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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”

#201

Post by pkaye »

rhacker wrote: post #90
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…

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…

My experience has been that HR just passes the resumes to all the hiring managers who make the call to proceed. There are some more competent HR recruiters that could also prioritize candidates that are a better fit to the top of the pile.

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

#202

Post by AchieveLife »

throwaway19ii8 wrote: post #146
alain94040 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Having been on both sides of the hiring table, I can tell you that the candidate has no idea what we use to make decisions, because the candidate has no visibility into our internal issues. Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some ki…

I made an account just to say as a frustrated person on a job search right now with pretty good qualifications what you are doing is silly. BOTH of your examples are things that in no way whatsoever make you liable legally and you have no reason not to tell the candidate in either situation. You could literally tell the candidate even vaguely that there might be issues that will take awhile to clear up before the com…

There's a talent shortage and employers hesitate giving information that would potentially close doors.

My recommendation: If they delay or have excuses then don't bother. How they treat you before is how they treat you after. My rule for professional communications is 24-72 hours.

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

#203

Post by toss1 »

jriot wrote: post #155
alain94040 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Having been on both sides of the hiring table, I can tell you that the candidate has no idea what we use to make decisions, because the candidate has no visibility into our internal issues. Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some ki…

Those are the most frustrating reasons. You wonder why people hate finding a job, its because of people like you doing this type of nonsense. Figure out what you want and need before wasting people's time.

Get used to it.

From the perspective of running several consulting/job-shop types of business, this happens all the time from clients/customers/prospects (who are effectively employers, and are in very analogous positions here).

We'll be going along through the process of sales, project definition, quoting, etc, and then all of a sudden they just go silent. No reason, no explanation, just ghosted. For days, weeks or months.

Then, suddenly, with no warning or explanation, they call/email again, and the process picks up as if not a day has passed -- the only difference is often they are in a bigger rush and want the project more. (seen similar with VCs too)

So what happened? Almost anything. Other business have their own priorities, and their own fires to put out, and can often quickly get distracted from a project.

The difference is one of perspective. For us the employee or service provider, this job is a critical priority. For them, it's one of many, even for top priority projects.

It's just not the same sense of urgency from different sides of the table. I've learned (after way too much anxiety) to just accept and ignore it -- mostly.

And the times I couldn't just ignore it and felt that I had to do something, and only barely managed to hold myself back? Almost always glad I played it cool (even if I wasn't cool inside my head).

YMMV

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

#204

Post by Symmetry »

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…

And there's the danger that by having your requirements too tight you've inadvertently created a asshole filter[1].

>An asshole filter happens when you publicly promulgate a straitened contact boundary and then don't enforce it; or worse, reward the people who transgress it.

[1]https://siderea.livejournal.com/1230660.html

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

#205

Post by AchieveLife »

toss1 wrote: post #203
jriot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the most frustrating reasons. You wonder why people hate finding a job, its because of people like you doing this type of nonsense. Figure out what you want and need before wasting people's time.

Get used to it. From the perspective of running several consulting/job-shop types of business, this happens all the time from clients/customers/prospects (who are effectively employers, and are in very analogous positions here). We'll be going along through the process of sales, project definition, quoting, etc, and then all of a sudden they just go silent. No reason, no explanation, just ghosted. For days, weeks or…

If they treat you with disrespect initially then they will continue to do so as is their status quo.

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

#206

Post by tracker1 »

wtracy wrote: post #199
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR doesn’t really conduct interviews beyond maybe a quick high level screen. They select candidates, but also only as a high level screen, it’s up to the engineering team to screen more deeply and do interviews.

Of all places, Facebook had a pretty clearly non-technical person screen me over the phone. Apparently they gave her a list of questions and answers. The questions were structured so that none of the answers were open-ended. ("What is the OSI seven layer model? What is a Unix signal?") So, yeah, I'm not sure I would call it a real interview, but sometimes HR does get called upon to screen candidates.

I talked to a person in a similar situation... ironically some of the questions could have multiple answers. Pre ES5 and Post ES5 JS has changed a lot of the "rules". Specifically to scope/closures.

But yeah, for the most part, those kinds of questions help. It does depend on what your needs are.

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

#207

Post by ska »

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…

Your information here is really asymmetric, so while I agree with you that there was probably a reason, it's really difficult for you to accurately assess what it was.

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

#208

Post by ska »

rhacker wrote: post #90
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…

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…

Sometimes in a startup the posting stays up for a year because you can't identify and successfully hire a good candidate. I'm thinking of more niche roles, sure, but I've seen it happen multiple times.

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

#209

Post by ArchTypical »

geezerjay wrote: post #194
alain94040 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Having been on both sides of the hiring table, I can tell you that the candidate has no idea what we use to make decisions, because the candidate has no visibility into our internal issues. Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some ki…

> Most of our decisions (especially to pass) have nothing to do with the candidate. And they have no way to know, so instead they over-analyze their resume or what was said during the interview to try to extract some kind of clue. Which is 99% wrong. I've applied to jobs that required a long and tedious hiring process and in the end unfortunatley I didn't get hired, but I also had nice HR drones contacting me to prov…

> The reason why candidates overanalyze stuff is because you left a wide gaping hole by providing no feedback.

Moving the goalpost to more specific information, weakens the employer position. Now they are no longer interviewing potentially qualified people, but interviewing people trying to intentionally pass themselves off as specializing in a few skills. Weak hiring practices are the norm, so the strategy of hiding information (the most valuable skills) benefits the employers. People are very good at faking skills at a cursory (or specific depth, like side projects), which is part of the reason Headhunters are derided, prepping both sides to fail for their own commission.

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

#210

Post by 52-6F-62 »

ska wrote: post #192
AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Why not just hire the most fit candidates regardless of their gender and be done with it? Short answer, because you aren't actually capable of identifying them. Longer: mostly because there is real value in team diversity, and it's almost impossible to remove your decision biases without actively addressing them. So if you identify a potential bias, it's not crazy to try and do something about it and see how that wor…

There is a very real and pragmatic application for this very thing, specifically in AI work as identified by Fei-Fei Li:

https://www.wired.com/story/fei-fei-li-artificial-intelligen...

edit: my phrasing wasn't very clear. I mean for having a team from a diverse makeup.

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