Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

fredandrandall.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 163 posts

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#11

Post by RandallBrown »

kenjackson wrote: post #8

Yes, there is something wrong. I had a good friend put himself on the job market six months ago. He has the total package -- has worked on and shipped well-known products, has reviewable open-source projects and contributions, great academic pedigree, nice guy, even good looking -- I said something like, "You'll have five offers at the end of this week". Three months later, no offer. What was most interesting was how…

Hmm, that's pretty interesting. I had decent luck with just applying online, but with the couple companies where I got a referral, things moved much faster.

I've always thought that the software industry is one of the few things you can get into without having a really good network (although it definitely helps).

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#12

Post by kenjackson »

RandallBrown wrote: post #11
kenjackson wrote: post #8

Yes, there is something wrong. I had a good friend put himself on the job market six months ago. He has the total package -- has worked on and shipped well-known products, has reviewable open-source projects and contributions, great academic pedigree, nice guy, even good looking -- I said something like, "You'll have five offers at the end of this week". Three months later, no offer. What was most interesting was how…

Hmm, that's pretty interesting. I had decent luck with just applying online, but with the couple companies where I got a referral, things moved much faster. I've always thought that the software industry is one of the few things you can get into without having a really good network (although it definitely helps).

I have a good blog story if someone wants to write it:

Create a fictional rockstar resume(s). Not too over the top, but someone clearly a cut above the rest. And submit to various companies online. Report on which ones actually query back with interest.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#14

Post by duck »

kenjackson wrote: post #12
RandallBrown wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, that's pretty interesting. I had decent luck with just applying online, but with the couple companies where I got a referral, things moved much faster. I've always thought that the software industry is one of the few things you can get into without having a really good network (although it definitely helps).

I have a good blog story if someone wants to write it: Create a fictional rockstar resume(s). Not too over the top, but someone clearly a cut above the rest. And submit to various companies online. Report on which ones actually query back with interest.

Not going to look it up on my phone, but someone did that about a month ago.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#15

Post by darksaga »

As someone who just went through this, I had a similar experience. I was on contract through January. January comes around and I figure I'll have a gig no problem. As a front-end developer, I already had recruiters knocking down my door.

A month later, I finally landed a gig. I had a few offers, but over the course of a month, I had more frustration with people I was interviewing. Three places I interviewed with weren't looking for a front-end guy, they were looking for a Javascript programmer (my goal wasn't to write JS 7 hours a day - sorry). Also, I had several instances where the company had no idea what they were looking for. One company said they wanted someone who did a lot of server sided Javascript (node.js and backbone.js) as well as being a great designer. Seriously? WTF?

I agree that most of the interviews I excelled at, was where I got up and showed the company the app I just helped build. As opposed the the "code quizzes" a lot of places now use. I actually stopped a guy in one interview who kept asking me basic CSS stuff and said, "Did you even look at the sites in my portfolio or my personal site I built?"

All in all, it was very frustrating and I felt like I really had to go way out my way to try and convince people of my skill level. At other times, I was trying to pry out of them what they were really looking for.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#16

Post by spdy »

After reading some of the comments and the blog post it sounds to me everyone wants to hire like Google... but they are not Google.

In the end when you want to hire, look at what they have done and ask them about that. In my opinion thats the only thing that counts. Solving quizes does not sound very important to me.

If someone can walk you through his thought process on his favourite project you can see if he/she is able to pick up the job you are offering.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#17

Post by up_and_up »

duck wrote: post #14
kenjackson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a good blog story if someone wants to write it: Create a fictional rockstar resume(s). Not too over the top, but someone clearly a cut above the rest. And submit to various companies online. Report on which ones actually query back with interest.

Not going to look it up on my phone, but someone did that about a month ago.

Not sure if you are referring to this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3351699 . I ran that experiment.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#18

Post by jerickson »

We often find that there are plenty of technically qualified people out there, but what you can do isn’t the only factor in hiring. The most important thing about hiring talent is finding talent that works well with your existing talent. In other words: finding a good CULTURE fit. There are LOTS of smart people out there, but only a small percentage of those people are sociable enough to really do an exceptional job as a part of a TEAM, and teams, not talent, build products.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#19

Post by georgemcbay »

A big issue in modern hiring, IMO, is the combination of diverging specialized platforms and languages combined with overemphasis on keyword-hiring.

When I first got into the industry you had:

---

* old fogey LISP programmers

* old fogey FORTRAN programmers

* old fogey COBOL programmers

* Assembly programmers

* C/Win programmers

* C/Unix programmers

* C/Mac programmers

* some people on the cutting edge looking at this new "C++ thing"

* everyone else

---

I mean, sure you had some specializations but nothing like what you see now. Now you have:

---

* young retro hipster LISP programmers

* JavaScript/Client-Side programmers

* JavaScript/Client-Side/jQuery gurus

* JavaScript node.js programmers

* Python programmers

* Python/Django programmers

* Ruby developers

* RoR developers

* Java/EE programmers

* Java-Android programmers

* Clojure programmers

* Scala programmers

* Perl programmers

* .NET/C#/Win32 programmers

* .NET/C#/Silverlight programmers

* .NET/C#/WP7 programmers

* Objective-C programmers

* C programmers

* Embedded C programmers

* C++ programmers

* Embedded C++ programmers

* Go programmers

* D programmers

* Game Industry programmers (usually C++, often treated as a wholly separate category)

* PHP programmers

* etc

* etc (this is maybe 10% of the list I could generate without getting into the really obscure stuff)

---

Of course a spectacular programmer can pick up a new language/platform quickly and is usually learning non-day-job related programming languages on his or her own time anyway, but I've still both experienced and heard anecdotally of many situations where spectacular programmers were passed over without a second glance because they didn't have "at least X years of KEYWORD-HEAVY-SPECIFIC-TECH". Viable commercial quality languages and platforms are diverging way beyond the ability of even the most passionate programmer to be regularly using all but a small minority of them.

Re: It's not a talent shortage, it's a hiring problem

#20

Post by latch »

There's a misconception that anyone can hire. Tech companies are outsourcing their IT to heroku and AWS because programmers can't sys-admin. They hire lawyers and accountants to take care of legal and financial matter. But hiring? "I can do that" they think.

Worse, it isn't a process they try to improve. They don't try alternative approaches nor do they refine their process through small iterations. They have a belief in what "good hiring" is, and they stick with it. They swear by their approach, all the while bemoaning how hard hiring is. They don't realize they are the problem because, anyone can hire...

I quit my job 6 months ago, and I've tested the water a few times since then. It's a joke.

Post reply on HN