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You Only Need 50% of Job “Requirements”

talent.works

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

#61

Post by sgc »

GhostVII wrote: post #39

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 also need the data on interview to hire rates to make much of it. Companies might just be more willing to interview women despite their lack of apparent qualifications in the name of diversity, but then can't justify the hire. That would seem to be a healthy phenomenon if it were the case.

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

#62

Post by carlmr »

bluGill wrote: post #57
24gttghh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

There are plenty of hires. I think it was one very picky department head.

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

#63

Post by bluGill »

pc86 wrote: post #43
wil421 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is bad too (in its current state of sophistication) but I still think it's better than having some HR generalist with 6 months on the job and no technical knowledge scanning resumes before anyone who knows what they're doing gets to them. At least if you know your resume will be scanned by a computer before-hand you can optimize for that. It's hard to optimize for a person with no skill-set. The place I've worke…

HR has one other job that you might not realize: make sure that your hiring/interview process is legally fair. You better not interview in such a way to make it impossible for some types of otherwise qualified people to pass (female, black...) while others find it easy (males, white...).

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

#64

Post by Double_a_92 »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #56
GhostVII wrote: post #39

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...

So it is indeed because of gender discrimination/diversity?

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

#65

Post by kamarg »

carlmr wrote: 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…

Seems to me that this was a job put together with a specific person in mind and somehow that didn't work out and they just didn't know what to do after that. Seen this same scenario play out before at multiple companies.

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

#66

Post by throwawaymath »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #55
sureaboutthis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree, unless you and I have radically different definitions of what "comfortable" means. If I'm hiring an engineer with the seniority I'd expect them to have at 20, 30 or 40 years in industry then I want them to ramp up inside of a year.

I'm not going to expect them to be completely self-sufficient within a month. But they should be capable of implementing performant solutions to nontrivial problems with autonomy and collaboratively reviewing code with their peers.

Stated another way - what are they doing for 2 - 3 years before they're comfortable that isn't worth it to hire them?

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

#67

Post by Spooky23 »

scarejunba wrote: post #4

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…

Always blame laziness and bureaucracy.

People need legal reasons to say no. In a bureaucracy, that means that administrative types come up with objective measures to identify the perfect candidate, or to defend against less than honorable or completely fake people who simply lie about their skills. I have seen every level of bullshit, from a guy who told me he dealt with conflict at his last job by taking a swing at his boss to situation where three different people impersonated a candidate. Sometimes institutions come up with unique ways to handle that.

In reality, the meaning varies depending on the bureaucracy and how stringent oversight is. If someone is going to get an audit finding for hiring someone with 4 years, 11 months of experience, they care. Usually people choose to see what they see. Another reason for the laundry list is that editing is impossible. In a big company, the recruiter in Timbuktu has a phalanx of bureaucrats between the job req and the hiring manager. It's easier to have a mandatory requirement for 15 years of Windows 95 experience and add Python as an optional skill than to re-write.

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

#68

Post by rossdavidh »

I think many people write their job description's requirements, as if it were the opening stage of a negotiation. You list everything you want as if it were a requirement, and you will only get about half of that. But the problem is, it isn't a negotiation, it's a minimum spec (especially if you put the word "required" next to that line), and so many quite good candidates won't apply.

However, typically, I see 20-30 requirements, many of which (e.g. "passionate about software development", "good communicator") aren't specific enough to tell the candidate whether they are a good match or not (do poor communicators know they are poor communicators?). Of the rest, really only 2 or 3 are actual requirements, and the candidate has to guess which those are.

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

#69

Post by throwawaymath »

eitally wrote: post #59
electricslpnsld wrote: post #10

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'.

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.

Hah. That's an understatement. It's even worse for research roles. Try finding a research scientist position at Google which is substantially different from any other research scientist position.

That and the fact that by applying your CV is typically sent to 4 - 6 other offices around the country and world, each for identical roles.

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

#70

Post by GhostVII »

sgc wrote: post #61
GhostVII wrote: post #39

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 also need the data on interview to hire rates to make much of it. Companies might just be more willing to interview women despite their lack of apparent qualifications in the name of diversity, but then can't justify the hire. That would seem to be a healthy phenomenon if it were the case.

That would still be discrimination though, just in a way that benefits an underrepresented group. Discrimination isn't always bad, and it is legal to descriminate in hiring if you are doing it for diversity.
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