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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)

#561

Post by gugagore »

flamedoge wrote: post #481
gugagore wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, in numerous cases, the "national standard" (whatever that means) dialect is not the dialect spoken by the majority. Can you give an example of rules of "standard English" being easier to learn than some rule of non-standard English? Also note that English as far as I know doesn't even have an official codification of its rules and usage: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_language_regulators

I'll argue that Korean spoken in Seoul, South Korea is vastly different from one in Pyong Yang, North Korea, and arguably harder to learn because one can trace some of the phrasing to old way Korean was spoken which is a mix of Chinese-derived words with Korean. This is due to the language having been invented by King Sejong circa 400(?) years ago when most written language was Chinese in Korea. It's harder because y…

I think you're mostly talking about orthography (writing), and not language itself. You might be saying that because of the different writing systems, the spoken language is different today, which seems plausible. In any case, no matter how "mixed" a language's history is, I bet that for its native speakers, it is acquired as one language and feels like one language. When people learn and acquire language, they don't have to trace any origins of any words.

Anyway, we migrated from arguing about the claim "The rules of language are simple" to arguing that some language rules are simpler than other, which to me makes room for the claim that language is, generally speaking, complicated and its rules are complicated.

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

#562

Post by user5994461 »

ckoerner wrote: post #520
beat wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my best friends has a MD and an MBA degree. He currently manages a $100M investment portfolio. We chat online almost daily. He is, by far, the worst speller I know. Even after 20+ years of online conversation, I can barely understand what he's saying sometimes. He also passes bits of professional writing past me for validation, usually to check his intent. His professional writing is always perfectly spelled,…

I don't mean to challenge you, but I think your assumptions about how easy it is for others to do something you consider rudimentary are based in an undeclared set of privileges and fortune. A few possible scenarios where getting help might not be as easy as asking a partner, friend, or colleague to help review things. A first-generation college grad paying their way through school by working full time in a new town.…

The college grad is surrounded by other college grads who can review his writings.

The parent is surrounded by family who can review his writings.

The non native English speaker with poor spelling knows first hand that he needs his resume to get reviewed. And he should not expect to easily find a highly qualified job that requires to write English in an English speaking country if he can't read and write English.

So far, your examples only manage to show that people could manage just fine and if they can't they were not qualified for the job.

English is not a rare skill. There is no shortage of people who can write decently.

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

#563

Post by jldugger »

beat wrote: post #458
jldugger wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can recognize that hiring is a noisy process, and still seek to raise the noise:signal ratio. As long as management doesn't excuse existing heuristics as good enough because all 'heuristics are going to be biased and stupid in some ways'. Like half of engineering is designing new & improved heuristics. Dan's point is largely that for each new & shiny technology you add to your stack, and then add to your hiring fi…

This reminds me of a story about hiring (from a book which name I can't remember offhand). The author was hiring a team in India, and facing an onslaught of thousands of basically identical resumes. How to filter them? So he added "Ruby" as a requirement - not because it was required by the project, but because at that time, only programmers who really cared about their craft learned Ruby. This got rid of 99% of the…

So, I think we need to discuss the legal concept of 'disparate impact.' We've decided that, as an employer of 15 or more people, it's your duty to avoid even accidental racial bias without justification.

Normally this isn't a problem as screening criteria like experience in language X is a bona fide job requirement, so even if such criterion filtered out minorities disproportionately, it's not a liability. Tacking on filters like 'must know programming language not used at this company' is going to be a huge stretch, and if your African American candidate pool is filtered out more regularly, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

So yes, crafting heuristics is hard, but manager's paychecks are larger for a reason.

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

#564

Post by BearGoesChirp »

austincheney wrote: post #441
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 don't like resumes as 98% of each is probably bullshit unless the candidate is a truly amazing rockstar with 10+ years of valid experience. As a result any heuristic applied to resumes is just as worthless as most candidates. When I have interviewed in the past I literally stopped reading once I see contact information and save reading it for during the interview. If the contact information is not the first thing o…

>I would tell them jQuery isn't available in this job. Half would immediately drop out. Good.

Unless the job description made clear why it wasn't available, I would take this as a sign of a toxic workplace and avoid it. It isn't about jQuery being banned, it is about the type of workplace where jQuery is not only banned, but such a ban is mentioned early in the interview process. I guess if you want people who are okay with such a workplace, then you are using an appropriate heuristic.

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

#565

Post by user5994461 »

beat wrote: post #557
ckoerner wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to challenge you, but I think your assumptions about how easy it is for others to do something you consider rudimentary are based in an undeclared set of privileges and fortune. A few possible scenarios where getting help might not be as easy as asking a partner, friend, or colleague to help review things. A first-generation college grad paying their way through school by working full time in a new town.…

But that leaves me with a problem - I still need to turn this stack of 100 resumes into something I can be expected to work through, given the limited availability of my most expensive resource - time. I don't want to interview 100 candidates. I want to interview five. That means 19 out of 20 need to be eliminated before it even gets to the interview process. The spelling heuristic gets rid of between 5 and 20%, righ…

Between us, you should try to introduce automated Hacker Rank testing in your company.

It's a relevant filter and it's a terrific value for time.

A good old exercise to print number from 1 to 100 and then 100 to 1. That's the sort of things that get rid of half the candidates.

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

#566

Post by yongjik »

lynnetye wrote: post #536
lr4444lr wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be honest. Say divisive things ... get sued or prosecuted by the EEOC. There are reasons things are stated in a certain way and the net has to be cast wider than necessary. First fix the landscape of U.S. labor law, and then a discussion of efficiency and values can be productive

Mmmm not quite sure what you're thinking of, but I'm talking about starting w/ baby steps. "Do exciting work that has real impact, learn a lot, and have fun doing it." Do you know how many companies say that on their job descriptions?! All of them. Here are some examples of being (mildly) divisive and using strong language: - "We consider it a disqualifier if a candidate does not value our mission to grow and sustain…

It seems that your example will filter candidates based on how much they like the company, not how good they are. The distribution of candidates will largely be the same or even worse, because a few good candidates may be put off by such rhetoric ("Why do I have to believe in local food systems, when they want me to write an Android app?"), but mediocre candidates will apply anyway.

So you still have to go through the same number of candidates until you can find a good one.

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

#567

Post by s73ver_ »

cwyers wrote: post #540
lynnetye wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a web developer who has been thinking about engineering hiring and culture a LOT over the last 6 months. I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. Instead, why don't engineering teams save time and energy by articulating their specific engineering values, and sharing that information up front? Be honest. Say divisive things. This will allow job-seeke…

Applicants do not self-filter. If you've ever read resumes for a job listing that haven't been prescreened, you'll be blown away by how many people refuse to self-filter even for basic fitness for the job. Put out a job listing asking for a college degree, and you'll get applicants who are still in school with their graduation date two years in the future looking for an internship. That's an extreme, but people will…

Most people are told to apply anyway, because most employers are setting the requirements ridiculously too high.

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

#568

Post by s73ver_ »

lynnetye wrote: post #536
lr4444lr wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be honest. Say divisive things ... get sued or prosecuted by the EEOC. There are reasons things are stated in a certain way and the net has to be cast wider than necessary. First fix the landscape of U.S. labor law, and then a discussion of efficiency and values can be productive

Mmmm not quite sure what you're thinking of, but I'm talking about starting w/ baby steps. "Do exciting work that has real impact, learn a lot, and have fun doing it." Do you know how many companies say that on their job descriptions?! All of them. Here are some examples of being (mildly) divisive and using strong language: - "We consider it a disqualifier if a candidate does not value our mission to grow and sustain…

""We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." - Amplitude"

I must say, this would give me pause. That kind of language tells me that they don't value testing, and likely don't value quality requirements capturing either.

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

#569

Post by dhimes »

kafkaesq wrote: post #533
lynnetye wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a web developer who has been thinking about engineering hiring and culture a LOT over the last 6 months. I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. Instead, why don't engineering teams save time and energy by articulating their specific engineering values, and sharing that information up front? Be honest. Say divisive things. This will allow job-seeke…

I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. What's to be confused about? They don't give a fuck - about you, or your time. Why? Because they perceive (rightly or wrongly) that there's no business incentive for them to do so. Either way... if they leave you dangling, or make you answer just a few silly questions too many, and/or sign up for (nearly) unlimit…

there's no business incentive for them to do so.

But there is one: to save the precious time of valuable people. I think it's an interesting suggestion.

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

#570

Post by user5994461 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #483
beat wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I pointedly confine my filter to spelling errors, not grammar, out of respect for non-native English speakers (or even native English speakers who grew up with other dialects). English grammar can be terribly difficult, even for well educated native speakers. Spelling, on the other hand, has a consistent reference.

I'm curious, do you expect everyone to use American spelling, or would you also accept British variations like -ise, colour, etc?

Hopefully, the reviewers are smart enough to know that color/colour is not a typo. ^^
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