Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#31

Post by 01100011 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 8:49 AM UTC

Now that I've been hired I want to know which companies are improving their onboarding process. I got hired and was basically thrown to the wolves. Maybe I'm just lazy or stupid, but I feel like too many companies hire senior people and expect them to just start making major architectural changes day one without any ramp-up.

Just give me some bugs to fix for the first month or two. I need to learn your code and technologies involved, all while setting up my HR/benefits, learning the team and the facilities... You can ask me hard questions, but keep in mind my knowledge of your code is weak. I'm not ready to make proposals when I don't even know what your problems are or what is important to the stakeholders.

Also, I think I messed up and failed to fully vet the job I signed up for. I was so focused on getting a job in the valley that I let my standards drop. Now I'm at a job where I feel I am a poor fit. I'm not sure I'll last a year(my choice, I think), and after having just worked another job for a year, I think it's not going to look great when I try to find a new job. I'm thinking of just going back to contracting. I'm not cut out for big company politics. I just want to make cool shit.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#32

Post by philip1209 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #13

I'll reiterate a desire for someone to actually make an OkCupid for Hiring. Both sides answer questions and get matched. (If this exists please let me know)

Working on it at https://moonlightwork.com. We treat work as a matching problem. We have an application process, but we accept every developer and designer who has 2 years of experience and a complete profile.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#33

Post by lassej » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 8:57 AM UTC

We've been working on a new video-interviewing tool for about a year now: https://hireflix.com/ One of our main goals is to improve the remote interview experience for both recruiter and recruitee. Feel free to request access to the beta at the site! Would be great to have some people from HN testing our platform.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#34

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 8:57 AM UTC

Boxxed wrote: post #20

Zaheer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specific information do employees not have? I'm co-founder of https://www.Levels.fyi / https://www.Comp.fyi which we built specifically to tackle information asymmetry in the job-seeking process. Would love to get feedback on how we can expand information we collect: hello levels fyi

Personally, I never really trust any of these sites because the all claim to have good data, and yet they all report pretty wildly different salary ranges for similar jobs. I have absolutely no idea if I'm actually being paid a reasonable salary, but honestly it's something that's important to me at my current stage in my career.

Out of curiosity (I'm not hiring :-) ), what does "reasonable salary" mean to you? Also, how do you evaluate the similarity of jobs? I'm asking because if I were looking to decide if I'm making a reasonable salary, I don't really even know where to start. I mean junior/intermediate/senior developer mean completely different things in different companies. The role of lead developer might be completely different as well. And given those different responsibilities, what is worth more or less money? Knowledge of certain skills (more rare is worth more? probably, but by how much?) Same thing for things like remote vs co-located (how much of a hit should I expect for remote?). Inventions agreement vs. my side projects are my own? The likelihood of a lot of overtime? The current health of the company (high risk company means more pay, I would think???)

Not taking a go at you. These are seriously things I think about and was wondering if you had thought about them too :-)

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#35

Post by collyw » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:01 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #31

Now that I've been hired I want to know which companies are improving their onboarding process. I got hired and was basically thrown to the wolves. Maybe I'm just lazy or stupid, but I feel like too many companies hire senior people and expect them to just start making major architectural changes day one without any ramp-up. Just give me some bugs to fix for the first month or two. I need to learn your code and techn…

I think every new job involves a bit of imposter syndrome.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#36

Post by collyw » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

bunny9 wrote: post #30

We use https://www.interviewbit.com/hire/ for hiring developers. InterviewBit stands out compared to other traditional agencies by providing coding exercises to the candidates to test their coding skills and understand their level of experience.

> InterviewBit stands out compared to other traditional agencies by providing coding exercises to the candidates to test their coding skills and understand their level of experience

How does using candidates time for coding exercises make them stand out"?

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#37

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:03 AM UTC

GolDDranks wrote: post #6

chroem- wrote: post #3

Hiring is broken because employees and employers have asymmetric bargaining power, which leads to unrealistic expectations. No amount of improved candidate screening will solve that.

Which side you think as having more bargaining power? What kind of expectations? Those things might depend a bit on depending where you live. I live in Japan, and I have the rough feeling that as a software engineer I have quite a lot more of leverage in bargaining compared to some other professions.

This is very interesting to me as I work in Japan as well (although working remotely on contracts). I wonder if you wouldn't mind getting in touch with me to chat (my contact details are in my profile). I sometimes think about potentially getting a job with a Japanese company and this is something I worry about. To be honest, I don't even know how to negotiate in Japanese culture :-) Your boss says, "Here is your salary". End of negotiations. (I suppose you can get really drunk at the enkai and accidentally complain about your salary ;-) ).

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#38

Post by oriolid » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #13

I'll reiterate a desire for someone to actually make an OkCupid for Hiring. Both sides answer questions and get matched. (If this exists please let me know)

Funny, the first message I got on actual OkCupid was from their recruiting. My profile did have one passing mention about programming, maybe it was that or maybe some values / attitude / some other thing they caught.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#39

Post by uberswe » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

In Europe or more specifically Germany we have Honeypot.io. They are different because the companies apply to candidates. They have assistants that help both the companies and candidates and tries to guide them to a better hiring process.

I have been on both sides using it for both recruiting and finding a job and I like it. The main problem as a candidate is that some companies still seem like they don't really care and just spam everyone with copy/paste templates but it was really nice to have some interesting companies apply to me.

As a recruiter I love it because it is easy to contact candidates but the main issue is lack of candidates. We have a shortage of developers to fill positions which is why Honeypot was started in the first place I believe.

Re: Ask HN: Which companies are improving recruiting?

#40

Post by richardhod » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 9:21 AM UTC

Zaheer wrote: post #22

Boxxed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I never really trust any of these sites because the all claim to have good data, and yet they all report pretty wildly different salary ranges for similar jobs. I have absolutely no idea if I'm actually being paid a reasonable salary, but honestly it's something that's important to me at my current stage in my career.

Comp.fyi has over 5k self-reported salaries. Any user generated content will always have slight inaccuracy / variation though we have enough data points to generate a fairly good median figure. You can take a look at the individual submissions on the site and decide for yourself but we've heard from several folks that the salaries are more accurate than other sites.

Another issue is that location, even 60 miles, can affect salary enormously. Go even to some of the suburbs of London and it's a lot less then inside London. San Francisco Bay Area is a huge anomaly with in California. Berlin commands lowersalaries done the rest of Germany. And to get enough data across different sectors which pay differently and roles which are not quite the same as described elsewhere but titled similarly, seems to be quite difficult. How do your data compare with glassdoor for example?