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)

#321

Post by TallGuyShort » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

Blazespinnaker wrote: post #286

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

no, your filtering mechanism is irresponsible. I'd recommend relying less on resumes and more on referrals from a trusted network.

In my experience, too much of that easily brings in existing biases, too much "this is just how X and I did things at our last company", and sometimes toxicity from previous companies too.

Where I work, interviewers are sent candidates without knowing who is and isn't an employee referral (except for a couple of cases where the candidate has told me or something), and employees who were recommended by another employee statistically perform much better. But we intake a lot of people who just applied too. Referrals are good, but they can't be everything.

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

#322

Post by psadri » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #301

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

First, there may not be a tech shortage if teams are “weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles....” But, if there is, I’m assuming that candidates are just applying randomly to any positions that are available. The ‘Tinder’ strategy is probably a good one if the goal is to maximize earnings. However, if one is a ‘5’ it makes sense to spam all of the positions. But, if one is a ‘10’,…

I think google did a good job of this in the early days. They got the word out on the street that their interviews were notoriously difficult. That probably dissuaded a lot of the random applicants.

I also read somewhere that some big bank (Goldman) just has a very circuitous, lengthy application process and the main point of it is to weed out the spray and pray applicants.

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

#323

Post by hinkley » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

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…

If you lean on referrals you tend to get diversity problems.

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

#324

Post by Pharylon » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

pasquinelli wrote: post #264

EpicEng wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

It's the Third Ferengi Rule of Acquisition. "Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to."

Do you need to spend money on very best to code a simple CRUD page?

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

#325

Post by drzaiusapelord » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

digitalsushi wrote: post #281

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

i overheard this in an elevator, "our HR department tosses the bottom half of resumes in the pile into the trash because we refuse to hire unlucky people"

And recruiters and managers wonder why applicants spam hundreds of cookie cutter resumes and cover letters instead of painstakingly crafting each one. Or why they get annoyed at 'job portal' applications where we have to retype our resume into the various little text boxes the web application provides.

Its just a numbers game if you don't have a relationship with someone who can get you a new job.

> refuse to hire unlucky people

Not getting hired there seems to be the 'lucky' move. Arbitrary hiring guarantees, over time, some pretty terrible characters that a proper hiring process would filter out. If you're pissing away 50% of your potential and, say, there's a 20% chance of getting a 'good' person, now there's a 10% chance of that. Over time, a place with such hiring standards would most likely build out a corporate culture that's subpar. The rare 'good' hires would probably take off much earlier than need be because there's so many more 'bad' hires. Eventually the 'bad' hires rule the roost and then people act surprised at gross incompetence as the norm in many companies, shameless dishonesty, and various forms of harassment being normalized.

I worked at a place that didn't take hiring very seriously and this is exactly what ended up happening.

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

#326

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

whostolemyhat wrote: post #188

Lxr wrote: post #136

I just want to say that I absolutely love this no-frills type of page - tapping the link on mobile and instantly getting nothing but content is such a pleasant surprise!

I find it really difficult to read on a laptop though, due to the long lines.

[deleted]

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

#327

Post by gwbas1c » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

Yes, but: Being hand-delivered a resume from a trusted colleague is a filtering mechanism. It won't guarantee a phone call, but it's a better recommendation than a recruiter trying to gain a commission on this week's "really awesome superstar."

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

#328

Post by hinkley » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 4:02 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…

I have had a couple of conversations like that and trying to clear up a misunderstanding hasn’t gotten me the job.

And to be honest it felt quite a bit like begging. So it was more energy thrown at a dissapointment instead of concentrating on my next best option.

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

#329

Post by GlennS » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 4:04 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…

Interesting. Where I live (Bristol, UK), Oracle offers very good salaries compared to the going rate.

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

#330

Post by drzaiusapelord » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

jasonpeacock wrote: post #294

Blazespinnaker wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, your filtering mechanism is irresponsible. I'd recommend relying less on resumes and more on referrals from a trusted network.

Now you're promoting "who you know", which is irresponsible as it can pass up many qualified candidates who don't happen to be in the same circles as you. Does "trusted network" mean alumni clubs? Church groups? Gym friends? What would be an un-biased trusted network to filter candidates with?

> Church groups?

Now you have a defacto "If you're not in the boss's religion or congregation you can just piss right off" thing going on which is toxic for the workplace. Even if you were, say the same Christian denomination as him, are you willing to drive to the boss's wealthy suburb to go to the wealthy suburban church every Sunday solely for your career?

Nothing says the organization doesn't care about merit or diversity than church hiring.