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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)

#351

Post by crispyambulance »

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.

    > I'm not sure what to do with that feedback, but it has been pretty consistent.
That is actually valuable information. Find a mentor or career coach to help you out with mock interviews. You could be signaling something that you're not aware of during interviews.

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

#352

Post by flamedoge »

cableshaft wrote: post #158
Datenstrom wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 programmi…

I enjoyed enough of those topics to know what I'm bad at. Video games are culmination of all those things, yet terrible at risk/reward.

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

#353

Post by humanrebar »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #165
humanrebar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reservists Meaning discrimination against reservists in the armed forces because of their service requirements? Or discrimination because the employer doesn't like the armed forces?

Service requirements. Even employers who are vets are terrified of this one. Hire a guy, he gets deployed just a week after he starts, you have to keep his seat warm, then when he's back several months later he's taken a job somewhere else...

Is there insurance for this sort of thing? Seems like an external risk that needs to be mitigated somehow.

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

#354

Post by tzakrajs »

oculusthrift wrote: post #334
psadri wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i’m pretty certain google is the most applied to company in the world so not sure if that holds up

It helps to keep the illusion of exclusivity the more people you turn away.

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

#355

Post by lostboys67 »

BatFastard wrote: post #154
Datenstrom wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 photo…

I remember seeing at 14/15 some of my older cousins course notes form his computing course at UMIST (one of the 4 good places to do computing then) - and thought this isn't much different to what I am doing in my CSE class (and CSE's where the vocational track for those expected to leave high school at 16

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

#356

Post by Balgair »

mrkurt wrote: post #271
jo327511 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so let me get this right: 1) Your wife gave up her career to take care of the kid 2) Now she's found a job and is asking you to do the same 3) Additionally, you consider your job a clusterfuck with incompetent management Seems like a clear decision

You missed a few numbers: 4) may not be able to get another job after an extended gap 5) would have to move out of town Those types of choices aren't usually clear.

OP also mentions that the new position for the spouse is in a location with sparse opportunities for job shopping.

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

#357

Post by santaclaus »

jcadam wrote: post #143
TheArcane wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and instead of saying people aren’t smart enough because they don’t have the right pedigree… wait, that’s exactly the same. Does this still happen?

Of course, I still see job postings requiring a "CS degree from a top school." I think it's great they come right out and admit that they're a bunch of elitist douche-bags so I don't even bother applying. Could you imagine working at such a place with a degree from a :shudder: public university?

Half of the top CS programs are public. Well, 40% -- four of the top ten CS programs in the US are state schools.

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

#358

Post by HeavyStorm »

static_noise wrote: post #311
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…

People learn about and optimize for those heuristics. Those resumes will on average get better and better over time until half of them are almost perfect. Those people all spent considerable time and energy on optimizing their resume. You get people who look good on paper. They will continue to excel in your company (on paper). If your job is to look good on paper. Yes, go on.

You should at least look good on paper. I'll not hire you because you have a wonderful resume, but I'll interview you. And I'll not interview you if your resume looks bad.

(truth be said, I'm not the one selecting resumes right now, and sometimes I get garbage that I wouldn't even interview)

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

#359

Post by pizza234 »

pklausler wrote: post #346
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to filter on typos, you may as well put a hackerrank/leetcode question as the initial filter, or invent your own question. That will save you and your team more time since you will only get respondents that pass and you don't need to review every resume yourself for typos.

I don't know about the original poster, but I'll immediately spot every error in spelling, punctuation, and usage in a ten-second skim of a page. My eyes just go right to them. And yes, I consider that it's difficult to write correct English. But if you're willing to send out an erroneous resume without getting it competently reviewed, I have to suspect the depth of your commitment to quality overall.

> And yes, I consider that it's difficult to write correct English. But if you're willing to send out an erroneous resume without getting it competently reviewed, I have to suspect the depth of your commitment to quality overall.

Is this theory or practice?

People who individually craft CVs and cover letters (I do) go through a very resource consuming process.

Having all the CVs and cover letters externally reviewed makes the process even more resource consuming.

It's crucial to differentiate spell-checking from proofreading.

The parent specified spell-checking; there is a reason to be strict on this, and it's that spell-checking a document takes less than a minute with a word processor, so one really needs to be careless to leave more than a couple of spelling mistakes.

Proofreading on the other hand, is much more demanding (finding people, coordinating, reviewing and applying changes), and often, gives feedback that may not be very useful or even conflictual between reviewers.

I don't think proofreading for more than a handful of CVs/CLs is realistic (expect for the CV-maniacs).

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

#360

Post by ejnulls »

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’,…

Why aren't they innovating?

Becsuse most jobs aren't that hard, sorry. It's just kind of true. Wh I you have 100s of people that could probably do the job competing for a position, that's a great time to be a business owner!

If the state of hiring was negatively impacting companies' bottom lines, they'd do something about it. It's kind of the whole point of companies.

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