Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

youteam.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 332 posts

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#241

Post by macksd »

fn1 wrote: post #67
BeetleB wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, you can probably get away with this. As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max). The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete ), they'll misinterpret.…

Have you tried putting each important sentence on it's own paragraph? Just the important ones. That makes a difference in focus/readability. Try it.

Many of the suggestions I'm seeing are the polar opposite of how this thread started.

When you're remote you miss a lot of context. Overcommunicating in writing helps address that. Eliminating information or not expecting people to fully read and engage with what they read is going in the wrong direction of the fundamental problem.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#242

Post by soneca »

user5994461 wrote: post #209
ddek wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I don't agree with you. My degree is chemistry from a good-not-great institution. Since getting into SE, I've progressed to technical leadership very rapidly. I have dedicated myself to applying for jobs, but it's not that much work. It's about making sure you advertise matching strengths. I make sure my CV only has the minimum information needed to sell this. Then only job of my CV is to get a callback. After t…

It seems you're on your first job in tech? You were lucky to get a position out of your first batch of applications. >>> My first jobs were low paying roles in non-tech companies. Strong hint that a major factor in you getting the job was that you were cheap and that the companies were struggling to fill the position. Expect the next jobs to be get exponentially harder to get as you try to find a job that pays more a…

I am not a new graduate. I am 41, learned to code when I was 37. I still am in a junior position though, but not first job in tech, nor young.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#243

Post by ashtonkem »

Pasorrijer wrote: post #3
josephmosby wrote: post #2

Eng manager at a team that was remote pre-pandemic and I will 100% confirm this is critical to getting things done. I'll add on that it is tough to find someone who is a great writer and a great engineer early on in their careers. You just haven't had a lot of time to practice both. When you're looking for junior candidates, they will often fall into two camps: they'll write too much, or they'll write too little. If…

For a junior candidate, which do you think is easier to train? The engineering skills, or the writing skills? At first glance, I think writing... But as I think more I personally think the writing / communication skills are more challenging to teach, especially to engineers because it is more of an "art" than a fixed talent.

Engineering, no question. The number of people I've met that can code like the blazes but can neither clearly communicate their ideas nor persuade people with the written word is kind of astounding. Many of them can be persuasive in person by relying on their passion and high rate of speech to carry them through, a strategy which does not work at all for the written word.

Engineering has the clear benefit of things either working or not, with the reasons why it failed being entirely explainable even if it's not obvious at the time. Documentation is fundamentally a human to human operation, which means that all of the signals are messy and unclear. Writing is harder than speaking too, because you can't adjust course mid-stream if it's clear that your reader is confused or unmoved. Writing demands that you not only get your thoughts organized effectively, but that you reliably predict how people will read it and compensate appropriately. This is not a skill trivially learned.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#244

Post by wonder_er »

blizkreeg wrote: post #39
wonder_er wrote: post #17

> To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills I strongly agree! Looks like many other commenters agree too. how do I find companies that are hiring and agree with this statement? I've had a hard time finding those companies. I've had a slew of interviews recently, and none of them asked about my extensive online writing. None of them seemed to have clicked through to my website. A…

Stripe

I interviewed with them, after very affirming conversations with a few different people in the organization.

My writing/async communication skills didn't come up. _They did not ask_, which means my writing skills are illegible to the organization.

I bombed the "live algorithmic coding challenge", which is a re-implementation of the Trier Social Stress Test, and indeed induced substantial anxiety on my behalf, _because I so wanted to work at Stripe_. [0]

I was so dispirited I've not done another technical interview since.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trier_social_stress_test

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#245

Post by nthj »

BeetleB wrote: post #63
hodgesrm wrote: post #11

I've been working on remote teams for almost 20 years. The key to success is overcommunicating. In other words--don't assume people have full context or share assumptions. Write emails that lay out assumptions explicitly and detail problems completely. As a manager I sometimes feel like a Habsburg bureaucrat buried in the Chancery offices sending painstaking messages to a far flung empire. Come to think of it, remote…

As a manager, you can probably get away with this. As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max). The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete ), they'll misinterpret.…

One of the hidden assumptions in "hire people that write well" is that people who write well would also likely have high reading comprehension skills. Or, the inverse—I find that the ones who want to jump on a quick call vs. writing out their request are the same people who seemingly don't read the documents I produce.

Quickly reading and understanding almost everything I can find—code, plans, schedules, calendars, strategy, memos—is how I excel in remote environments. It's not a huge time commitment, 20 minutes a day, but I have the organization's "state" modeled in my head, which helps me identify dependencies and potential bottlenecks before they're surprises.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#246

Post by Nagyman »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #221
hodgesrm wrote: post #11

I've been working on remote teams for almost 20 years. The key to success is overcommunicating. In other words--don't assume people have full context or share assumptions. Write emails that lay out assumptions explicitly and detail problems completely. As a manager I sometimes feel like a Habsburg bureaucrat buried in the Chancery offices sending painstaking messages to a far flung empire. Come to think of it, remote…

One thing I often do is split an email into two parts, I'll even label them. High Level Summary: 1-3 sentences that cover the main ideas, kind of an executive summary. Details: the nitty gritty, full context, screenshots, etc. People seem to really like this, each reader has the option to dive as deep as they need/want.

Good on you for thinking about the user experience of the person receiving the communication. It's a skill to know how to do this well. It requires practice and effort that many people don't bother with – because of a lack empathy, they're too busy, or they realize the recipient(s) won't recognize (or even read) the results.

Edit: In my experience, a lot of people can't even bother to think of an appropriate subject line that summarizes the content effectively. "URGENT: please read" is the worst offender.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#247

Post by mLuby »

hanifc wrote: post #199
benhurmarcel wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does he propose that people always spell out the full name of all components? To me it comes across as selfish, he only wants people to use acronyms that he personally knows, even when they're not talking to him. For instance I work on aircraft. Basically every component has its acronym. Yes, it's hard when you're new to the area. But nobody is going to take the time to write or say "Integrated Drive Generator", "…

> So does he propose that people always spell out the full name of all components? To me it comes across as selfish, he only wants people to use acronyms that he personally knows, even when they're not talking to him. I'm curious what makes you attribute that selfish motivation to him? I thought he was pretty clear in saying that it's particularly tough for new employees: "Individually, a few acronyms here and there…

"No one can actually remember all these acronyms and people don't want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance. This is particularly tough on [me]."

Selfishness is a bit too strong a word, but I'd bet he wrote this after a particularly acronym-heavy meeting where he was annoyed at feeling dumb for not following the conversation. So it's a good policy directive that's also self-serving.

Also this is a difficulty inherent in micromanaging large organizations, something Musk and Jobs are famous for. Leaders who trust their delegates don't need to understand jargon as much as manager-speak.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#248

Post by AlwaysRock »

soneca wrote: post #80

I believe I am a good writer. On my first job as a developer I kept getting very positive feedback on my writing. I ended up even starting a newsletter with writing advice for software developers[0]. So 4 months ago I started looking for a remote job. I applied to 250+ positions. All very suited to my skills (e.g. I wouldn’t apply to any job asking for “senior” or “fullstack”). I got about only ~15 interviews, 1 offe…

I agree. Writing abilities are valued after you have passed whatever arbitrary coding test the company requires you to take. Similar to leadership and people skills in technical roles. Companies say they want them but they are valued much lower than ability to pass their technical to a suitable degree.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#249

Post by postit »

I'd say effective communication is more important than strong writing skills.

I used to work with someone that could write 300 pages to communicate something that could have been communicated with a single sentence.

I used to work with someone who wold span the team channel for hours to communicate something that he could take them time to properly craft a complete message.

Prolixity and noise can happen on both written and spoken forms. Getting people who can balance all the ins and outs of communication is the key.

Re: To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills

#250

Post by eru »

szszrk wrote: post #189
eru wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't fit your comment with my palm on my current monitor. (But I read it anyway.) I guess the effect of following this rule depends a lot on formatting, size of hands and monitor and how long your arms are and how far away you are standing.

You are holding your palm flat towards screen, right? :) It's one of those things you apply only when it suits you, and ignore when it doesn't work to your benefit. Jokes aside: I wrote this because it's both sad and interesting how people cope with huge amounts of communication that waits for their action.

I was working a pretty big screen at the time.
Post reply on HN