Hire people who aren’t proven • Hacker News Board

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#281

Post by draw_down » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

> we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft.

Sounds OK to me. I care if someone can do the job well, not if they have a burning passion for it or whatever. We have stuff that needs to get done and we want people who can handle that while being nice to work with. Tacking on more requirements than that is counterproductive, and you don't get to complain about how hard it is to hire if you're doing that.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#282

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #186

mirko22 wrote: post #127

Lately what I have been trying out is telling people: if you want to come for an interview can you prepare a small presentation of one of the data structures that you know about or like, or ideally hash tables (as they cover wide range of topics). If a person than comes in for the interview in about a week from when he is told this and can’t present that DS to some depth I don’t bother to go on with much longer inter…

Is it really possible to be a senior programmer without understanding a concept of linked list? Mindboggling.

It's much easier to interview for senior programming positions than get them. There's folks who get rejected from a lot of companies.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#283

Post by hfdgiutdryg » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

mirko22 wrote: post #135

parthdesai wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about when companies these days exploit the term "caring"? I like programming as much as the next person here but i'm not going to code 80 hours a day. I also like going to gym and working out, riding my bike, playing soccer and hanging out with friends. Companies these days expect you to have side projects or contribution to popular open source libraries while having a job. Oh and did i mention asking you q…

On the other hand imagine how much you would learn if you could spend all you gym and bike time learning computer science and other things (not saying you should but the more time you out into something usually you know more about that thing). Also I think knowing data structures is essential cos you are using them ALL the time you just don’t know it cos you never bothered to learn them. But they are corner stone of…

On the other hand imagine how much you would learn if you could spend all you gym and bike time learning computer science and other things

You'd reach burnout extremely quickly. You'd literally go insane. Your body would break down rapidly. None of these are good for anyone involved.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#284

Post by bvm » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #260

bvm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your pain. Trying to hire perm in London at the moment is a real challenge, even with a recruiter. Contractor rates are obscene (5-8x perm). Recruiting and retaining is what keeps me awake at night over and above any tech issues that I'm working on.

How little are you paying your dev that it can be 1/8th of a contractor? Even the cheapest dev I have ever met in London wasn't as low as 1/5th of the most expensive contractor I have met.

Ah yeh, sorry, my mental maths strayed a bit into hyperbole there, it's more like 4-5x

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#285

Post by hfdgiutdryg » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

throwaway8879 wrote: post #255

snowwrestler wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I am not a big fan of the word "passionate" as the number 1 attribute for employees. I think there are better words like competence, commitment, empathy, independence, maturity, etc. There was a time some while ago (as I blow mental dust off my college literature studies) when "passion" was not a word that carried wholly positive connotations. It came with implications of things like irrationality, moodine…

What exactly does empathy have to do with CS?

Some of the worse problems I've seen have been created by software engineers who lacked empathy for their teammates, or even their future selves.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#286

Post by realbarack » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

throwaway8879 wrote: post #255

snowwrestler wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I am not a big fan of the word "passionate" as the number 1 attribute for employees. I think there are better words like competence, commitment, empathy, independence, maturity, etc. There was a time some while ago (as I blow mental dust off my college literature studies) when "passion" was not a word that carried wholly positive connotations. It came with implications of things like irrationality, moodine…

What exactly does empathy have to do with CS?

Empathy is not part of computer science, but is incredibly important in software engineering. In software engineering, much of the day-to-day work includes things like:

* Discussing and ultimately making decisions

* Learning about how things work from people with a different set of knowledge than you

* Doing things which optimize for the understanding of other people after you, as opposed to optimizing for your own productivity in this second

Software engineers who do these things with low empathy end up contributing to the stereotypes about engineers who are unpleasant to work with because they don't consider other people.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#287

Post by majormajor » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

The art, I think, in hiring and managing is how to build useful things even when you can't rely on everyone intrinsically caring and being self-driven. If you wait to find a dozen, fifty, a hundred people who care, you might miss out on a lot of opportunities.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#288

Post by jiveturkey » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

mirko22 wrote: post #127

Lately what I have been trying out is telling people: if you want to come for an interview can you prepare a small presentation of one of the data structures that you know about or like, or ideally hash tables (as they cover wide range of topics). If a person than comes in for the interview in about a week from when he is told this and can’t present that DS to some depth I don’t bother to go on with much longer inter…

I think it's fantastic. Good programmers take a data-centric approach, preparing a slide on a data structure of your choice is trivial. For HTML the equivalent might be CSS-oriented.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#289

Post by nalipp » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

Passion can't be measured with credentials so why do companies keep screening for them?

I spent the last three years studying as a hobby and as a full time student learning multiple frameworks, front-end and backend, and additional technologies that made me curious like Vim and I can't even land a single technical interview.

After coming to the Bay Area, I was thinking my github portfolio and communication and networking skills would at least get me in the door to prove myself.

Once coming I found out I would need to learn CS topics to get past the technical interview and that React would be a good entry point for a first job. So I left and studied another 6 months before returning. The second time I got a part time job as a coding instructor at a bootcamp because I have a history in teaching, but still struggle to get in the door for engineering interviews.

Nobody takes me seriously without credentials, I always thought that in a technical interview people would be able to figure out where you stand and not need credentials. The problem is companies get flooded with resumes so they build automated software to screen the best candidates but passion can't be screened.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#290

Post by docker_up » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

The problem that has happened at my company is that we take a "chance" on bootcampers or other people who aren't proven, we spend the time and effort to mentor and train them, pay them well, and then they turn around in 9-12 months and leave us for another company with their enhanced experience. It has happened 3 times so far, so we have stopped hiring bootcampers, and fresh grads and instead have started hiring people with a couple of years under their belts or more, since they appear to at least want to stick around enough to contribute positively to our teams.