Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#211

Post by pjungwir » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 8:59 PM UTC

Post the salary range.

From what I can tell DevOps is the hardest thing to hire for right now, and it commands the highest salaries. It's tough to find someone who can code and troubleshoot code problems, but also has all the skills of a sys/net/cloud/k8s admin, and is willing to put up with the higher stress of that role.

Most qualified people have already done their best to get a job they're happy with. Personally I'm not making FAANG money, but as a self-employed freelancer I still do pretty well. So it's hard to see hidden-salary listings as anything other than a waste of time. 90% of them will come in too low. Things like a four-hour coding assignment just prove to me that it's smarter not to bother. If you make it that pointless for qualified candidates you'll only hear from the unqualified ones.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#212

Post by abeyer » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

vba616 wrote: post #81

AndyNemmity wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much someone is making now is not part of the analysis on if they would be a good hire. I wouldn't even ask this within the process.

Let's set aside whether it's explicitly screened for or discussed. If, hypothetically, you knew what they were making, either as a dollar figure or implicitly because of their previous/current job description, what would be the minimum? I'm asking something which necessarily has an answer, even if you won't answer it. I'm asking about the limits to your imagination - where is the boundary between a plausible hire and…

> think of it as 4 lakh rupees per annum

So is your question _actually_ "Will you/why won't you hire overseas remote, rather than in the US?"

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#213

Post by MrDresden » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #20

I'm willing to go through the process and give you direct feedback. I'm a Senior "DevOps" (Sysadmin), resume is here: dijit.sh/resume.pdf Sounds conceited; but if you want to know how an outsider feels about your companies and the process: this can be an effective way.

Think you might want to know that there is a flaw in your page navigation. Under 'About me', clicking 'View portfolio' goes to 'Contact me' section.

Nice page otherwise.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#214

Post by brailsafe » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

I agree with others on the technical assessment. I'll at least give you some points for offering it after speaking to someone for an hour which a lot of companies don't do—it's a really fucking low bar. I don't know that I'm necessarily senior by everyone's metric, but I've been in development for nearing 10 years depending how you look at it. I usually count it as something like 7-10 if someone wants to scrutinize, because really I'm just an IC without much more responsibility. I'd do *A* technical assessment, but not a 4hr one, and only if the resulting career move would be really impactful or I'm desperate. I'm planning to do a full day of Amazon interviews at the end of the month just because I've never worked at a fang and don't think I'd pass, so it's a challenge and a healthy time risk for high potential outcome. There's nothing more defeating than doing a lengthy technical test for an arbitrary company, only to be told something like my formatting was bad while using HackerRank, or to have some arrogant Junior review the submission and have it not be to their standard. You don't get time back. I wouldn't work for my current contract if there was a chance I wouldn't get paid, and I ain't doin it for many others.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#215

Post by BadCookie » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:02 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #135

BadCookie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes companies pay for the time it takes to complete a take-home project. I think it’s a good idea, especially now given all the hiring freezes and especially for a remote position where the applicant has no idea how many other applicants (around the country/world) they might be competing against.

Has anyone ever expected (or received) payment for time off to attend interviews though? Seems to me like a bad reaction to the relatively new thing, but actually the criticism applies just as well to the older thing. (Maybe it should all be paid! Though having job search funded by prospective employers does seem a bit weird.. I think really I just think it's neither here nor there in terms of morality or whatever -…

The difference is that interviewing costs the company in the form of the time required from existing employees, whereas the company could ask 50 people to do a take-home project for free at essentially no cost to them.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#216

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #203

ghaff wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews. If they give you the assignment and it's immediately obvious that it's actually a 20+ hour assignment, you can always just walk. When I worked for a technology analyst company, we would ask for writing samples--which most potential hires would already have. But, if someone didn't, they'd ha…

As something of a counterpoint, a literal 4-hour assignment isn't that bad--especially as an alternative to a day of interviews. On a relative scale that might be true. In absolute terms you've already lost a high proportion of good senior people who might otherwise have been interested either way. Most good developers I know would just walk on seeing a 4-hour assignment that was actually a 4-hour assignment. Some wo…

To be honest, at some point if someone wants to work at Google and can get a job at Google--especially if the name and/or the salary is what they really care about--it's probably in the best interest of a lot of companies to just move on.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#217

Post by alexanderh » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

burnte wrote: post #185

Yeah, the last three steps are killing you. I'm not going to do a 4 hour skill assessment, period. No senior people will. We're not making a solid 6 figures because we're idiots faking our way through the world. Skip that assessment and presentation, and implement a 90 day probationary period like everyone else.

THANK YOU, THIS ^^^

Any company needing to "Test" me, is an instant sign of disrespect. It means you already don't trust me so I don't trust you. Now obviously there needs to be some accountability, and I think a 90 probationary period is a perfect compromise.

When you are hiring senior talent, we aren't desperate or dying for your job. You need to sell it to us. You need to accommodate us. You need to make it easy for us. Assignments are a sure fire way to let me know you have no idea what you are doing, and don't have competent people on your team who would be able to just talk to me and tell i know what i'm doing.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#218

Post by pnathan » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

dancocos wrote: post #37

"Take-home technical assignment (~4h)" I've got 20 plus years of tech, I've been out of college since 1997 and you want to give a 4 hour homework assignment. If get you want to get a feel for someone's ability but this is more easily done by stating a problem during one of the interviews and asking the person "How would you approach this?" Listing for how they anticipate problems and tradeoffs.

would you like a take-home or would you like a whiteboard session?

I need to have useful information that a candidate is more than a smooth talker.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#219

Post by heavyset_go » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

Post the compensation upfront and get rid of your 4hr assessment. I would not waste 4 hours of billable time on a mere chance at a real interview after having already invested 1.5 hours interviewing with your company.

Lower the time commitment by 75%, and pay your candidates for their time on their ~1 hour take home assignment, or get rid of the take home entirely, and you won't have candidates drop out of your hiring process.

tldr: 1.5hr phone interview + a 4hr take home afterwards is ridiculous, especially if the compensation bands are a mystery. Stop expecting candidates to do ~4hr of free work and pay your candidates for their time.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#220

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

I’m a staff engineer @ a big co, and my guess is the assignment is filtering out senior people with day jobs already. I hate take home assignments since they aren’t fairly timeboxed and offer no opportunity for me to ask questions or get info about the company.

There is nothing realistically preventing other applicants from spending 12+ hrs on it over the weekend or whatever, and so I feel pressure to also “cheat” on the time box. Not to mention this is competing for weekend or family time. Timed interviews, even if they take all day are a much easier pill for me to swallow, I just burn a vacation day.

I also get something out of the much-maligned leetcode+behavioral style of interview- usually 5-10 minutes depending on how long it took me to solve the question to ask them about their role, tenure and pulse on the company. These quick chats with the potential team members are incredibly valuable and missing out on them is an understated cost to take-home assignments.

I’ve only done take home assignments as a junior eng for startups that sounded really cool and wouldn’t do it any other way, (and I never actually ended up working for any of them afterwards making the roi kinda bad).