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How to hire an idiot

nukemanbill.blogspot.com

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Re: How to hire an idiot

#141

Post by brianmckenzie »

tptacek wrote: post #62
m0nastic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "art" to resumes (as I'm now in the process of learning, after not looking at mine for ten years), is to figure out how to best portray yourself to the exact person(s) you're submitting it to. That should inform what sections are appropriate. Sometimes having interests and hobbies is beneficial. I've seen numerous folks at startups talk about how they like seeing things like interests and hobbies, as they feel it…

I like Eagle Scout on the resume. I'd put it there. (I'm not one).

Watch out though. Lots of people lie about being eagle scouts, and you can't verify it without having their troop # and contacting BSA headquarters.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#142

Post by tptacek »

bane wrote: post #133
cookiecaper wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're a tech recruiter or another guy from big corporate heritage. I say this because your answers are a shining paragon of why most of the participants at HN avoid and loathe big corporate jobs. Do you have any particular programming qualifications yourself? I'm curious. While it is of course a great sign that you are reading HN, it doesn't sound like you know how to rate candidates in an objective a…

Yes, I have some technical chops - started coding on a TRS-80 Color Computer II in the 80s and never stopped. It's not something I do much of anymore (sadly) as a growing crop of grey hair has convinced my day job c-levels to shovel me into managing groups of technical people. I also do lots of work outside of pure development in my day job, and it has wildly different sets of requirements, but the process is more of…

Two things.

First, I wish you'd stop caricaturing everyone hired through a process other than yours as "lone swashbuckling MacGuyvers" or whatnot. I am not laying out a method for hiring "the next legend".

Second, it is incumbent on you to get better and more efficient at hiring people, and if you're stuck with "resume, phone screen, all-day interview", you've got your hands tied behind your back. There are so many ways to control and accelerate a recruiting funnel that it's tragic to be running one for a high-tech company the same way that Northern Trust runs them for junior bankers.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#143

Post by tptacek »

bane wrote: post #137
cookiecaper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe my response was offensive and I agree that the OP is arguing his point within bounds. I just strongly disagree with that point, and as stated, believe it is typical of a non-technical hiring manager instead of an "in the trenches" programmer. How would you have preferred I phrased my response? I don't think any part is "unnecessarily offensive". It is a forgone conclusion that people on HN don't want…

I wasn't offended, and I'm not a hiring manager. But I've definitely done most of my hiring in large boring mega corps. For the small startups I've worked for, willingness to work at a small startup often has major weight in the decision process and can overcome other problems that might exclude them from big corp's process.

I'm personally familiar with the hiring processes at most of the big "mega corps" in the software industry (ie, places where software is the company's key profit center and not a cost center). So, because lots of people are reading this thread, let me clear this up right now:

You do not need an "Education" section on your resume to get a job interview at any software company in the valley you'd ever want to work at.

If you're interested in the kind of company 'bane appears to hire for, I'd recommend reading this first:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1994193

Re: How to hire an idiot

#145

Post by tptacek »

bane wrote: post #136
tptacek wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a buyer's market for talent right now. It's a seller's market. You may be getting 100 candidates for every position, but they're terrible candidates.

It's obvious that we're both pretty successful at finding people I think, through wildly different processes. I think it's fair to say I prefer to weed out front side via resumes, and you prefer to weed out backside in the technical interview process. And I think that's fair. I do find it interesting on this site in general how I almost disagree with every single thing you post, yet you still seem to make it work, so…

So I don't know you or who you work for, but in the interest of candor (and in a more interesting discussion) let me just say this: I do not agree. Your way is bad. The process you're advocating for recruits poorer candidates. It is also out of step with hiring practices in much of the software industry.

Rephrasing slightly and more specifically: if your recruiting process is "resume screen then interview" with no intermediate qualifying steps, and your resume screen includes "round file anyone who doesn't have an Education section": I hire better candidates than you, I'm more effective than you, and more and more people are going to hire like me and less and less like you, because your way is archaic and ineffective.

I am able to be this tactless and blunt primarily because you're an anonymous abstraction and I don't know anything about you other than this particular facet of your approach to our shared profession.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#146

Post by Timothee »

bane wrote: post #82
Bartlet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an "education" section is a boilerplate resume item. If it wasn't there, I'd at least ask for details.

Education is absolutely a boilerplate resume item. I can't even count the number of time irregularities in just that one section ended up providing deep insight into a good or bad candidate. Everybody who has an education puts it on their resume even if it's 30 or 40 years old and they jam it at the bottom in a small font. For example: A weird school name - "International University of America", "University of New Yo…

It's like not putting your callback #, email address, home address or work history.

I find it interesting that you're mentioning the home address because, somewhat recently, I completely revamped my resume and that was one of the item I got rid of. Sure at some point, if they hire you they'll need it, but until then, I don't think it helps in any way.

You could say that an employer wants to make sure the person is local, but if I apply, that means that I'm either local or that I'm willing to relocate.

As for GPA, I didn't know it was common practice to put that. I won't, mostly because I didn't graduate in the US and the grading system is very different.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#147

Post by tptacek »

viandante wrote: post #134
tptacek wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN, GitHub, Stack Overflow --- if all you're prepared to do is run a job ad. We do other things; for instance, we run free classes in Chicago and Mountain View.

Yes. I agree with the classes. But this works only for programmers, for people working in, say, finance, monster seems unavoidable... What sucks the most about the whole process job board/application is that if you don't fit the boxes (I would like to program AND work in corporate/finance), you are screwed. Only way to go seem startups that value people with skills at 360 degrees.

I am only interested in recruiting programmers. I tend to believe that every role has a specific optimal recruiting process. For instance, if you read upthread, you'll find that none of this advice is germane to hiring direct sales account managers; I can similarly lay out a short list of pitfalls to hiring marketing people.

Also, while I am somewhat motivated by the idea of a fledgeling developer wondering whether to include her GPA on her resume, I'm speaking mostly from the perspective of a hiring manager. So, your problem of "fitting the boxes" isn't my problem. As a hiring manager, I'm always going to tend to be hiring for specific roles.

Having said that, the best advice for overcoming this obstacle is the old, cliched stuff in _What Color Is Your Parachute_: expend effort on networking your way to a face to face discussion with the person in your dream company who can make a hiring decision. Bypass the hiring process as much as possible.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#148

Post by 0x12 »

lotharbot wrote: post #36
tptacek wrote: post #27

The moral of this story, which virtually every startup founder in the history of the universe has heard or told a variant of, is: CHECK. REFERENCES.

Further, "check references" needs to be deeper than just asking if the guy actually worked there. Ask about his role and responsibilities. Ask how he helped the company's bottom line. Ask real questions.

Ask how he/she left...

Would they hire him/her again.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#149

Post by tptacek »

Timothee wrote: post #146
bane wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is absolutely a boilerplate resume item. I can't even count the number of time irregularities in just that one section ended up providing deep insight into a good or bad candidate. Everybody who has an education puts it on their resume even if it's 30 or 40 years old and they jam it at the bottom in a small font. For example: A weird school name - "International University of America", "University of New Yo…

It's like not putting your callback #, email address, home address or work history. I find it interesting that you're mentioning the home address because, somewhat recently, I completely revamped my resume and that was one of the item I got rid of. Sure at some point, if they hire you they'll need it, but until then, I don't think it helps in any way. You could say that an employer wants to make sure the person is lo…

You don't need to put your home address on your resume, but having some mailing address can be helpful; I've sent books to 4 or 5 candidates in the past month or so, and each time I had to ask for an address, which felt kind of awkward (like, maybe they didn't want to disclose their address?).

I think it's fair to worry that some brain-dead screening process will weed you out somewhere based on your address (ie, by sticking you in the "need to relocate" bucket), so for whatever this is worth: you definitely don't need to include your address on your resume. No reasonable company will discard a resume because it lacks a home address.

Re: How to hire an idiot

#150

Post by tptacek »

bane wrote: post #139
mattdeboard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how you'd regard someone with the following on their resume: 1. a decade of military service, 2. a link to a healthy portfolio on github, 3. A couple of years of professional experience as a developer, 3. but only a 2-year degree or coursework for a CS degree. I'm not in the market, just curious as I weigh my options for continuing school.

If the military service is at all related, pump it up. Lots of MOSs are technical in nature. The github portfolio can be really important. Especially if it contains a lot of really good looking stuff and represents lots of self improvement. I'll almost always pause to check out somebody's "portfolio" if they stick it on their resume. It provides me with far more info than just the resume format can. Nothing wrong wit…

Agree re: military service. I don't even care if your MOS is relevant to what I do; simply having served says something good about character and is always relevant.

Disagree, unsurprisingly, with the rest of this comment.

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