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

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

#551

Post by ochoseis »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #545
kstenerud wrote: post #538

This is not directed at you, but rather at the poor hiring practices that have permeated the software industry for too long. We've been gaslighted into accepting abusive hiring practices, and it has to stop. When you're hiring an accountant, do you give them 4h take-home assignments? How about hours of interviews with your accounting team to suss out their accounting skills and critique their style? I mean, how DO yo…

> When you're hiring an accountant, do you give them 4h take-home assignments? How about hours of interviews with your accounting team to suss out their accounting skills and critique their style? I mean, how DO you determine if they're real accountants or one of these fakers I've heard so much about that can't even do some simple books? I'm a software engineer. My brother is an accountant. I know you're trying to pi…

Not to mention all of the example professions require passing some form of certification or licensing exam before one may call themselves a lawyer / CPA / professional civil engineer / etc.

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

#552

Post by tumanian »

Well, a good question is what are you offering the senior applicants, other than (hopefully competitive) money for their time. Are there interesting problems to solve? Is there potential for growth?are they going to have a say in the technical direction and strategy? How about the business side? Think of better ways to formulate the opportunity, your pitch, and ways to stand out in the market

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

#553

Post by InefficientRed »

10x-dev wrote: post #517
InefficientRed wrote: post #507

The key question is WHERE in the process you lose applicants. Do you lose candidates at the 4h assignment stage? If so, that is probably the issue. Otherwise, look elsewhere. 1. Title inflation. Many here are making glib comments about "not actually senior". Great! Call it a "Principal" role and see if that helps. You can always promote any existing Principals to Senior Principal or Staff or God or whatever the new b…

500K is total comp right?

yes.

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

#555

Post by wizofaus »

marktangotango wrote: post #543
wizofaus wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that before, and if we felt there was a significant risk we were putting off good devs from applying, I'd reverse that decision. But I like to think we made our tests a fun & interesting enough challenge that applicants were happy to spend the time doing them.

Lol read the responses here, you're kidding yourself.

I've read some. Doesn't align with my personal experience is all I can say. I can't remember a case where a candidate refused to do such a test, or that we never heard back from after letting them know that was our policy.

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

#557

Post by ant1oz »

So to make things clear:

A junior is an engineer that has less than 2-3 years experience professionally, and about the same time building and learning how to code by themself on their spare time. An Intermediate engineer is a Junior engineer with a good attitude - that says: I am still earning, and I am humble, and I listen more than I talk. A Senior Engineer Has 10+ years of experience coding, and developing solutions. He has navigated all the corporate BS, politics, and quit several teams of arrogant Junior con artists, or poor project managers - and is tired of all this BS. A real Senior engineer can code the entire solution by himself in 6 months , instead of a team of 5 juniors over 2 years. A real senior engineer - worth 10x the salary of a junior, and at least 5 time the one of his direct supervisor - for one reason:

You can remove everyone in the product team that doesn't have at least 5 years of experience developing code. And you will have better results at delivering your product.

In your case, you probably will end up with zero employee.

Now how much money are you offering this Senior engineer? Will you pay him/her the equivalent of the whole team you just fired? Or just advertise a "competitive (LMAO) " 170k$ package with amazing bonuses...

Which is like what.... only 40% more than the Junior that costs more time than it actually saves?

Maybe start respecting what it means to be a performant senior engineer - Most of them died of depression, burnout - or jumped in the management wagon - because they were too tired of corporate BS and saw no points in even remotely trying to deliver technical solution in an environment where they don't have decision power - while at the same time - nobody in the hierarchy above (and under them) slightly understand the blueprints.

When you realize the value of this rare person, you can think of multiplying the salary package by at least 3.

Then, you can do your interview rounds.

The heck! if I ever want to work in a tech team again - that either will be at a market salary (understand getting paid 5 times less than what I technically worth) for an ethical projects - which is rewarding for my soul and self respect - OR - I will get a 500k$/y for a basic coder job at Google/FB/etc.

Maybe you are not looking for a senior engineer, maybe you are looking for an intermediate one.

If you come to hire a senior engineer at that salary, be warned: he's not a senior.

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

#558

Post by SmellTheGlove »

kstenerud wrote: post #538

This is not directed at you, but rather at the poor hiring practices that have permeated the software industry for too long. We've been gaslighted into accepting abusive hiring practices, and it has to stop. When you're hiring an accountant, do you give them 4h take-home assignments? How about hours of interviews with your accounting team to suss out their accounting skills and critique their style? I mean, how DO yo…

> When you're hiring an accountant, do you give them 4h take-home assignments? How about hours of interviews with your accounting team to suss out their accounting skills and critique their style? I mean, how DO you determine if they're real accountants or one of these fakers I've heard so much about that can't even do some simple books?

I've been at two startups, and both gave the accounting candidates take-home tests. Not an accountant, but on some interview loops.

Edit: Im not advocating for take homes, just noting that they exist for accountants.

> Or how about lawyers? Do you ask them to write up a fictional legal brief or some boilerplate that the rest of your legal team can scrutinize to see if they're an A player? How about a multi-day interview just to make sure you've asked all the tough legal questions? No? Then how can you know that they're not going to drag your fragile company down with their poor performance and gasp have to be fired! The horror!

This is my former career. Having take home tests would absolutely be an improvement over the legal hiring process.

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

#559

Post by f0e4c2f7 »

corrral wrote: post #21

> 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 upside is, this is literally the answer! Just remove this step and the rest of the hiring process is more or less fine.

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

#560

Post by anon291 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #431
anon291 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Exactly where in that schedule am I supposed to fit a FOUR HOUR coding assignment. That's ridiculous. Unless you're providing child care, this is simply too much. What do you do for normal on-site interviews or phone interviews that have similar time demands? I’m also a parent of small children with a packed schedule, but I’d much rather take a 4-hour take home and handle it on the weekend or when I’m flexible. Giv…

Yeah I don't do these. I only do on-sites if I have a clear desire to work for the company. At the place I'm working at now, I did not do an onsite. At the place I was at previously, it was clear they were giving me an offer before I did the onsite, since the onsite was basically a 'get-to-know-you' thing. That's fine. On-sites serve a purpose of making sure you're not making a terrible decision. I actually made the decision this time to do two on-sites which is rare. This was because I had colleagues from previous positions at both locations and I honestly wanted to get a good sense.

However, one company was just really weird, so I learned that at the on-site. even though they wanted me... I said no. So in terms of preventing mistakes, on-sites are great. But, I'm not doing a 4 hour interview before any offer is made, or a clear indication of interest.

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