Pet peeve: there is no such thing as a "neurodiverse person". Individual people cannot be more diverse or less diverse than others. Diversity is a property of a group.
To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
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Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#92Any hiring process will by definition favour certain kinds of candidates at the expense of others. Having a week long paid trial is a great way for the company to be less conservative about who they try out, but will also mean they’ll miss out on candidates who are already employed and unwilling to take time off or quit their job to participate in it. In the end though, if they can tap into an undervalued candidate p…
In this case, the week long paid trial is work from home, and I did not notice anything that said that the work had to be done during normal businesses hours. It should be possible for most people to fit that in around their current employment.
Anyone capable of working 5 days 16h productively is unlikely willing to give away 5 week worth free time.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#93As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…
> I've heard it so many times about people interviewing others, as "(s)he is smart, passed all test, but weird, I don't like to work with her/him". At this point, it is systemic discrimination. No, that's a misnomer. Systematic discrimination implies the system itself codifies this behaviour - but instead, what is codified is _team fit_, which is often based heavily on intuition. Humans are capable of being good judg…
> Let's face it: for neurotypical people, a lot of autists are very hard to get along with. Their behaviour is not always predictable in the way that we need behaviour to be in a workplace; and when more pronounced, their specific needs are not something that we want to have to address in our coworkers.
They say if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. As the term 'neurodiversity' implies, it is not restricted to any particular phenotype, but speaks of a plurality of diverse behavior types.
> It's good that small companies are often able to accomodate folks like yourself
Their are many high-functioning autistic people all through-out the start-up scene and across the tech industry. I'm certain it isn't just small companies that employ people on the spectrum. Some mask so well, you can't even tell - and the distinction between neurodiverse and neurotypical is not as binary as you might imagine.
You might want to give pause for thought.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#94As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…
I had the opposite experience. I don't have Asperger's or ADD, but I'm shy and struggle with eye contact and small talk. I interviewed at about ten startups, and despite doing well on the technical questions, I got rejected every time. I began to suspect it was because of "culture fit" -- will this 35 year old introvert fit in at our frat house/office? I was getting pretty depressed after all that rejection, but I go…
I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit".
You describe it yourself as a frat house, which, I assume from the rest of your post, is not what you want.
Work is not always only about output and skills, especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues. It says nothing about your skills, just that both sides would probably be miserable in case you were hired, so it makes sense to find someone who would fit in the mold, even if less experienced/skillful.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So the 'soft' questions are attempts to weed out 'problems'. Get this through your head: when interviewing, experienced managers are not "selecting the best" but rather "avoiding the worst". And these questions... they're crapshots in the dark — “how the hell am I supposed to know if this person is OK/normal or a piece of work?” It's even more blurry from the interviewer's side. So they just try to get a 'feel' for…
Aha... so you know. Hopefully my long piece will be useful to someone else, then. "Red flag", that's the expression I was looking for indeed.
Yeah, sorry, didn't mean to dismiss your post with such a short response. It does give good insight into the Hiring Mind, for those who may not have been there.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#96As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…
I had the opposite experience. I don't have Asperger's or ADD, but I'm shy and struggle with eye contact and small talk. I interviewed at about ten startups, and despite doing well on the technical questions, I got rejected every time. I began to suspect it was because of "culture fit" -- will this 35 year old introvert fit in at our frat house/office? I was getting pretty depressed after all that rejection, but I go…
> I had the opposite experience. I don't have Asperger's or ADD (...)
So you had experience that's not related to interviewing with Asperger's or ADD. That's cool too.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never in my entire career have I been asked the 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' question. It doesn't even make sense in the tech world. In five years? There's a good chance your company/business unit won't exist and I'll be 1-2 jobs on from this one mate. Don't worry about it. It sounds like a hollywood movie cliche you'd hear at an interview scene. I'd laugh if I got that question in an actual interview. I'm…
I haven't had heard it in interviews, but I've been asked several times by former managers in performance reviews. Do they want the truth? "I'd like to be managing you."
As a manager I would definitely want the truth. There is nothing wrong with drive and ambition, so why hide it?
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#98As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…
Are you talking about big tech companies or non-tech companies? I have ADD and work at a big tech company. I know someone else who has Aspergers/ADD.
I would say it's slightly easier to get hired at a big tech company compared to a smaller company for someone who is not Neurotypical. (Assuming both places are equally hard to get accepted at).
In the company where I work we use a scoring rubric to score candidates. The final hiring decision is not made by the interviewers, but by a hiring committee based on notes from the interview. That makes it (slightly) less likely to reject candidates just because the interviewer didn't like them.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I had that exact one once early on. I did actually get an "if you could go back in time a couple years, what advice would you give yourself?" a little while ago, which 1) threw me, because I wasn't expecting much of that formula crap from this place, and 2) I hadn't prepped for, so I just punted, being able to think of very little other than things unrelated to work but also lame, cliché, or "don't interview…
I'm curious, what do you think is a "good" answer? Because, from the interviewer standpoint, here's what such questions are about. Prepare to have your mind blown, maybe. 1. Hiring is by far the most stressful, unpredictable, career-destroying part of a manager's job. And that's as an employee, if that's your business (founder, entrepreneur) you're scared shitless that a mistake may plain and simple ruin your busines…
Very well (and expressively) said! Being on the other side of the interview is _far_ more stressful than showing up at a company and giving it your best shot. A candidate may or may not get the job, a manager may make a bad hire that slows down their team that causes the manager to be passed over for a promotion.
Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews
#100Any software engineer that wants to build a _real career_ with _real progression_ will already know that changing jobs should be done by connections, not cold-applying for jobs.
Sure you need to get your foot in the door, but if you don't utilize the connections you've made throughout your working history, you either A) weren't useful enough to build higher standing connections, or B) were probably too focused on being a good employee on a technical level.
Pro-tip: Companies love hiring people they already know through some mutual relation. I would argue that a cold-interview process is directly the result of a lack of trusted upper-management network contacts.
It's very common to skip these bullshit interviews through this path. When you ask yourself "how did this manager get there?" this is probably your answer - they knew how to play the game better than you did.