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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”

#131

Post by artursapek »

AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #81
Blackstone4 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> since we need female candidates May I ask why? Why does it matter if the candidate is male or female? Why not just hire the most fit candidates regardless of their gender and be done with it?

It's in vogue in Silicon Valley to bias hiring standards in order to get more "equality" on the other side.

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

#132

Post by pishpash »

0xffff2 wrote: post #129
rhacker wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing for engineers to "be the HR department" at small companies. They are willing to let things slide because they know the candidate, especially after interviewing them, that they can fill in the knowledge gaps (well I don't know about the willing to move to china bit). Contrast that with a large company with a specific HR department that is in charge of taking a job requirement sheet and finding and filte…

I've never worked for a startup, but when my company leaves a long-standing position open, it usually means that there's some work sitting on the back burner that isn't important enough to make it on to an existing employee's task list. Even in my small group, there's plenty of work that would be "nice to have", but isn't mission critical. If we find the right person to do some of that work, we will hire them on a sh…

No, startups just never get to the "nice to have".

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

#133

Post by drb91 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #100
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…

They wanted a 100% candidate. You sure about that? Maybe they wanted an easy way to tell people no. Maybe that 1/20 requirement was very heavily weighted compared to the other 19. Maybe they didn't really want to hire anyone at all or wanted to hire a specific person, but had to make a job posting for political/legal/policy reasons...

Well, it’s still poor hiring if that is the excuse: rude and unhelpful.

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

#134

Post by astura »

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.

That sort of reason for not hiring a 60 year old is illegal in the US.

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

#135

Post by ricardoreis »

dfxm12 wrote: post #100
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…

They wanted a 100% candidate. You sure about that? Maybe they wanted an easy way to tell people no. Maybe that 1/20 requirement was very heavily weighted compared to the other 19. Maybe they didn't really want to hire anyone at all or wanted to hire a specific person, but had to make a job posting for political/legal/policy reasons...

Maybe they wanted an easy way to tell people no.

Either way -- in tech (and for some reason more so than in other industries) -- when it comes to hiring, it's head games all up and down. And generally to an extent far more than can really be called "necessary".

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

#136

Post by linuxftw »

dfxm12 wrote: post #105
rossdavidh wrote: post #68

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…

so many quite good candidates won't apply. Shame on someone for writing unrealistic or unnecessary "requirements", but also shame on the engineer who doesn't even apply because of them. I wonder how truly good a candidate is if they get discouraged so easily. Maybe a hidden requirement 1 is showing a willingness to try to punch above one's weight or displaying some self confidence during the application process. Afte…

Too many job requirements is a symptom of a bureaucratic hiring process, which is a symptom of a bureaucratic work environment. I've found cold-applying to these types of positions bares little fruit.

On the flip side, I don't mind an overly ambitious position description if a recruiter has reached out to me. I know I have an actual human on the other end, and they have enough sense to determine I might actually be a good fit.

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

#137

Post by mbesto »

logfromblammo wrote: post #123
mbesto wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how many good 50-75% candidates self-select against applying Got some data to back that up?

Applying for a job costs time and effort. All other things being equal, I will prefer to apply to a job posting where I meet more of the requirements than one that is a looser match. Adding requirements that aren't actually requirements is a good way to get your posting sorted to the end of my applications queue indefinitely, or ignored entirely. I will apply to the closest matches first, and stop when I pass a time…

I don't blame you and I agree with you. My point is that this is not how the market works.

You argument is like asking for women to stop being so demanding about all of the qualities they want in a man. Sure you can take a stand against that and say "I'm only going to meet women who match my exact profile and seek those who have realistic set of expectations". This is just simply not how it works and anyone who has individualistically "taken a stand" ends up losing out and just goes back to market norms.

In other words - a noble effort, but discrediting human behavior in aggregate won't get you very far.

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

#138

Post by moate »

_pmf_ wrote: post #46
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.

That's actually better, since in this case there's reason to the madness, which cannot be said for the typical second order ignorant HR person.

I mean, someone still had to decide what inputs to use for the algo. Ultimately somewhere a dumb human thought may have been involved.

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

#139

Post by linuxftw »

tombert wrote: post #98

Heh, I think most autodidacts have discovered this independently. I'm a Physics-Major dropout, and have managed to find jobs in big brand-name companies that have "strict requirements" for a degree. Now, it's led to a level of imposter syndrome (I've posted about it on HN before), but at the same time, it demonstrates that these "requirements" are more "strong preferences". Sadly, it does seem like the research-orien…

> Now, it's led to a level of imposter syndrome

I challenge that what you're feeling is imposter syndrome in this case. I posit it's the realization that at the next economic downturn, should you find yourself out of work and the landscape for being hired is more competitive, you are at a strategic disadvantage.

Upward mobility into Director/VP roles is also quite limited without a degree, even though a degree in CompSci has little to do with running a business.

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

#140

Post by linuxftw »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #110
codingdave wrote: post #73

That does match up with my job search I just completed. I sent out 5 resumes, got an interview on every one where I had a majority of the qualifications, did not get called on the 2 that were more off-target. But I'm not sure that the sales pitch this article is trying to make is valid. They claim at the end that they'll get you 5.8x more interviews. But is that good? In my 3 interview processes, they each brought to…

On the other hand, you keep doing what you're already doing. I have a really high ratio of interview / job offers, but that's because I choose to apply for jobs where I had nearly 100% of the requirements. I think this was a mistake. I should have taken more risks, try to apply for more challenging jobs that aren't completely in my comfort zone.

My strategy has been to take a new position that is a good fit for my current skill set and allows me to grow in the direction I'd like to move. Coming from the linux side of the house, I wanted to move more into software engineering. Each job hop moved me into more and more software development-centric roles.

Fortunately for me, it's usually meant an increase in pay as well, though I didn't maximize pay at each hop. I could have been paid more at different firms I declined during each move, the position responsibilities were always key for me.

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