The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give • Hacker News Board

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#41

Post by corrral » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #34

I’d love to take a questionnaire like this. It gives me then impression they are trying to get to know the people applying as people. I know bias sneaks in. I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. Ultimately we are people, and will be working together as people. You can’t make everything unbiased and precise without treating people like replaceable robot cogs. Maybe some people like this or feel it is fair. I d…

It's a lot of work, to still be very early in the hiring funnel and not to know what the comp is likely to be.

Plus, I personally hate writing about myself, and writing something a bit boastful about myself is probably my single least-favorite thing to write. It feels really uncomfortable and gross. It's the kind of thing I hate enough that it might prompt me to go do something else I hate, like re-painting a room, to put off doing it. Résumés and cover letters are bad enough without "please write 500 words about your accomplishments in high school".

But that's just me. The large time commitment for only a sliver of a chance at a job granting unspecified compensation, is why it's bullshit for everyone.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#42

Post by nix23 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #26

klyrs wrote: post #17

I jumped through their hoops once, only to be told that they prefer to hire active contributors from the community. No unpaid internship, no job.

To be honest, that seems fair given that they are pretty community focused. You might view it as an unpaid internship, but my own contributions to open source and the community have always gotten me jobs. I view it as extracurricular activity... similar to what they pushed us to do in high school for getting into college.

>To be honest, that seems fair given that they are pretty community focused.

That's Debian not Ubuntu/Canonical.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#43

Post by nix23 » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

robonerd wrote: post #25

These are such inane questions. > What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? "Red Hat Linux, and I started there because I found a CD to install it in the cover of Red Hat Linux For Dummies at my local library." What does that say about my qualifications for the job? I can scarcely imagine. Clearly the questions are prompting for answers that will be evaluated in some vague bullshit way, so…

> What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there?

Mandrake Linux because it was the only one that worked with my 56k Zyxel modem ;)

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#44

Post by lmc » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #4

What this tells me is Canonical gets far more applicants than they have positions. But the kinds of people this filter likely selects for doesn't seem like what I'd be interested in, just strange.

Exactly. This does not seem like a cool place to work.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#45

Post by alistairSH » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

_t4za wrote: post #36

I noticed this last year when I applied for a software engineering job. For that position, the process is: - Initial screening (done) - Personal essay (this stage) - Standardized aptitude and personality tests - Meet and greet with an engineer - General interview(s) - Recruitment screen - Technical assessment - Role-specific interview(s) - Hiring manager interview - Senior leadership interview I highly doubt the init…

Wait, they have SEVEN distinct interviews? Meet/greet, general, tech assessment, recruiter, role, manager, senior leader? Holy shit. Wow. That’s insane. What a waste of everybody’s time.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#46

Post by latchkey » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #29

latchkey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, that seems fair given that they are pretty community focused. You might view it as an unpaid internship, but my own contributions to open source and the community have always gotten me jobs. I view it as extracurricular activity... similar to what they pushed us to do in high school for getting into college.

Sure. But I have a full-time job and a family. Combined with the essay's focus on the candidate's high school career, it's a pretty strong signal I'm too old to work there. I'm sure as hell not going to spend a year of my precious spare time on the gamble it'll get me a job where they expect me to continue working off-hours.

I'm "old" (~50) and I don't take it as age related. It just sounds like you are at a point in your life where you have different priorities and should look for jobs that match those.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#47

Post by pessimizer » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

corrral wrote: post #31

robonerd wrote: post #25

These are such inane questions. > What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? "Red Hat Linux, and I started there because I found a CD to install it in the cover of Red Hat Linux For Dummies at my local library." What does that say about my qualifications for the job? I can scarcely imagine. Clearly the questions are prompting for answers that will be evaluated in some vague bullshit way, so…

Considering another step is psychometric testing, and given the nature of these questions, I assume there's some woo-heavy tea-leaf-reading process to evaluate the submissions. "This person used 'I' too few times while writing about themselves, so they're clearly not confident enough" or whatever.

> psychometric testing

I love these, they always fool employers that I'm a lot better than I actually am. For some strange reason, these tests always determine that the kind of people who write tests are ideal employees. "System builders."

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#48

Post by morelisp » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

corrral wrote: post #27

version_five wrote: post #2

Discussed a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30735678

An exchange from that thread: > > there is absolutely zero chance anyone on the other end is going to take the time to actually read and evaluate each of them > This is understandable to think, but is simply wrong -- I know because I'm a software engineer at Canonical who helps review these written submissions. They're sometimes read and reviewed by our CEO, though often he delegates that out to a pool of us reviewer…

If 80% are good submissions it’s a useless filter and should be dropped.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#49

Post by sosodev » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #45

_t4za wrote: post #36

I noticed this last year when I applied for a software engineering job. For that position, the process is: - Initial screening (done) - Personal essay (this stage) - Standardized aptitude and personality tests - Meet and greet with an engineer - General interview(s) - Recruitment screen - Technical assessment - Role-specific interview(s) - Hiring manager interview - Senior leadership interview I highly doubt the init…

Wait, they have SEVEN distinct interviews? Meet/greet, general, tech assessment, recruiter, role, manager, senior leader? Holy shit. Wow. That’s insane. What a waste of everybody’s time.

So many tech companies are bloating the interview process with seven or more interviews. For my current role I did several interviews and the record during my most recent cycle was ten IIRC. The particularly annoying part is that most of the time the rounds are almost complete duplicates of each other just with a different person.

edit: I just checked my calendar and I had nine meetings/interviews with Cruise before they rejected me.

Re: The bulls**t Canonical wants you to jump through before they will give

#50

Post by tssva » Wed, May 18, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #4

What this tells me is Canonical gets far more applicants than they have positions. But the kinds of people this filter likely selects for doesn't seem like what I'd be interested in, just strange.

The Canonical founder was recently bemoaning the lack of available talent limiting the growth of the company. The issue really seems to be a ridiculous hiring process limiting the available talent pool and therefore limiting company growth.