How to hire an idiot

Post by tptacek » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 5:32 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #176

tptacek wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not have candidates perform "project work". The amount of time people spend on our tech challenges is (a) calibrated to be less than the amount of time one spends on an all-day tech interview and (b) designed to be broken up into three short chunks (by short we mean "an hour or so") so people can do them at their convenience, rather than having to take a personal day from work to "run a gauntlet". We go way out…

I apologize if I mischaracterized your company's hiring process -- there was no disparagement intended. On the contrary I believe it is intriguing, and given your company's excellent reputation it appears to work well. It also appears that we're definitely at a communications impasse. By "project work" I was referring to steps 3, 4 and 5 from the career page you referenced: 3. Web app challenge 4. Custom protocol cha…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 25, 2011, 10:04 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #20

iand wrote: post #4

Number one rule of hiring: take up references

I'm curious how people feel about (criminal, credit) background checks. Our lawyers suggested that both those and drug tests are sometimes done, but might not be appropriate in silicon valley. We're pretty anti drug-tests, but especially for an infosec company or someone with access to sensitive customer data, running at least a criminal check and possibly credit check makes sense. I wouldn't say having previous conv…

Post by softwaredev86 » Wed, Oct 26, 2011, 9:46 AM UTC

m0nastic wrote: post #93

tptacek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand how the company arrived at it, but that's a horrible, damaging rule.

As I've now been discovering lately. I don't think it's very common (I haven't heard of any other companies that do it, for instance), but I'd really hate for other people to wind up in the same situation.