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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#401

Post by ritchiea »

dragonwriter wrote: post #369
solveit wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students. This is a (despicable) feature. Harvard isn't trying to find the most capable students, they're trying to find the students that will most succeed. And they deny that they know there's a difference.

If you are talking about the most capable of success , there is no difference. The fact that the rules of the game which determine success isn't what you'd prefer (or what I'd prefer!) is, well, not principally Harvard's doing. I think the problem is that you want Harvard to favor those who would be most capable of success, if the rest of society other than the individual and Harvard were (your version of) ideal .

I don't believe Harvard is choosing the wealthy kids and the legacies because they are most likely to succeed, I believe Harvard is choosing those people because they are most likely to have the highest ROI for the Harvard endowment & future donations. Someone from a low socio-economic status or otherwise marginalized background that has worked hard enough and smart enough by 17 or 18 to be a good candidate for admission at Harvard is an outstanding bet to have the determination to succeed later on in life.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#402

Post by nullc »

perl4ever wrote: post #380
pc86 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many/most developers are prohibited from working on open source projects by their employers. This is 100% untrue. IP assignment is not enforceable if you do work on your own time and use your own equipment (including connectivity). If you don't own a personal computer and your GitHub page is loaded with commits during your working hours, yeah you're going to have a hard time arguing it's not company IP. But for the…

"Many/most" is ambiguous. "Many" is 100% true, and having a different experience isn't any kind of a challenge to that. Even if there's some question as to the theoretical legal enforceability of an agreement, if you have to sign it to have a job, then it's not practical to challenge it. You'd have to have the resources for litigation as well as to make a living after being blacklisted. It is true that people ignore…

https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/...

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#403

Post by close04 »

jefftk wrote: post #339
close04 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not looking for candidates to show that they care I'm sure gut-punching you also doesn't change the fact that they can think about algorithms and code. But it does say something about them as people and their character. Showing they put effort in preparing for the interview suggests they put effort in preparing [period]. I've seen plenty of exceptionally qualified people that were a net loss for any team due th…

I think gut-punching your interviewer is a strong negative signal about how it would be like to work with you, but wearing informal clothing is not much of a signal at all. There are just so many different reasons someone might be dressed that way: they could be the kind of person who doesn't put effort into things, they could think dressing up for an interview is cheating, they could not care about clothes in genera…

Are you wearing flip-flops when you interview them? Do you tell them in advance to feel free to wear flip-flops?

> but wearing informal clothing is not much of a signal at all

You just moved the goalposts. I didn't say "informal is a problem". I said "jeans and sneakers already is the lowest reasonably acceptable way to dress for an interview" and "flip-flops or anything like that would definitely fall below just underdressing". This signals that you may believe you are too good to wear for an interview anything more than you'd wear when taking out the trash. And believe it or not that's exactly what myself and so many others noticed in practice. Many of those people do actually turn out to be very good, maybe even some of the best in the team. But as I said above they were finally a net loss for any team specifically due to this attitude.

And yes, bringing your own bottle of water would be the norm if asking for one was seen the same as asking the interviewer for a pair of decent footwear ;). Is it the same?

> they could think dressing up for an interview is cheating

Wearing jeans and sneakers instead of flip-flops and trunks is not "dressing up" in anyone's book.

You're taking the most unreasonable interpretation of everything (not just as hyperbole like my gut-punching example) and moving the goalposts just to make your point.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#404

Post by leetrout »

perl4ever wrote: post #381
leetrout wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid an attorney to review my contract and NDA... “ anything you do on your own is owned by your employer.” If you use their equipment or their office or their phones. But doing a software project at home on the weekend on your own computer is not going to be owned by the employer in the states I’ve lived and worked in (VA, GA, TN, NC). Do you have a source for a state where this has happened?

I wouldn't expect that working on your own time is automatically considered to be your employer's property anywhere. But some (Fortune 500) companies absolutely do require everyone to sign an agreement that everything you create 24 hrs a day until you leave the job, belongs to them.

I would be willing to sign that for $250,000 or more a year outside the California markets.

I had an offer from a game company that went through my list of disclosures and said I would have to report my potential book royalties to them (why? Dunno) and that I could not continue to work for the local university. I was dumbfounded. I explained upfront in the interview I worked 5-10 hours for the school and the recruiter said that was great and that my new manager loves giving back. Unfortunately legal did not. I ended up backing out of the offer. I still kinda regret it because it was a stellar team working on neat problems.

All that to say I can see companies asking you to sign something that wouldn’t hold up if you had the means to challenge it. I suspect most people done have the privilege of paying $300-1000 to have their contracts reviewed / red lined.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#405

Post by vonmoltke »

nullc wrote: post #402
perl4ever wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many/most" is ambiguous. "Many" is 100% true, and having a different experience isn't any kind of a challenge to that. Even if there's some question as to the theoretical legal enforceability of an agreement, if you have to sign it to have a job, then it's not practical to challenge it. You'd have to have the resources for litigation as well as to make a living after being blacklisted. It is true that people ignore…

https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/...

This thread started with "In any state besides California and Illinois", so California state code is irrelevant.

Also, posting bare links as replies is annoying. Please add some context.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#406

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mdip wrote: post #294
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that 'culture' is more important, the smaller the group. You have to get along with everybody in the group, or conflicts quickly take valuable time that should be moving the project forward. But this often devolves into discrimination. Everybody from the same socioeconomic slot means cliques, doesn't it? How can it not? We used to have something called 'professionalism', where you worked with somebody in…

I don't know that it always leads to illegal forms of discrimination. First, defining the term -- when you're interviewing, you're discriminating. When you choose one person over another, you're discriminating between those two people. The question is whether or not the form of discrimination is legal, and accurate. Both should be true. Looking at my own team as an example, there's a guy who's a mid-level who got his…

Sounds like a cool place!

Lets not go in the direction of semantics - discrimination used in this context has a clear meaning - penalizing a protected group. To hire folks that can be friends with the quorum, means excluding folks who can't. If systematically applied, it probably means excluding entire ethnic, economic or social classes.

Ageism isn't a problem where you work - that's great. Nice upper-class educated people are doing well too - Iranian and Russian immigrants are generally like that.

Assuming the women applicants are identically distributed as the men's (a huge assumption) then those statistics matching is a good sign. If we ignore that 50% of people are women I guess, and only 15% of applicants are. So many women leave our industry (don't know what industry your company is in) the applicant pool is already selected for those who can hack the bro culture. It takes 'affirmative action' to get real parity there.

Hiring is hard, and I understand its an onus on the company to make efforts to find qualified minority candidates. But its also a reason to make an effort. Because there is a pool of overlooked candidates out there, who are not showing up in your middle-class neighborhood with resume in hand.

Anyway, good luck!

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#407

Post by jefftk »

close04 wrote: post #403
jefftk wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think gut-punching your interviewer is a strong negative signal about how it would be like to work with you, but wearing informal clothing is not much of a signal at all. There are just so many different reasons someone might be dressed that way: they could be the kind of person who doesn't put effort into things, they could think dressing up for an interview is cheating, they could not care about clothes in genera…

Are you wearing flip-flops when you interview them? Do you tell them in advance to feel free to wear flip-flops? > but wearing informal clothing is not much of a signal at all You just moved the goalposts. I didn't say " informal is a problem". I said "jeans and sneakers already is the lowest reasonably acceptable way to dress for an interview" and "flip-flops or anything like that would definitely fall below just un…

> Are you wearing flip-flops when you interview them?

Yes, in the summer I wear flip flops when I interview people. Flip flops and shorts are within the range of regular informal clothing at my workplace, and people don't dress differently on days when they're interviewing people.

> Do you tell them in advance to feel free to wear flip-flops?

I don't talk to them in advance of the interview. I'm not sure what recruiters/friends/etc tell candidates about what's customary, but I do think many people get advice like "you don't have to dress up, wear whatever you normally do".

> You just moved the goalposts.

I'm not trying to move the goal posts. I'm still talking about flip flops and shorts.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#408

Post by scarface74 »

natalyarostova wrote: post #103
plughs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who do a lot of personal projects also tend to be young with minimal outside responsibilities. It is no secret that they are appealing hires - someone who's willing to spend long hours on personal projects is probably also willing to spend long hours on work projects. That's what makes it discrimination.

Life is about trade-offs. If you want to spend more time outside of work on things like friends and family, that's great. In fact, it's probably optimal. But to then say it's discrimination when someone who has made the choice to instead only focus on their technical skill, at the exclusion of friends and family, is better than you, is a little silly.

If you’re spending 40+ hours a week at work and not being able to “focus on your technical skills”, you’re doing it wrong.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#409

Post by scarface74 »

malvosenior wrote: post #325
scarface74 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between “shipping software” and doing a git push..... I’ve actually “shipped software” that got put on production servers and people paid money for.

That's the beauty of it being published on Github. I can look at the project and see if it was just a `git push` of something meaningless or if it's actually well thought out and demonstrates ability.

That may show an ability to write software. But shipping and putting them on production servers is still different v

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#410

Post by [deleted] »

ddevault wrote: post #264
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

I'll be honest: if you have one person who spends 8 hours a day practicing a talent, and another who spends 10 or 12 hours a day practicing their talent, which is going to be better at that skill? Having lots of open source code to read demonstrates in public the prospect's talent for writing code, has examples of their collaboration with others, etc, but also simply means they spend more time writing code and gettin…

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