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You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

talent.works

51–60 of 254 posts

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#51

You can eliminate all kinds of selective bias and incompetence by first filtering candidates based upon a battery of personality tests. You don't have to know anything about the candidates until this pass through the initial filter.

Oh yeah, that's just what we need. Unicru tests for software jobs. I'm gonna go ahead and say STRONGLY DISAGREE, chumbo.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#52
post #40
post #19

https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 I'm not a fan of HR in general and it's frustrating that they are often the clueless gatekeepers.

Sometimes it isn’t even an HR person. A computer will scan your resume and if you don’t match enough keywords a person won’t even read it.

One of my favorite job search stories occurred many years ago. I'd posted my resume on Monster, etc. and also reached directly out to companies. For one company, I filled out their online application. It was the kind that asked you everything that was on your resume and then also had you upload your resume. About a month later I got a call from a recruiter at the company, passed the phone screen, and went in for an interview. During the pre-interview chat with the recruiter, I mentioned how annoying the resume submission process was. She replied that she found me while searching Monster for candidates and seemed surprised that their automated tools didn't flag my resume.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#53
post #47

I've only once ticked of roughly 95% of job requirements. I didn't get the job. They actually cited the 1/20 requirements I didn't fulfill and said they can't hire anybody who doesn't have that. They wanted a 100% candidate. Looking through the list of the things they listed as must haves and that they wanted an internal candidate I showed them it is statistically very unlikely they would even find a better candidate…

>The position had been open for almost a year. I think there's a reason.

Fake job openings to keep HR people busy?

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#54

You can eliminate all kinds of selective bias and incompetence by first filtering candidates based upon a battery of personality tests. You don't have to know anything about the candidates until this pass through the initial filter.

This sounds like the old joke "avoid employing unlucky people by throwing away half the CVs you receive".

What is the optimum personality type to employ for a specific role anyway? You might hire based the idea that you want people who won't "rock the boat" and just end up with a group that are shy of giving you bad news.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#55

Perhaps companies over-list requirements because everyone knows requirements are not ANDed together. There is a scoring scheme that combines all of these, and the quality of the requirement. And let’s be honest having spent “5 years of Python” at a Google is a different story from having spent “5 years of Python” at an Infosys. To be honest, I’ve never seen a job description that exactly lays out what you’re going to…

I love the "looking for experts in X" followed by "with one to two years experience". And then I see my neighbor who is an expert in X, can code rings around anybody, but can't find a job after his company shut down. His only fault is he's 60.

At 60 you just got a few more years to work until you have to retire. It takes 2-3 years to really get comfortable with some bigger code base... So if you are looking for some longterm employee (if such a thing even exists), it's not worth it.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#56

It's interesting how women seem to get interviews when matching fewer of the job requirements than men. Might be worth looking into whether this is due to gender discrimination in recruiting, or if women just apply to jobs that are a better fit, regardless of job requirements.

We are trying to hire at the moment and most of the resume we've received have been from men.... we'd like to interview some women....one of the good resume from a female is missing their email address.... in my book that would have been an automatic no but...since we need female candidates we tried calling them for an interview...

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#57
post #47

I've only once ticked of roughly 95% of job requirements. I didn't get the job. They actually cited the 1/20 requirements I didn't fulfill and said they can't hire anybody who doesn't have that. They wanted a 100% candidate. Looking through the list of the things they listed as must haves and that they wanted an internal candidate I showed them it is statistically very unlikely they would even find a better candidate…

>The position had been open for almost a year. I think there's a reason. Fake job openings to keep HR people busy?

Or more likely fake postings to show investors they are a successful company that is hiring.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#58
I recently was involved in drafting a job posting that was extremely flexible. For example it didn’t specify a particular programming language, just listed a few and said “or other similar languages”.

However the essence of the posting was clearly for a programmer. Significantly more than half the people that applied were not programmers. We saw some resumes from seemingly quite accomplished statisticians but we were not looking for a statistician (or “data scientist”).

So I think which 50% matters. If someone is a self starter and has great communication skills but can’t program she isn’t going to be hired as a programmer.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#59

Perhaps companies over-list requirements because everyone knows requirements are not ANDed together. There is a scoring scheme that combines all of these, and the quality of the requirement. And let’s be honest having spent “5 years of Python” at a Google is a different story from having spent “5 years of Python” at an Infosys. To be honest, I’ve never seen a job description that exactly lays out what you’re going to…

> And let’s be honest “5 years of Python” at a Google is a different story from “5 years of Python” at an Infosys. I don't think I've ever seen an ad from Google that spells out years of experience in any given technology. Their requirements are incredibly terse, usually along the lines of 'BS/BA in Computer Science or equivalent, experience in some programming language'.

Google is extremely strict about the number and wording of job requirements (5) and nice-to-haves (either 4 or 5) allowed in job descriptions. This is a good thing, but it does sometimes lead to confusion on the candidate's end because JDs can be so general as to be useless.

Re: You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

#60
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And let’s be honest “5 years of Python” at a Google is a different story from “5 years of Python” at an Infosys. I don't think I've ever seen an ad from Google that spells out years of experience in any given technology. Their requirements are incredibly terse, usually along the lines of 'BS/BA in Computer Science or equivalent, experience in some programming language'.

I read that a different way. I understood it as an ad from Company X which lists '5 years of Python' as the requirement. Candidate 1 has 5 years of Python at Google, and Candidate 2 has 5 years Python at InfoSys.

Does the Google experience really teach one that much better? Or is it just perception?

I mean, at the end you are just a little cogwheel in some big corporation anyway. The python tasks you need to solve there are probably just as mundane as everywhere else.

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