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The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

neilwithdata.com

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Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#311

Post by kortilla »

onion2k wrote: post #243
ravenstine wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm pro meritocracy(and think that, contrary to an increasingly popular opinion, anyone of any background is capable of showing merit in this field), technical interviews can be done very poorly and swing so far the other way that they dehumanize the candidate. Years ago, I had an interview for Yellow Pages. I know, who the hell still uses Yellow Pages? Well, this was back in 2014, though I'm still wondering th…

Yelp actually ripped off the Yellow Pages. The name comes from YEL-low-P-ages. The Yellow Pages was a paper-based business telephone directory that started decades earlier.

What made yelp good was the reviews, not the listings. This is the part that yellowpages turned around and ripped off.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#312

Post by kortilla »

skybrian wrote: post #161
thaumasiotes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technical interviews were once seen as a breath of fresh air. > You can be a nobody without connections or degrees and if you can prove you have skills during an interview process you may be hired. I think it stops being seen as a breath of fresh air when e.g. Google's explicit expectation is that you will spend multiple months studying for the privilege before interviewing with them.

As an ex-Googler who did many interviews while there, I've never heard of that expectation.

It’s part of the recruiter correspondence. They recommend books, practice sites, etc.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#313

Post by gonzo41 »

RichardCA wrote: post #248
gwbas1c wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we all like to complain when we don't get the job we want. It doesn't matter what the process is, some form of song and dance is needed.

I think the thing people are "on about" is that we have become so cynical about the current status quo, that there's no oxygen left to have a real conversation about what constitutes a true "false negative". It would require some sort of longer-term data gathering around the rejection / ghosting process. For example, Google claims to be very objective and data-driven about their hiring process, but once a candidate i…

It's a really interesting point you raise. Road not taken etc. I wonder if google quantifies the impact of hires over the long term. How productive are you? How much does your contribution make the company and if you weren't here would google notice?

If google could know when it was about to deny a speculative false negative it could hire them exclusively into a part of the company where everyone is a speculative false negative. Then you could just watch them compete with those who pass and try and measure something objective.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#314

Post by thomk »

thomk wrote: post #307

I never understood why companies don't take a slower, ramp up approach for interviewing. ROUND 1 THE INTERVIEW Step 1: Interview candidates for 'culture fit'. Chat on the phone, get to know the person a bit, ask questions about what they did before. See if they have a sense of humor, get them to relax. Don't try to trick them, just have a chat. Step 2: Ask a few 'how do you think questions'. Why are manhole covers ro…

One last point on this. The general idea is to see HOW someone thinks. One way to do that is to have them map out and work through a problem on a whiteboard without code. I'm talking boxes and arrows. Ask a question like 'How does (for example) bittorrent work IN GENERAL?'

Have them map out the answer on a whiteboard for one person who knows how bittorrent works and can nudge them along if needed. The idea is to see how well they communicate complex ideas, not how well they have memorized the bittorrent protocol.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#315

Post by loup-vaillant »

> Almost no other "white collar" profession I'm aware of will so completely and thoroughly ignore your actual proven ability, historical accomplishments, and holistic qualities, as part of the hiring process.

Perhaps that's because programmer is not a white collar profession? Those who don't manage other programmers are naturally at the bottom of the hierarchy, just like a machinist (clearly a blue collar profession, though I would certainly show proper deference to them before I even dare approach a machine).

Never mind how useful, or how skilled, people at the bottom are. They're at the bottom, and that alone probably affects how they are treated. The hiring process is just an effect of this.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#316

Post by idoby »

TheOperator wrote: post #285
earthtourist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that you can succeed well at tech companies without a degree from a top school. Class, race, gender, sexual orientation are not barriers to success. That's the positive thing. The negative thing is that most tech companies heavily favor "top school" candidates and actively recruit for them. They would rather higher someone provably less qualified from a "top school" than someone else. They track and boast…

I'm not sure how much I want to replace the pseudo-IQtest system with the system where we hire based on classism offset with racism.

Those are not the only two options, you know...

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#317

Post by aries1980 »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #22

Technical interviews were once seen as a breath of fresh air. You can be a nobody without connections or degrees and if you can prove you have skills during an interview process you may be hired. Contrast this with other hiring processes which are more irrational, like med residency match, investment banks favoring "target school graduates", law firms favoring "top 14 graduates", etc. I think whiteboarding is dumb an…

I personally find whiteboarding / diagram drawing very irritating, for the same issue as most physics exercise: given a complex problem and you have to discard 95% of the problem to come up with a result that the teacher might thought.

The same with diagram drawing, 10 boxes and arrows, but missing most aspects of the architecture that actually matter. As a hiring manager I much more prefer to talk through the problem to see if the candidate can ask the right questions, thinks about NFRs, can suggest alternative solutions in light of new information.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#318

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

earthtourist wrote: post #57
jackcosgrove wrote: post #22

Technical interviews were once seen as a breath of fresh air. You can be a nobody without connections or degrees and if you can prove you have skills during an interview process you may be hired. Contrast this with other hiring processes which are more irrational, like med residency match, investment banks favoring "target school graduates", law firms favoring "top 14 graduates", etc. I think whiteboarding is dumb an…

It is true that you can succeed well at tech companies without a degree from a top school. Class, race, gender, sexual orientation are not barriers to success. That's the positive thing. The negative thing is that most tech companies heavily favor "top school" candidates and actively recruit for them. They would rather higher someone provably less qualified from a "top school" than someone else. They track and boast…

One of my previous bosses (at a large tech company) moved over to the US and was asked to hire 9-10 people in a quarter.

Everyone said it was impossible.

She went to LinkedIn, found people with the right skills (strong data and ability to communicate), and had a massive fight with HR because none of the candidates came from "top" schools.

She won the argument, and all of the hired candidates did a great job.

People (especially US people for some reason) seem overly obsessed with the university someone attended, when it doesn't seem to be that predictive of workplace success.

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#319

Post by theelous3 »

This article was painful for me to read, mostly because of how accurately it reflected my experience with job searching.

I'm not the worlds most experienced dev who's shipped multiple products, but for a relatively inexperienced (2y professional, 5y total), I feel I am overlooked for positions I would excel in because I am just plain bad at technical interviews.

I have a fairly impressive github, a creative cv and recruitment page, and a bunch of nice addons that show how much I care about programming both technically and socially. I have probably the best possible background for remote positions in particular. I get interviewed a lot because of all this, and then facepalm my way out during technical interviews.

I'm the kind of dev that can eventually solve pretty much any leetcode-y type problem, but it takes me a long time of sitting in silence and playfully experimenting with a repl or similar. This translates extremely poorly to interviews.

I have also noticed that my brain will just disconnect midway through interviews and I will fail something that under ordinary circumstances I would never miss.

A combination of my style of thinking mapping poorly to the interview format, and stage fright, means that my odds are poor; even against candidates who would be both technically and personably worse fits.

Not really sure how to tackle this :)

Re: The software industry's greatest sin: hiring

#320

Post by atomashpolskiy »

0xFFC wrote: post #219
ping_pong wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met this kid 20 years younger than me at my last company. He had a thick country accent that made him sound like a redneck, and he never went to college, he only graduated from high school. One of the best programmers I've ever met. He couldn't do complex big-O analysis because he never learned it having started to work straight out of high school, but other than that, his code was meticulous, he gave excellent cod…

One question, how did he make that much money?

Apparently, his childless loving uncle passed away and left him a fortune. You know how these stories go... :)
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