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)

#421

Post by kccqzy » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #419

js2 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About that heuristic, when hiring for sysadmins in the early 2000s, I found there to be an inverse relationship between résumé quality and candidate quality (with one notable exception — résumés written in LaTeX were usually of high quality and almost always indicated a quality candidate). Originally I had a similar conception about résumés — they should be one or two pages max, should look nice, and should contain n…

How do you determine that? I wrote mine in LaTeX but submit a PDF. Usually that default LaTeX font is a dead giveaway, but I find it to be pretty ugly so I switched it out.

It’s part of the metadata. Look for content creator and PDF producer fields.

Or even more simply, just use your eyes. The superior line breaking algorithm is extremely obvious, with or without microtype. Then less obviously, look at ligatures, kerning etc.

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

#422

Post by JimboOmega » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

rhexs wrote: post #409

linkregister wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few notable organizations offer paid continuing education (Masters degrees) and have extensive in-house training, with career progression mapped out. Here are some: - Accenture - Booz Allen Hamilton - Deloitte - Department of Defense - Lockheed Martin - Northrop Grumman - Raytheon It’s not just consulting companies and the defense industrial complex, these are just the only companies I have exposure to that offer m…

Defense has career progressions? Is this for management? From what I've seen engineers are treated like cattle and hired and fired for the whims of every project.

Having spent the first 5 or so years at defense companies, I agree. There was no career progression,especially without switching companies.

They want you to have a degree so they can charge more, but that's about it. You can easily work on the same project doing the same things for 20 years; I worked with people who did.

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

#423

Post by humanrebar » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #386

jstewartmobile wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternative risk markets where you can get insured for just about anything, but it's still a cost that gets disproportionately shouldered by employers of young men.

Just reduce the salary for reservists by the amount that "his/her" insurance costs.

I am not a lawyer, but that doesn't sound legal:

"Additionally, discrimination against employees on the basis of past, current, or intended military service is prohibited. As with other types of discrimination, this applies to hiring and firing decisions; compensation and benefits; and other employment decisions."

http://military.findlaw.com/family-employment-housing/what-i...

...so the best solution from an employer perspective is to enter a risk pool that distributes the risk. Being a big enough employer solves that problem, but there should theoretically be pools for smaller employers to join as well. I wasn't aware if that was the case, which is why I was asking.

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

#424

Post by kentosi » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #385

einarfd wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I consider it evidence of carelessness - I don't care if you can't spell, but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing. Getting someone to look over your stuff and looking for spelling errors sounds like a simple and easy fix doesn’t it? But in my experience that doesn't work as well as one would think, prof reading is a lot harder than it looks. After all it's isn't enough to c…

I too have close family members with dyslexia. If they asked whether they'd make good programmers, I'd honestly tell them that their disability would make it very challenging and frustrating. They could still do it, but their passion would have to be enough to drive them to work much harder than their colleagues to achieve the same results. I'd also recommend that they go to whatever lengths necessary to eliminate ty…

Honest question: Would you toy with the idea of adding a small blurb right at the start of your resume stating this?

I'm thinking a box that acknowledges up-front that you have diagnosed dyslexia, which would explain any spelling mistakes, but that you're still highly competent as an engineer.

Not sure about others, but if I were hiring, I would welcome the honesty and instantly stop caring about any errors.

Note: I'm not an employer, but I have been asked to interview candidates.

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

#425

Post by flamedoge » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #398

einarfd wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I consider it evidence of carelessness - I don't care if you can't spell, but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing. Getting someone to look over your stuff and looking for spelling errors sounds like a simple and easy fix doesn’t it? But in my experience that doesn't work as well as one would think, prof reading is a lot harder than it looks. After all it's isn't enough to c…

> Getting someone to look over your stuff and looking for spelling errors sounds like a simple and easy fix doesn’t it? There are a lot of people who don't speak English as native language. I, as a non-native speaker learn about very subtle rules of the English language all the time, where the author often explains that even many native speakers are often not aware of these rules and thus write in their own native wr…

The rules of language are simple to learn. Culture and Idioms must be lived and experienced.

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

#426

Post by intro-b » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

oldandtired wrote: post #415

wooter wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? you don't think its evidence that we invest varying levels of effort into things we care about? thusly, a candidate with typographical errors is closer internet-comment-level interested effort-wise in the position.

Claiming something is easy to do and then making the same errors simply diminished the strength of the argument presented. The comment comes across as "do as I say, not do as I do."

it's fun for text-based debate, but aren't you just ignoring the greater contextual situation for the sake of argument? the distance between anonymous internet comments and professional discourse is wider than what you're implying

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

#427

Post by gugagore » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

nmcfarl wrote: post #402

ballenf wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have close family members with dyslexia. If they asked whether they'd make good programmers, I'd honestly tell them that their disability would make it very challenging and frustrating. They could still do it, but their passion would have to be enough to drive them to work much harder than their colleagues to achieve the same results. I'd also recommend that they go to whatever lengths necessary to eliminate ty…

So I'm really really biased here. But as a programer with (mild) dyslexia, I have to say I think it's one of the best professional fields for this. We have linters, syntax highlighting editors, pretty printers, compilers and a whole suite of tools to make sure typos never go live. No other other field has these tools, and high paying professional work does in fact require "typo free work" to make it anywhere, in almo…

You're biased, of course, but exactly in the right way in my opinion. Personally this is a beautiful example of why representation matters. People without dyslexia (myself included) simply cannot know what people with dyslexia can and cannot do. Many thanks for sharing such an important point that I hadn't thought about before.

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

#428

Post by unabst » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #420

nmcfarl wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm really really biased here. But as a programer with (mild) dyslexia, I have to say I think it's one of the best professional fields for this. We have linters, syntax highlighting editors, pretty printers, compilers and a whole suite of tools to make sure typos never go live. No other other field has these tools, and high paying professional work does in fact require "typo free work" to make it anywhere, in almo…

Wow, I never thought about it that way. You have single-handedly changed the advice I'd give to my family on the issue. (Except for the resume advice above, which I think still holds.)

> but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing.

Even Chrome has a spell checker. Not sure the distinction here between code typos and English typos is a valid one.

The OP is saying not bothering to check is the issue, not the specific errors. And this is, by definition, careless. This is a lack of caring for correctness and a lack of awareness of mistakes. It could even be considered a lack of respect, which would be a lack of professionalism, but the OP did not go there.

If you have dyslexia, then a perfect resume that includes your challenges as a dyslexic would be most impressive.

Employers are looking to be impressed.

Don't be an unimpressive bag of excuses.

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

#429

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #421

smcl wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you determine that? I wrote mine in LaTeX but submit a PDF. Usually that default LaTeX font is a dead giveaway, but I find it to be pretty ugly so I switched it out.

It’s part of the metadata. Look for content creator and PDF producer fields. Or even more simply, just use your eyes. The superior line breaking algorithm is extremely obvious, with or without microtype. Then less obviously, look at ligatures, kerning etc.

Doesn't mean much since tooling like Sphinx will generate Latex as an intermediary for PDF generation.

I don't care for the rigidity of Latex and don't want to hand craft my own TeX documents. I once had a resume generation system that would convert ReST to Docbook and from there used XSLT to produce plain text, docx, and PDF output using XSL-FO. Sadly the code was on a failed Seagate drive and is lost. And yes I had a backup, also on a Seagate drive that also failed due to a firmware bug around the same time.

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

#430

Post by Majora320 » Tue, Oct 31, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #325

digitalsushi wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 un…

Except that isn't how statistics work. If you have 100 applications, 20% of which are good, and drop 50% of them, you get 50 applications, but you still have the 20% good application/bad application rate.

Of course, you still get 50% less total good applications, but ratios != total.