We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by jcadam » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

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…

Meh, being told over and over again that I'm a good developer but not a cultural fit isn't particularly helpful. It sounds like a polite way to say: "You have the skills but, uh, we hated you." I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent.

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

#172

Post by hpcjoe » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:31 PM UTC

Klockan wrote: post #123

test1235 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like any Google interview I've ever read about. I thought their questions were really mathematical and algorithm heavy?

That is the point, a person who is good at mathematics and algorithms will get hired at Google even if she doesn't have a cs degree.

Not true. I've got a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, am very math heavy, created a number of algos for my work over the last 25+ years (in physics sim, bioinformatics, systems management/orchestration, etc.), run sessions at an ACM conference, yadda yadda yadda.

Two google interviews, and nothing. From what I hear from other people I consider way smarter than I, they also got nothing.

Google has a much copied process, but as a creator of something of huge value notes:

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

Mebbe their filter isn't quite as good as they think it is. Talking to a number of absolutely brilliant engineers who didn't get hired, it likely has nothing whatsoever to do with talent, algo knowledge, mathematics, etc. There are other factors.

Being an above 40 guy probably didn't help me, google and others seem to have lots of trouble with ageism.

Dan's article was not specifically about being the "top", rather, what does the "top" mean in context, and how do people judge. What is the opportunity cost of doing this? As he points out, as I point out, it can be very high.

The smartest programmer I met in my first decade of work, was a person who had a high school diploma. No college degree. The guy was brilliant, personable, humble. He is quite successful now, and still doesn't have degrees. Chances are, he doesn't have formal education around the math/algos, but has picked up everything he knows.

At the end of the day, hiring is something of a crap-shoot. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, either negative or positive. You are after passion, intelligence, fit, experience if it exists (re-inventing wheels can be time consuming/expensive if you are forced to do it, and getting a guide who has been down that path can save you making some mistakes/time/money).

I know people are telling themselves that google has a good process, but honestly, it looks like it enforces homogeneity more than it brings in needed talent. I am not sure this is a good thing. Poor replication of their processes is rampant throughout the industry. I am not convinced this leads to positive outcomes.

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

#173

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:32 PM UTC

TijmenAlberink wrote: post #96

first impression is important, but clothes dont make the man

But there are plenty of fish in the sea and one man's trash is another man's treasure. On the other hand, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:36 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #171

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…

Meh, being told over and over again that I'm a good developer but not a cultural fit isn't particularly helpful. It sounds like a polite way to say: "You have the skills but, uh, we hated you." I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent.

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by frwntfwtr » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

Dnsnd

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

#176

Post by koolba » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #152

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 ou…

> 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.

They have a huge services division and that's the same formula used by all the big players. It's a numbers game for billing and they shoot to make it work by having a few highly competent people cover up for the C- players.

> 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.

Spot on. The database is incredible though the use cases I'd recommend it for over open source alternatives has shrunk to nearly nothing. Outside of that, the Oracle App landscape (Financials, HR, ...) are hilariously terrible, especially factoring in the prices paid for it.

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

#177

Post by throwanem » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC

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 also self-taught, but I don't see a degree as valueless. There's a lot of concentrated knowledge to be had in a hurry from a good (probably even a decent) program, and while I've yet to run into a case where I could not pick up what I needed on the fly, I certainly have many times felt it would be an enormous timesaver, and thus make me more efficiently able to do things I enjoy doing and that get me paid, to have had that knowledge preloaded.

On the other hand, I didn't start my adult life a few dozen grand into the red with student loan debt, which, from what I gather through long acquaintance with many who did, has very considerable advantages of its own. So I'd have to call it a tradeoff - but, then, that's my whole point: it's not accurate to say that either option is strictly preferable to the other.

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

#178

Post by DarronWyke » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

Delmania wrote: post #99

dimman wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because life can't happen? I don't agree with money > people

Where exactly did I say that was not the case? There are plenty of options for getting a college degree, and there are way to get a job at these companies with needing. However, if you're going to try to get one be sending in your resume, expect to get turned down without a degree. Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth…

>Beyond that, software development is plagued by this mindset that college degrees are useless and that only self taught people are worth looking into.

Ugh, yes. I've worked for a leading SIM and smart card manufacturer and they required a 4-year degree to even get in the door. I interviewed countless people, including some who were able to answer some quite technical questions that others couldn't. And many of those had to get disqualified since we found out during the interview process that they didn't have a degree. There were so many degree holders there that didn't know what the hell they were doing, and it was obvious.

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

#179

Post by astura » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

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…

>If you’ve done the job close to 10 years and never seen a problem with the language that you are using

Only having professional experience with %LANGUAGE% does not mean you've never seen a problem with %LANGUAGE%. Why on Earth would you assume that? If you're doing paid work you get minimal input on what technology stacks the projects you are working on use and 99.9% of the time that decision has already been made before your arrival. In fact, they could be looking for a new job because they want to change stacks, I know a few people who changed jobs just for that reason.

Someone's single weekend "Hello World" project is completely irrelevant when I'm looking to hire a developer with 10 years experience.

>It tells me that you are married to one stack, you’re invested in it, you’re probably going to be highly resistant to solutions that don’t fit in that box.

Absolute nonsense.

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

#180

Post by falcolas » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 1:49 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #132

driverdan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is, however, a filter that will be applied against applicants, and from what I've heard, it's more than enough to trigger the "we'd rather have false negatives than false positives" filter if you're not in the lucky minority.

Even if it's never used as a filter by Google, their hiring practices just don't apply to the rest of the industry - Google can afford to pass on 99.9% of the high quality talent that applies. Other firms who try this are only crippling themselves.