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Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#11

Post by jaclynmling »

abhshkdz wrote: post #8

This seems to have tremendous potential. I like the conscious effort to de-bias the system away from initial indicators (like school, GPA, etc.). Thank you for doing this! Question -- is there the possibility of an income-share model here? i.e. Hatchways does due diligence in initial assessment + matching and even pays for the candidate's internship at the company, and makes money only when the candidate gets a full-…

We definitely think there is a huge value add to do an ISA after an internship-- which can further show our conviction of our candidates to employers if we are willing to up-front salaries.

We have in the past been able to receive government funding for some candidates that proved really positive for both candidates (received opportunities that they may otherwise not have had) and employers (to take more chances)

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#13

Post by jaclynmling »

jarfa wrote: post #4

This is cool, and might be useful to a friend of mine with a non-traditional background. But your company's blog is very focused on Toronto - do you all have relationships with NYC companies?

We initially launched this in Toronto and have recently expanded into major US cities like SF and NYC

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#14

Post by mettamage »

koopuluri wrote: post #9

Hey Jaclyn, glad to hear you're tackling this space - one that I'm passionate about. Congrats on the launch! "As a new grad without relevant work experience, or as a career shifter without a relevant degree, getting a first job is very painful" - Absolutely true. I've spent a good chunk of the past few months mentoring a cousin to help him get his first job in Tech. He studied computer science, has a great GPA, can a…

I have seen this in Amsterdam. The amount of rejections I got because I am not senior enough (despite it not being mentioned in job applications) is staggering.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#15

Post by jaclynmling »

codetrotter wrote: post #7

If someone from a foreign country, say Norway, contacts you about wanting your help to get a job, do you also help those candidates through the process of getting a green card? If so, awesome! If not, that’s an idea for possible improvement right there :)

This is great point! At this time unfortunately, we don't have the capacity to make that happen, but we are looking into partnerships to help make that possible for foreign workers

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#16

Post by jaclynmling »

jasonpeacock wrote: post #6

I always thought the tech industry would benefit from probationary hiring/apprenticeships to help counter the challenges in technical interviewing - basically this same approach as internships but for experienced professionals. Would you expand your program to include those experienced in the industry who don't (or won't) perform well in traditional tech interviews?

We believe that trial employment at any level is effective and beneficial to both sides. For candidates it allows them to get a better feel of the work before committing, and for employers, you get a better sense of the person's skill level in your environment. We personally have hired senior engineers doing part-time trials, and this has been effective for us. This is something we could possibly expand into in the future.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#17

Post by d0paware »

I recommend time-boxing how much time candidates will have to spend on your process. People coming from an alternate career path still have to pay their bills through their current job and tend to the same responsibilities as anyone else. Asking them to do days of unpaid homework (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874015) may not be a luxury they can afford.

For the take-home portion of your assessment, consider paying the candidates for their time at an entry-level annualized salary. Many companies would balk at this idea because it is more expensive, but it demonstrates respect for the candidate.

Looking at the website, I don't see many details about what the assessment actually includes. I think it would help to be forthright about the structure of the assessment. Does Hatchways or the employer determine what the assignment is? How does one create a rubric for scoring a submission, and how is quality assurance conducted on the effectiveness of these rubrics?

I think it is only fair to tell candidates what area of expertise they are going to be tested on a week ahead of time, so they can prepare as they see fit. As for this bit: "ability to follow a spec, code quality and how quickly the task is completed" - it would make sense that different companies would place different weights on each of these factors, given that some of these parameters can often be at odds with each other.

Also - a particularly tricky area: how do you give feedback to candidates? Do you help them succeed? Is it enough that Hatchways gives the feedback, and not the employer to avoid lawsuits? Having done some take-homes in the past that were rejected, I received absolutely no feedback on what could have been done better or what was missing. Candidates who continually to struggle and don't pass any of the interviews aren't necessarily morons or inept - they just need someone to point them in the right direction.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#18

Post by napsterbr »

I seriously hope you folks succeed. All the luck to you! Here's my non-traditional story:

I've worked on my own personal projects for 10 years, always looking for new challenges. I've dropped out of college after 2 years since it was crystal clear to me that I learned much more when working on my own stuff. I would learn new things in college, but at a much slower pace. I guess it was useful to learn calculus...

Anyway. Financially I never needed a fully paying job, so I could spend all my time doing my own research. From web security to docker to bsd to aws/gcp, I've managed to gather a lot of personal experience on many tools. Similarly, I went from PHP to Erlang to Haskell and back. For a brief period I even managed my own team!

But now, 10 years later, I just started looking for my first job and boy, do I realize my resume is empty! I have some code on github but none of my projects are famous or noteworthy. So far, most jobs I've applied for said I'm not qualified, and I don't blame them if all they looked at was my CV.

To solve this I'm working on (yet another) project, a distributed KV storage with built-in MQ capabilities, automatic clustering and transparent sharding, eventual consistency through the use of operation-based crdts, written in my favorite language for distributed systems (Elixir). Hopefully I can use it to get a job, but I think proving one's experience and knowledge should be easier.

Interestingly, if I had gotten a job when I dropped out (~6 years ago), I would probably be a specialist/senior engineer on some specific tool, but I wouldn't have the range of experience I do today.

Sorry if I digress, just wanted to share my non-traditional "case" (to be fair, you asked for it!)

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#19

Post by jaclynmling »

napsterbr wrote: post #18

I seriously hope you folks succeed. All the luck to you! Here's my non-traditional story: I've worked on my own personal projects for 10 years, always looking for new challenges. I've dropped out of college after 2 years since it was crystal clear to me that I learned much more when working on my own stuff. I would learn new things in college, but at a much slower pace. I guess it was useful to learn calculus... Anyw…

Really like your story. Thanks for sharing! Really hoping that the more engineers, like yourself, that get into organizations and spearhead efforts to reduce bias, the easier it will be for non-traditional talent to break into the field.

Best of luck in your job search, and if there's anything that you think Hatchways can do to help please let us know.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#20

Post by jaclynmling »

d0paware wrote: post #17

I recommend time-boxing how much time candidates will have to spend on your process. People coming from an alternate career path still have to pay their bills through their current job and tend to the same responsibilities as anyone else. Asking them to do days of unpaid homework ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874015 ) may not be a luxury they can afford. For the take-home portion of your assessment, consid…

Great points and comments here. Few things to add: -one big benefit for our candidates doing our take-home project is that they only need to do one assessment that can they qualify them for dozens of companies. Rather than have to do 5-6 different take-homes for different employers. -Before a candidate begins an assessment we are very upfront with what knowledge and skills you will need before you start. If there is any way we can make this clearer, we'd definitely be open to feedback -At the moment, it is quite manual how we match employers to the right candidates (we usually do this by fully understanding what the candidate will be doing on the job and helping them prioritize the right skills based on that) -We try our best to give feedback to every candidate that comes on to our platform- regardless if they make it through the assessment or not. In particular, candidates who do interviews with employers we are very active with asking employers for feedback on a candidates interview performance so we can deliver more candid feedback than they could give.

Very much agree that candidates these days are not receiving candid feedback that they can action on after they interview with employers, and this is a whole other issue that needs to be solved.

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