tell.

My favourite: the “I’ve done 100 interviews and the only thing I got was this t-shirt.” t-shirt at Facebook, with the 100 stroke-through to read 200. If looking really tattered, you know you are talking to someone who’s probably done a lot more interviews since the 200 mark. Expressly worn to show the candidate you know what you are talking about.

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

#158

Post by cableshaft »

Datenstrom wrote: post #98
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.

Being self taught I haven't learned a single thing in college. Besides networking I do not see any advantage. > If you're not willing to put in the work Why should anyone who already knows everything for a degree have to waste 4-6 years of their life?

I'm self taught (as in, I've taught myself a lot outside of school, in fact I left school early and only finished my degree after several years in the industry), and I still learned quite a bit from my computer science degree.

It forced me to study a wide variety of things I probably wouldn't have spent much time on if on my own (i.e. OS programming, making my own compiler, prolog, finite automata, assembly programming, etc).

Also did A.I., 3d graphics, network programming, and various other things, but I probably would have learned that on my own to a certain point (I developed video games for awhile).

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

#159

Post by humanrebar »

dustingetz wrote: post #144

Pattern matching has problems but it also evolved because other signals are even weaker, I'd like to see an analysis centered around this idea

Evolution works over many generations and is most pronounced when there is an evolutionary advantage. Certain kinds of "pattern matching" could be vestigial like wisdom teeth or less important than other things, like freckles and moles.

Point being, maybe the company has great sales or some unassailable market advantage. They could form an untested hypothesis around their hiring preferences since the success of the organization is largely unaffected by it.

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

#160

Post by FLUX-YOU »

brightball wrote: post #126
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you’ve been doing .NET or PHP for 5+ years without even trying something else I’d treat it as a red flag too. But if I put other languages on my resume outside of .NET, I might look unfocused or "not specialized". Plus, some people treat resume skills as an expert matter, so if I'm only doing hobby stuff, the conversation might not be that interesting (hobby projects usually never pay technical debt so I can just…

I’ve never even heard of an interviewer knocking someone for having more than one language on their resume. I’m not saying you need 10 or all the trendiest things. You need at least 2. Programming is a job of constant problem solving. If you’ve done the job close to 10 years and never seen a problem with the language that you are using...that actually tells me more about you than any other question I can answer. It t…

>You could meet that criteria in a single weekend if you wanted to.

But that's the issue: one person will like that I spent a weekend on that, someone else will start asking technical questions when it was really just a hobby project. I don't want to answer questions on that because I'm not likely to give good/correct/interesting answers. It's only served me well in the first case when they didn't ask any questions and chose to instead focus on my strengths. It's on my resume, so it's fair game to them.

Post reply on HN