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

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

#291

Post by thatcat »

tayo42 wrote: post #127
watwut wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you was taught that in elementary school and thus literally concluded that it is impossible to read something without knowing conclusion first is what makes it cultural. The fact that he and everyone around him sees conclusion up front as jumping the gun and likely was taught that structure in school, is what makes it cultural. > How could you read anything without knowing the point in the beginning. Ev…

It doesn't make sense as being cultural because there plenty of real examples of effective writing that starts with what you are writing about. The only exception might be in story telling, but that only works because there is some kind of context assumed or it works as a tool. It makes no sense for this "culture" to think less of research or any writing that intends to persuade because it starts with a introduction…

You could still totally just read the ending first if it's that big of a deal for you.

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

#292

Post by rmk »

noisy_boy wrote: post #260
rmk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly this sort of thing rarely matters when performance review time comes. I have never received any significant benefit career wise or money wise from doing this, despite this kind of stuff making a huge difference for the new joinee.

Sometimes its just about the mindshare. The HR person chatting with the VP: "You know that new girl, what's her name, yeah Julie, she setup a nice onboarding guide, yeah I liked it, very useful..."; casual stuff like that adds the layers of impressions that construct how everyone sees you. And I have observed those impressions to be more lasting and impactful than your last code review.

Meh... Ultimately it has to result in something meaningful; without that, it's just thankless work. Many places (particularly growing companies) have managers who simply do not know how to evaluate technical work (which should be the biggest determinant of monetary or career development rewards). SV has very good technical people (i.e., the foot soldiers are very motivated and above-average people), but the managers are very mediocre at best, way below average or actively malicious at worst (compared to many other industries). It's a curious dichotomy, and I often wonder why it's the case. One reason, that I have seen many times, is that during times of hypergrowth, whoever is just there gets slotted into managerial positions with scarcely any thought given to their managerial ability or skills. This happens less in larger companies, but there, there is a lot of infighting and politics that thwarts good management, not actual incompetence.

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

#293

Post by Fnoord »

capableweb wrote: post #192
Fnoord wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because mastering the native tongue shows the programmer was able to learn a lot of important basics at a very young age. Whereas the inability to master the native tongue shows a lack of education.

> able to learn a lot of important basics at a very young age Ok, and why is that important? Could be a ton of reasons why people are lagging behind when they are younger but be able to catch up when they are adults. Judging people based on how you think they might have been when they were younger feels... Not fair. Judge them based on their current knowledge and person instead. > inability to master the native tongu…

Because learning a formal language is akin to learning a programming language.

You misunderstood education as formal education. Just by exploring as a child, and living, you learn your native language. Before a child goes to school, they already learn by playing. That, too, is education, and sadly some children are deprived from that or their lack of intelligence already shows. Our oldest (not even 3), for example, is well ahead language-wise, whereas motor skills she's a tad behind.

If you don't practice something, the skill tend to get lost, yes. However, something you learned at a very young age defines you, and is (for good or bad) difficult to unlearn. Only at an old age or due to memory/brain related disease does it get lost.

When I went on vacation to USA for 3 months, twice, I had to speak English. I didn't speak Dutch at all. When I got back, I had to adapt to Dutch way of living and Dutch language, but it went rather quick. I have no problem 'thinking' in English because I learned this at a very young age; whereas French just never clicked with me.

These people who end up with expat parents and the like are an exception. Exceptions like these prove the rule.

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

#294

Post by rmk »

drcoopster wrote: post #262
rmk wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly this sort of thing rarely matters when performance review time comes. I have never received any significant benefit career wise or money wise from doing this, despite this kind of stuff making a huge difference for the new joinee.

Sounds like maybe you need to review your choice of employer.

Definitely. One thing I have realised over many years in this industry is that it rarely pays to stay longer than two years at a given place. That's usually enough time to figure out whether you'll be (a) making more money or (b) climbing the career ladder at the company. The answer is usually no, and for this reason, continually interviewing and jumping on the latest shiny toy is the best strategy long-term.

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

#295

Post by medium_burrito »

sqs wrote: post #282
medium_burrito wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness, please enlighten me. Email isn't the best, but the other options are equally or more shit: Slack, which has nonfunctional search and is miserable to navigate? Github readmes? Atlassian's wiki, which has even more broken search, and follows management's whims? Google docs, which vary widely in format, is not easily searchable, and has no index? Team documentation, which follows managements whims, g…

Quote: "The problem is there is no global index or search- think Sourcegraph, and management keeps changing products/documentation/comms strategy every 6 months." Are you saying that Sourcegraph's management keeps changing products/documentation/comms strategy every 6 months? (Just not sure how to parse this sentence.)

No, I'm saying that management keeps changing internal documentation/comms strategy, and that without a central index to search, it's impossible to know where things are, or what's even going on.

A tool like Sourcegraph but for finding documentation could be useful, but it doesn't show you the amount of "dead" documentation that's floating out there, or give you a way to browse everything.

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

#296

Post by titanomachy »

capableweb wrote: post #93
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 applied to 250+ positions That sounds wrong. It's common, but it still sounds wrong to me. When I look for new jobs, I find a couple of companies (3-4) that match with what I'm looking for exactly, read up on the companies, tell them explicitly how I fit into what they need and write them personally. I have a 100% success rate when it comes to interviews, and most of the time I get a offer, but drop out when my c…

I've experienced both of these things: applying to many jobs and getting many rejections, as well as applying to a few focused companies and getting multiple offers. In my experience, without a prestigious education it's common for the first job search to involve lots of rejections. Your description of the process sounds similar to my second and third job searches, after I had some experience.

The first time, I didn't have a resume that clearly showed experience in the kind of work I was trying to get, so I rarely got past screening. After about a year working at a recognizable (but not especially prestigious) company, I was able to get interviews more consistently.

Second, I got a lot better at interviewing, through a relatively small amount of focused practicing. This got my interview pass rate close to 100%.

Finally, my work experience allowed me to tell credible stories about things I'd accomplished and challenges I'd faced. I also learned, through experience, more of the shibboleths that engineers (often subconsciously) use to identify members of their in-group.

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

#297

Post by celeritascelery »

AceyMan wrote: post #280
Consultant32452 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've started using an equivalent pattern and my implementation has generally been a success, so I'll share: My email body has everything the "optimal" reader (i.e., someone who is already familiar with the topic item) needs to |action_verb| regarding what I've written. Then I "conclude" with my usual sign-off (e.g., Cheers, [CRLF] "/Aceyman"). BELOW that—but above my default signature/contact info block—I place all t…

I have started to question the value of sign-off text. It seems that is just wastes screen space. The only time it would be useful is when you are emailing someone who might not know who you are. What value do you see in it?

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

#298

Post by mrozbarry »

It's not just writing, good communication skills in general, and this applies to non-remote, too. This is just common sense. Don't hire someone that can't or won't communicate well with you and your team. Writing is a good start, but I think a lot of people are using audio and video calls for work.

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

#299

Post by titanomachy »

demosito666 wrote: post #240
capableweb wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I applied to 250+ positions That sounds wrong. It's common, but it still sounds wrong to me. When I look for new jobs, I find a couple of companies (3-4) that match with what I'm looking for exactly, read up on the companies, tell them explicitly how I fit into what they need and write them personally. I have a 100% success rate when it comes to interviews, and most of the time I get a offer, but drop out when my c…

Is the job market so tough/picky in US (I assume it's US by default since we're on HN) or is it because the IT companies don't hire people without CS degree? I get 2-3 interview invites every day on my LikedIn account just for listed keywords (nothing special, really, generic devops stuff). And the account is explicitly marked as "not looking for a job". I leave in Eastern Europe with a lot of huge outsource outlets…

The job market is pretty unequal here. The software jobs that pay high professional salaries are indeed competitive, but there are quite a few lower-paid jobs available.

I don't know if this is the case in your country, but my impression of the European market is that the pay difference between a "mediocre" and "good" job is pretty small: say, €40k vs €50k / year for an entry-level job in one of the richer countries. In the US, a mediocre entry-level job might pay $50k / year while a top-tier one pays $150k or more.

The level of competition for the higher tier is extreme.

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

#300

Post by titanomachy »

twicetwice wrote: post #141
dehrmann wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer I work in tech, the less silly it seems to have "English minor" on my resume.

These comments are making me feel a lot better about having "Philosophy major" on my resume.

The founder of Slack was a philosophy major, you're in good company.
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