Hiring Is Broken? • Hacker News Board

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#111

Post by alexeiz » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #17

Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have generally been rather disappointed with Google/FANG software developers. These companies generally though not always avoid the bottom 1/3 of the talent pool, but that’s about it. Effectively they simply select for people willing to hack their hiring process, which also excludes most actually talented developers. Resulting in a few very talented people, and an overall average workforce. This is also why most in…

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Fundamentally, companies do not hire for raw technical ability. Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days. You probably wouldn't want a supermodel as a life partner. The whole thing is about selecting model employees. People who will rock the boat in the correct ways; need money, but are neither impoverished nor independent; are reliable; an…

> Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role?

The question is incorrect. By hiring Linus you eliminate the need for 5 bog standard dev roles. Bog standard dev roles is not a requirement. It's what you end up with if you hire mediocre people.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#112

Post by username90 » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #107

username90 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could just lie and tell you from the perspective of another dev on their team, or even combining the achievements from several of them at once. Of course most people wont lie a lot but this style heavily favors those who do so you will get a disproportionate amount of liars on your team.

You can discover the lie asking very technical questions on how the solved some issue. They will answer at the greatest level of detail if they did it themselves.

Note that we aren't talking about people who can't code, we are talking about mediocre performers who know what they are doing but are still far from top talent. Knowing how to explain a coworkers thought process is not very hard when you have reviewed their design documents and been on every meeting.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#113

Post by alexbanks » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

zug_zug wrote: post #33

Frost1x wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an impression that this problem is only at a few places like Google which is not the case. As someone recently browsing the market I've seen this process adopted rampantly and without reason or rationale. So many companies I would consider mid-tier, lower, or not even technology companies have outsourced have adopted similar if not the same hiring models of FAANG or outsource hiring/recruiting/assessments tha…

Meh. I don't buy it. I agree with the parent that it's usually people not getting hired being mad about it. - "interviewing is broken" is a meaningless linkbait title. All you can really say is it's less efficient than it could be. - In fact, interviewing in tech might be the best of any industry. Look how good we are at hiring minorities, people without college degrees, people who don't wear suits, people with verba…

This is a mindblowing response to me. To say "look at how good we are a hiring minorities" feels like it has to be an obvious troll.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#114

Post by username90 » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

alexbanks wrote: post #113

zug_zug wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. I don't buy it. I agree with the parent that it's usually people not getting hired being mad about it. - "interviewing is broken" is a meaningless linkbait title. All you can really say is it's less efficient than it could be. - In fact, interviewing in tech might be the best of any industry. Look how good we are at hiring minorities, people without college degrees, people who don't wear suits, people with verba…

This is a mindblowing response to me. To say "look at how good we are a hiring minorities" feels like it has to be an obvious troll.

We are extremely good at hiring minorities, so good in fact that we stopped calling Asians minorities.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#115

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

alain94040 wrote: post #75

maxaf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your implicit assumption seems to be that Google and its ilk hire the absolute best engineers. This is simply not true, for one very simple reason. There is no proven method for sorting a pile of candidates such that the absolute best engineers will float to the top. In the case of high-profile employers, a significant percentage of hires will be those who have trained themselves specifically to beat the hiring proce…

There is no proven method for sorting a pile of candidates such that the absolute best engineers will float to the top [for the sake of argument] -- yes, there is a method, if you want to find out the top few best engineers. Look at their experience. Jeff Dean, Linus, John Carmak. I think my algorithm fulfills the letter of your search criteria by finding a few 10X engineers in an ocean of regular people. Unfortunate…

[deleted]

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#116

Post by yowlingcat » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

esotericn wrote: post #17

Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have generally been rather disappointed with Google/FANG software developers. These companies generally though not always avoid the bottom 1/3 of the talent pool, but that’s about it. Effectively they simply select for people willing to hack their hiring process, which also excludes most actually talented developers. Resulting in a few very talented people, and an overall average workforce. This is also why most in…

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Fundamentally, companies do not hire for raw technical ability. Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days. You probably wouldn't want a supermodel as a life partner. The whole thing is about selecting model employees. People who will rock the boat in the correct ways; need money, but are neither impoverished nor independent; are reliable; an…

Your last sentence is the bullseye. On the whole, companies like FAANG hire for employees that supply the bulk labor throughput they need in large quantities with overall low risk. Their interviewing process very deliberately selects for this.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#117

Post by neilv » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

0x445442 wrote: post #86

esotericn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Fundamentally, companies do not hire for raw technical ability. Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days. You probably wouldn't want a supermodel as a life partner. The whole thing is about selecting model employees. People who will rock the boat in the correct ways; need money, but are neither impoverished nor independent; are reliable; an…

> Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days. I've often wondered if Rob Pike or Guido Van Rossum went through the same interview process at Google that we all hear stories about. I'd be very surprised if they did and my guess is, for them, it was much more of a negotiation of what they were going to work on and what their compensation was going to be.

I asked a recruiter there whether someone like that (like the creator of a popular programming language) would have to go through the normal new-grad-style whiteboard coding hazing gauntlet (phrased diplomatically) interview process that they were expecting me to. The recruiter said no. I decided not to interview, because it turns out the hazing wasn't something "everyone" had to do, and I just didn't rate decent treatment.

The next time a recruiter from there cold-contacted me, I asked again. IIRC, that one said a person could skip at most only the first part of the whiteboard coding hazing (phrased differently), if someone at Google could vouch for them, but that everyone had to do the second part of the hazing, before they could advance to the interviewing phase of professionals with mutual respect (phrased differently). I decided not to interview.

So long as their process comes off as one-sided, arrogant, and negging, the company doesn't seem like a place I'd want to work.

It's like you're meeting a first date in the line at a cafe, and they're physically attractive and rich, but they're rude to the barista -- bullet dodged, we're not together, and I'd like my coffee to-go, please.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#118

Post by empath75 » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #105

username90 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could just lie and tell you from the perspective of another dev on their team, or even combining the achievements from several of them at once. Of course most people wont lie a lot but this style heavily favors those who do so you will get a disproportionate amount of liars on your team.

I think your assumption is incorrect, based on my own experience. I’ve never hired a liar, and I’ve hired a lot of people. I have, however, declined to hire people who failed to answer follow up questions honestly or appeared to not be able to explain their success. Anyone who wants a job knows it’s a bad idea to lie because you find out immediately once you hire someone whether they are lying, and it would be ground…

Yeah all you have to ask is questions like why did you use A instead of B? Did you run into any problems implementing that?

It doesn’t take long before people start stammering and deflecting if they’re full of shit.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#119

Post by adamredwoods » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

I'm actively interviewing. I don't think hiring is broken, but I think some companies get lazy or even abuse it. If we get the abuses down, and require less of a time commitment (no 8 hour take-homes), I think there'd be less complaints.

The key takeaway is that rejection hurts emotionally. Programmers who care about coding, take the rejection personally. Less time commitment, less hurt.

Re: Hiring Is Broken?

#120

Post by lubesGordi » Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

djhworld wrote: post #96

n_ary wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take home has two sides to it. Group A: People who excel at face to face interviews(extroverted) will complain that it is waste of time and disrespectful, because it demands significant time commitment compared to a 1 hour in-person interview. Group B: People with interview anxiety(introverted) will excel at this type of test because they have the freedom to set aside their own time, do things at their own pace and e…

> significant time commitment compared to a 1 hour in-person interview. I don't think I've ever been in a software engineer interview where the face to face portion is less than 3 hours (at minimum!)

I think they're talking about the initial 'phone screen' portion of the interview.