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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)

#261

Post by Spooky23 »

cheez wrote: post #71
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure they may lose some great candidates that way, but the reality is that they don't want people in finance because: 1. They have preconceived notions about how finance "should" work 2. People not from finance are driven by other things This is not to say that there aren't people from finance who don't fall under this, but it's a good way to weed them out without inviting a billion applications from people in financ…

Sounds more like a cult.

I don’t know much about the company, but a firm with extraordinary long term returns with a penchant for secrecy, cult-like hiring practices, and all of the employees invested in their extraordinary investment vehicle sounds sketchy to me.

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

#262

Post by GVIrish »

emodendroket wrote: post #167
wolfgke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It has little to do with that. There's really very little risk in giving feedback like "we didn't like your code" or "you had the wrong kind of experience for us." The bigger problem is that a lot of candidates take this as an opportunity to dispute the reasons, which is not generally desired.

I don't think it's even that. It's just that companies don't feel like they have much to gain from taking the time to explain rejections to candidates. Same reason that often times you don't even hear back that a company is not interested. It saves them time.

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

#263

Post by cableshaft »

alexasmyths wrote: post #137
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 h…

As far as I can tell it's spread across the whole country. At the very least, it's definitely present at startups in Chicago, where I'm at, and Chicago doesn't have that strong of a startup scene (it does have one, but it's pretty small compared to other metro areas).

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

#264

Post by pasquinelli »

EpicEng wrote: post #253
nanodano wrote: post #207

When I hear "we only hire the best" it just sounds like generic crap an HR person added, not a big red flag that they are snobs. I don't think it really means anything. By definition, anyone hiring anyone wants to only hire the best. Nobody wants to hire only the mediocre. If I hear things like that I generally just ignore it. Anyway, the author makes all kinds of unfounded assumptions. Someone with .NET and Windows…

>By definition, anyone hiring anyone wants to only hire the best I agree with your overall sentiment, but this isn't true at all. The best cost money, and the best don't want to work on boring stuff. Most software is boring. A team of mediocre devs is more often than not just fine to do the job and it keeps cost down (and turnover likely lower).

so mediocre is better than best sometimes?

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

#265

Post by alexasmyths »

Analog24 wrote: post #231
alexasmyths wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Renaissance Technology has been around decades and is one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. I don't think it qualifies as an early-stage company.

Wow. So many downvotes.

Re: renaissance. Of course. I'm highlighting where the 'we don't hire finance' trope originates. Nothing to do with Renaissance.

For all of you too young to remember:

In the 'dot-com' era - many 'new companies' still hired 'top down'. They would hire an 'executive team' first, and then maybe developers.

Often, a CFO etc..

Think PetStore.com - two MBA's hiring 'others to do the work, as workers do'.

The notion of 'all hands on deck founders' etc. was still novel.

Many people still wore suits.

So - 2000-ish - those attitudes evolved - and the 'CFO' for a very early stage company became obsolete. CFO/finance types are generally not required at the most early stages of a company wherein the issues are 'money in, money out, money in the bank'.

So, the slightly aggressive hipster/startup trope of 'we don't hire finance types' I think evolved essentially out of this new understanding of how early stage companies work.

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

#266

Post by malvosenior »

alskdfji wrote: post #232

This was the most depressing part to me: "Another person I know is in a similar situation because his group won’t talk to people who aren’t already employed." It's a long story, but both my wife and I have most recently been at places, in a small-medium city, that have had huge turnover in the last several years due to mismanagement (her entire unit, except for her, left twice while she was working with them; we've l…

> So if I take time off to watch our child while my wife rebuilds her career, and maybe move to a different career myself, somehow I'm penalized? Pardon my language, but fuck that.

No offense but this reads as fairly entitled. Why would your value continue to rise as an employee if you take time out of your career? You will be competing against people who are bettering themselves without taking > 1 year breaks.

It’s not any employer’s responsibility to plan your life, you must do that yourself.

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

#267

Post by cableshaft »

deepGem wrote: post #64
CydeWeys wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most SWE interviews at Google take place in either Java or C#. These aren't sexy, trendy languages. They're boring line-of-business languages that just work. And the frameworks you already know matters very little.

I think you have the option of taking the test in Java, C++ or Python. I hadn't heard of the C# option. Thank you for mentioning the same.

At my in-person interview at Google, they told me I could use whatever I felt most comfortable with, which at that point in time was Objective-C.

In retrospect it was a terrible idea. That language is stupid verbose, and I ran out of whiteboard for every single question I had there. They were mainly interested in me for iOS development though. They did not give me an offer, although I don't think it was for that reason (I was a little nervous and two interviewers gave me some major head-scratchers).

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

#268

Post by adamnemecek »

nanodano wrote: post #207

When I hear "we only hire the best" it just sounds like generic crap an HR person added, not a big red flag that they are snobs. I don't think it really means anything. By definition, anyone hiring anyone wants to only hire the best. Nobody wants to hire only the mediocre. If I hear things like that I generally just ignore it. Anyway, the author makes all kinds of unfounded assumptions. Someone with .NET and Windows…

> Nobody wants to hire only the mediocre.

Employee education is such an undervalued idea. Like you can get workers on the cheap and then setup incentives for education/self-education. I'm yet to see a company that sets up some sort of education pipeline for it's employees. I know that startups don't have time and or money but education doesn't need to be as long as the school system made you believe.

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

#269

Post by iainmerrick »

Klockan wrote: post #228
hpcjoe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. Then you and your friends weren't fluent…

they care about your fluency with maths and algorithms

"Maths" is a red herring -- a physics PhD who's still active in academia will definitely be very fluent in maths.

It's all about "algorithms", but I think a lot of software people have tunnel vision about that. There's a lot of fancy terminology you pick up in a CS degree; requiring people to know that filters out a lot of potentially good candidates, unless they've studied CS in their own time.

That's fine if the special CS terminology is absolutely essential for all programmers. But is it really? Realistically, 90% or more of your time as a programmer is spent working on other stuff (automation, testing, designing friendly APIs, catching sneaky bugs, scripting, just generally plumbing stuff together). If you're on a team, does every single team member need to have a great understanding of data structures? Or is it just nice-to-have, specialized knowledge?

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

#270

Post by mrkurt »

the-dude wrote: post #246
alskdfji wrote: post #232

This was the most depressing part to me: "Another person I know is in a similar situation because his group won’t talk to people who aren’t already employed." It's a long story, but both my wife and I have most recently been at places, in a small-medium city, that have had huge turnover in the last several years due to mismanagement (her entire unit, except for her, left twice while she was working with them; we've l…

Raise the child, build a business from home. I would sign for it in a heartbeat.

That is sometimes good advice for developers. But only sometimes — it's not work that interests mosts people.

For most careers, it's not very reasonable to quit a job and try to build a company.

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