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

fredandrandall.com

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

#111

Post by meric »

match wrote: post #92
hsmyers wrote: post #5

The only question that matters is "Can you do the job?" If you don't hear this question or for those doing the interviewing, if you don't ask this question, then there is something seriously wrong. All of the rest is pretty much a waste of time at least until after that key item is settled. With that out of the way, then it is time to worry about how well someone may or may not fit in etc (something that can be allow…

"All of the rest is pretty much a waste of time at least until after that key item is settled." Yes, but unfortunately settling this item is not as simple asking "Can you do the job?". Oddly enough all the candidates say "Yes".

What about doing some sort of 3-month probation thing? Is that legal? Will that turn away too many developers?

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

#112

Post by nanijoe »

jerickson wrote: post #18

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…

In my travels, I have found that "culture fit" is usually a euphemism for "we don't hire people that look different from us" . Now, before you think I'm accusing you of racism, I have found this to also include age, sex etc. So yeah, I call BS on the whole "culture fit" business

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

#113

Post by im3w1l »

ecaradec wrote: post #87
ef4 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the fact that someone who I would actually describe as top 1% of devs I've worked with can't get a job without relying on his network is kind of scary This is just one of those unavoidable aspects of human psychology. Ignore it at your peril. Lots of programmers seem to think networking is somehow beneath them. But it's the best way to sidestep most of the pitfalls everyone is amply describing here.

That's interesting, there is a recruiting process in place but the easiest way to get the job is to get informal and skip the process. That's really inline with the article ihmo, the process is broken.

So you are saying it is ripe for disruption?

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

#114

Post by jnbiche »

wyclif wrote: post #60
jnbiche wrote: post #3

This, exactly. I keep reading about this huge shortage of qualified developers, but I've now met enough talented developers looking for work -- who are reliable and talented, and not assholes, that I know that the standard line about a talent shortage can't be true. Perhaps it's an issue in and around the Valley, but it's not in most of the rest of the country. If you're having trouble hiring in the US outside of SF,…

"There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.

Yes, absolutely. I forgot to list the very important third reason, which you mention here.

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

#115

Post by ma2rten »

pyre wrote: post #98
archangel_one wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been interviewing recently and my opinion is more or less the reverse. I preferred the interviews where I was asked algorithms - only got asked on graphs once, but my last job did involve a lot of those so I was pretty comfortable with them. They seemed more useful to me than asking "trivia" type questions which you could learn in fifteen seconds - for example, I got one elsewhere about access to members of nest…

I think the point is not that someone who doesn't know about Java memory issues is useless. The point is just that someone who knows those things, but doesn't know graph theory well may be a better fit for the job, but the interview process doesn't account for this.

Well, I think the goal of these graph questions is not so much figuring out if they "know graph theory". But, rather, figuring out if the candidate had a solid Computer Science education and if they can think about a problem in abstract terms (as a proxy for being smart in general). The idea being that if those two things hold true, they can learn everything else on the spot.

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

#116

Post by justincormack »

pinaceae wrote: post #83

the broader is issue is that learning has been replaced by hiring. the assumption now is that you already need to bring all the required skills to the job, to be productive from day one. the concept of apprenticeship has been completely eradicated. i work in a specialized area and had trouble finding candidates that matched my job profile. frustrating. but then i took a step back and looked at how I had gained those…

Absolutely. Most people either do not understand the role of apprenticeship (I try to persuade them to read Richard Sennet's The Craftsman) or simply have a completely short term attitude, which often means they fail to hire for longer than training would take, and also blinds them from the contributions different experiences can bring.

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

#117

Post by tomjen3 »

mwd_ wrote: post #35
georgemcbay wrote: post #19

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 thi…

Just the other day I saw a job requiring "3+ years iPad experience". I understand the appeal of hiring somebody who needs minimal training, but they may still not be the best pick. When it comes to a long-term position, it is better to hire the great developer who takes two weeks to get up to speed with some language or technology than it is to hire the mediocre developer who happens to have used Node.js or whatever.

That is nothing. DHH posted a tweet about a company that required 7 years of rails experience.

The key to overcome that is to not give a fuck and just apply anyway. I applied to countless jobs right out of University that turned me down, but that didn't matter since more than one didn't. Nearly all of them expected more experience than I had, but again it is just meaningless HR talk.

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

#118

Post by tomjen3 »

im3w1l wrote: post #113
ecaradec wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, there is a recruiting process in place but the easiest way to get the job is to get informal and skip the process. That's really inline with the article ihmo, the process is broken.

So you are saying it is ripe for disruption?

It is ripe, but it requires you to come up with something better, which can't be gamed by bad developers and doesn't take longer for good developers (since they will find other companies to apply for).

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

#119

Post by tomjen3 »

RandallBrown wrote: post #6
th0ma5 wrote: post #4

My current reading of the job market around me, and I may well be just in a funky mood so forgive me, is that all the IT job listings seem to itemize all the ways you won't be allowed to be creative, and also list a bunch of surprisingly general, and contradictory, experience requirements. They promote any kind of actual CS knowledge as being a masters degree skill only needing 10 years in direct experience in a 10 y…

I used to passive-agressively mention this to our HR department and my old job all the time. The basic "Software Engineer" posting has "At least 3 years of desktop or server software development" as a requirement. I always liked to point out that I (and everyone else they hired out of college) wasn't qualified for the jobs we were doing. They're in Michigan, so finding development talent is a little bit harder so I d…

I when I applied right out of college I didn't give a shit about how many years of experience they required (for some reason they never count the years of experience I had accumulated in college) and just applied anyway. I got a job out of it too, so I wouldn't recommend anybody else pay attention to that.

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

#120

Post by lrobb »

I wanted to relo to the bay area last summer and agree.

What was more bizarre, to me, was that most of the companies never bothered to look at my sample code or projects... and a few in fact said they didn't care what I had done (and proceeded to ask me edge-case algorithms stuff).

What was most off-putting, was the incredible amount of time involved in jumping through the hurdles. I only did this with a few companies, but after you add up: customize resume / cover letter + initial/hr screen + solve this screening coding problem + initial tech screen + anywhere up to 3 more tech screens + solve this more substantial take-home problem + onsite interviews... You're looking at a substantial amount of time.

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