It's taken me 8 months from starting to hire to having our new devops hire start.
here in the UK these types of positions are some of the hardest to fill within Engineering. Hiring software engineers is comparatively a walk in the park.
Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
151–160 of 794 posts
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#152Post the salary. Expecting someone to give you 5-6 hours of their time for FREE while not knowing if they even want the job is stupid.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely agree. People with 10+ years, a good network and decent resume pop their head up above the parapet and get instantly mobbed with offers. They're on the market 2 weeks, tops. No-one good is going to do a takehome just so the hiring team can rub their beards and feel superior while they pick over the code. That approach worked a few years ago, in today's recruitment bear market you don't pick the candidates,…
> We're moving to 1-stage interviews, offer on the same day. Higher risk but we have no choice Anecdotally, I've seen people actually been put off by this. Perhaps make it 2 interviews just to not seem desperate. It's not my own reaction, but I could see why people might think "They're really desperate, there must be something wrong there"
The counter to this is not extra interviews but increasing the importance of the people in the interview. A one pass, 60 minute interview with the CEO and/or CTO on the call tells me a lot more about the kind of company.
One of the reasons I went independent consultant/freelancer is because I no longer face hiring bullshit like multiple interview rounds. I don’t charge to discuss the problems, sign an NDA if need be, and I get to talk frankly with both technical and business people to work out if I’m a good fit, zero pressure. I’ve turned down work and recommended other people I know would be better.
I fit the “senior” role here and honestly I’d be ok with the 4hr take home on one condition… pay me.
One tactic I know people are trying is to “flip” a freelance contractor by gradually offering work and then pitching the full time gig, convincing them to jump onboard when everyone already knows it’s a good fit and no one has d as any risks.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#154I'd recommend hiring an agency for dev ops work instead. That level of responsibility (and probably having to be on call) could be too much for one person, and also a sign of missing infrastructure around E2E testing, CI/CD, backups and monitoring.
It seems like senior professionals reach a career crossroads where the opportunity cost becomes too high at any price. I've been thinking about getting out of software engineering for several years now for that reason. And because I'm tired of reinventing the wheel in proprietary ways, only to see the code get thrown away because most internet businesses fail early on.
In other words, this might be a problem with the industry, not your hiring process. Perhaps a #nocode or managed solution could be an alternative?
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#155> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…
I don't know what exactly OP is assigning to applicants, but in my experience a "four hour" coding assignment can be completed in an hour or two - and they don't have to be consecutive hours, it just means four hours is your limit and you have a few days or a week to complete it in.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol, take home technical assignment. Why would I ever? I'd much rather have a comfortable conversation with someone who has worked with me in the past. I'm never, ever doing a 4 hour assignment for you.
But isn't the alternative to take home assignment leetcoding on whiteboards? Last time I was interviewing in the US market was in 2017 and it was literally just these two options. And the assignments tended to be long - like a week long. (tbh there were a few companies that pre-offered and just wanted one general discussion round with the team but they felt shady and desperate, and one was a literal consultancy) Coul…
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Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#157> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…
> perhaps pay people to complete the assignments.
Assuming this is legal at all according to current employment contracts, it's a huge pain for the new employer's payroll and more stuff to keep track for the employee's income tax.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#158> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…
I couldn't agree with you more. This is my life.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#159Ultimately employment is a market. You're expecting something in exchange for some money.
Your objective is to get as much of "something" for the least amount of money.
The candidate's objective is to get as much money for the least amount of "something". Junior candidates are more flexible on this as they might do it for the passion of the tech or to make a name for themselves but seniors already have a "name" and no longer need to work for "exposure".
Your current situation seems to be that your competition offers a better deal than you do - employees manage to find other places where they can either get more money or get the same money you're offering for much less "something". That "something" includes the overhead of the interview process such as the tech test, etc.
In short, either offer more money or demand less "something" and make it known. 4-day work week, flexible working hours, no on-call, etc.
In addition, you're asking for specialized skills which means you need to consider markets beyond employment. If your prospective employee can make the yearly salary you're proposing in a 3-month consulting gig, there's no reason for him to even consider your offer. You mention that most applicants dislike the specialization you're asking for - maybe because those who like it don't even apply, potentially for the above reason.
Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it
#160> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…
> The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors.
Completely agree here - like a fool I recently went through an entire day's worth interviews for a role (hello Stripe recruiters!!) that required both me and my wife taking PTO, with her looking after the kids while I talked to one junior dev after another about data modelling and "culture fit".