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Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#71

Post by lostcolony »

rozap wrote: post #68
jghn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those areas where more companies need to realize they're not a FAANG. As Joel has pointed out in the past, you're not getting the cream of the crop as a normal company. Likewise you probably neither need nor even want the top. However what you do need is to plug a few holes here and there. As a hiring manager I find it much better to think in terms of a skill mesh. I'm always looking to bring the colle…

Plenty of "top" candidates don't work and don't want to work at a faang company.

Quite honestly I have my doubts FAANG selects for "top" candidates anyway. Unless you define "top candidate" as "those FAANG selects".

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#72

Post by nsonha »

this whole thing reads: don't hire top talent, hire special talent, to us, whatever. The latter sounds even harder than the former. It's hard to see your own weakness, it's rarer to have people to fill an exact particular gap at that particular point in time.

Maybe do away with the mindset of people as off-the-shelf products and think about them more as raw resources and focus more on upskilling. Universities are hopeless on this so the responsibility must fall on to someone.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#73

Post by astrange »

wccrawford wrote: post #2

>Instead of “how can we find the smartest people?” think about “how can we find people who will make our team stronger?” I would have thought that was obvious? Why would you hire someone unless you had a need for their talents? I guess I'm probably thinking small-business. At the biggest companies, they probably just hire and hope to fit them in because hiring for exact needs doesn't really scale.

If you’re hiring junior engineers, you can’t pick them for talents because they don’t have any. You hire them expecting to be negative for a little bit and learn on the job. If you don’t do this you’ll run out of senior engineers.

On the other hand, if you can work with them it’s good to get people who will contribute things outside the job description.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#74

Post by astrange »

marcinzm wrote: post #55
andrew_v4 wrote: post #7

Two personal counterexamples, whether right or wrong: Management consulting - you want to be perceived as hiring the best - project work that is not known in advance, you need very versatile people - looking for demonstrated desire to jump through the hoops and do the marginal work that makes you the "top" Software Engineering - some overlap with the reasons above - adds to the moat: if they're happy working for FAAN…

I'd argue that: a) You don't need really good unless you're doing cutting edge work at massive scales. There's lots of deep learning talent floating around that is good but not aligned with the FAANG interview process. b) If you interview process is a clone of FAANG then, well, you're not going to have a good time. See previous point and also you probably don't need a FAANG interview process unless you're at FAANG sc…

FAANG doesn’t have a single interview process - it’s pretty different at Apple Netflix Google as far as I know. Are there shared features they’re thought to have?

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#75

Post by waihtis »

nsonha wrote: post #72

this whole thing reads: don't hire top talent, hire special talent, to us, whatever. The latter sounds even harder than the former. It's hard to see your own weakness, it's rarer to have people to fill an exact particular gap at that particular point in time. Maybe do away with the mindset of people as off-the-shelf products and think about them more as raw resources and focus more on upskilling. Universities are hop…

Good mindset for big corp, not so for small biz. Waiting for someone to upskill and gain momentum for 6-12 months means a lost lump sum of money that can kill your business.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#76

Post by astrange »

tjpnz wrote: post #50
mpoteat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well considered by a lot of people in the industry that a prospective's grades and even which school they went to aren't a good predictor of skill.

Is the school thing a strictly American phenomenon? In New Zealand for instance all that tends to matter is which city/town you want to live in and whether the institution offers the field you want to major in (medicine for example is only offered by Otago IIRC). I've only been asked for grades once in the previous 12 years where at which point I withdrew my application.

Yes, America has more school inequality than other countries (although it’s not the only one, Oxford and Tokyo U also exist). Part of this is because they’re so good they suppress top international schools from forming in other countries. But also they teach in English and I assume it’s harder for international students to attend a French or Chinese school.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#77

Post by briefcomment »

atat7024 wrote: post #62
briefcomment wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally hire the people with the best grades and test scores from the top universities. Idk how much better you can get than that.

George Bush is top shelf, in your book, then, due to the top university?

Test scores

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#78

Post by astrange »

codenesium wrote: post #23
briefcomment wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have them actually work with you for a month, they're certainly the best predicators available for new grads with no portfolios right? FWIW, the most effective colleagues I've worked with all scored really high on standardized tests. They're a great predictor imo

The best programmers I know didn't go to college. It's been my experience that degrees and standardized test don't tell you jack about how well someone will do a job.

Most likely due to Berkson’s paradox. Short NBA players are just as good as tall NBA players but that doesn’t mean height isn’t good in basketball.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#79

Post by jimmont »

villasv wrote: post #28
wccrawford wrote: post #2

>Instead of “how can we find the smartest people?” think about “how can we find people who will make our team stronger?” I would have thought that was obvious? Why would you hire someone unless you had a need for their talents? I guess I'm probably thinking small-business. At the biggest companies, they probably just hire and hope to fit them in because hiring for exact needs doesn't really scale.

Your mindset is modeled after a simple selection process. Big companies often have pipelines for selection processes. HR does screening, leader does interview, manager approves. Each step of the pipeline, the responsible has to optimize for what the team needs. In practice, each one is evaluated by what the layer above thinks. HR optimizes for CVs the leader likes, leader optimizes for profiles the manager likes. Spe…

This is brilliant. Tech hiring and work dynamics seem more life a feudal religious experience than anything remotely intelligent or even intuitive.

Re: Don’t hire top talent; hire for weaknesses

#80

Post by nsonha »

waihtis wrote: post #75
nsonha wrote: post #72

this whole thing reads: don't hire top talent, hire special talent, to us, whatever. The latter sounds even harder than the former. It's hard to see your own weakness, it's rarer to have people to fill an exact particular gap at that particular point in time. Maybe do away with the mindset of people as off-the-shelf products and think about them more as raw resources and focus more on upskilling. Universities are hop…

Good mindset for big corp, not so for small biz. Waiting for someone to upskill and gain momentum for 6-12 months means a lost lump sum of money that can kill your business.

I guess it's something to balance. There is no reason to believe that the special talent will show up in 6-12 months nor that they will find your small biz a good place for them. I have a hunch that many of the people who can fix the weaknesses for your org are gonna be top talent as well with lots of choices
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