Ask HN: Why are hiring processes flawed and testing random standards?

I work partial remote and every day I go to the office I wish I was fully remote... not because I hate the office (I love it, and really enjoy my co-workers) but because I hate commuting.

* Hiring is a marketplace, and supply/demand is not always balanced, so most issues related to job search/hiring is due to this.

* When a company posts an ad for a job, they usually receive about 150-200 applicants within 2 weeks, thanks to job boards, LinkedIn etc. Unless it is for specific high-skilled jobs, in which case, they receive hardly any applicants at all.

* Most of the applicants are usually not a match for the job, but given the number of applicants, recruiters rely on resumes, social profiles etc to shortlist about 20 applicants.

* Tests and assignments are quick means to filter, hence their popularity.

* Not much of an incentive to keep applicants posted at every step, plus, managing communication with a few hundred applicants for multiple positions is hard - so you're most likely to receive only automated communication from the hiring team.

I believe that having a clear specification of the job, that can be checked/validated with applicants is critical to ensuring a smooth, fast interviewing process.

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In my experience this rings true for senior roles and less so for new college grads.

Companies seem afraid to hire thinking there is a slightly better/cheaper option around the corner.

I can see why perhaps a candidate receiving a rejection may think this, but in the companies I’ve worked at this has never been the case. It’s always been “it’s really tough finding talent, not paying talent”.

The take home assignments with random marking standards. Tests can matter, ui could matter, api structure could matter, documentation/choice of framework, speed, style all could matter but you rarely know which matters to whom and rarely have time to do it all and even if you did everything perfectly a lot of the time no one even looks or the reviewer expects the code to look like how they might write it.

A fair reviewer recognizes the limitations of these take home exercises. While there are many ways to perform a take-home successfully, there are more ways to show that you aren’t qualified for the role. Not all that pass will be right for the job, but most who fail aren’t.

The economics of it are that in many places in the world, it is extremely difficult to fire an employee. Getting rid of an underperformer can take time, effort, and exposes the company to liability if the termination can be construed as relating to the employee being in a protected class (e.g. can't fire someone because she's a woman). Let's assume that it's a SF startup willing to play a little fast and loose and they aren't concerned with severance packages or the legal issues. They still put time and effort into training a new engineer. That's months of work that is potentially wasted.

All of that means that companies are incredibly risk-averse when it comes to hiring, and will pass on someone who looks even slightly wrong to them. It also means that the process is inherently random as a company will pass on someone they aren't sure of _even if they would have been a good hire_ just because they aren't certain. However, this also means that a lot of companies rely on self-selection in their hiring pool. Look for people they already know, from the same backgrounds, or are willing to pass through a series of arbitrary tests.

In short, it's like democracy. It's the worst form of government, except for all the others we've tried.