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Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#81

Post by mihaaly »

jerkstate wrote: post #61
allo37 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the answer was. I've read plenty about how the boutique finance sector is basically a parasite that only benefits a small cohort of already wealthy individuals, would like to hear what the other side has to say.

The answer I get from people working at market makers I’ve talked to is that they provide liquidity (so you can buy or sell a security immediately rather than waiting minutes or hours?) and decrease volatility. An example is onions futures; see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act and check the onions price history: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01130216/ compared to a commodity where futures tra…

This does not sound as value for the society but advantage for the tradesman.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#82

Post by sixstringtheory »

mywittyname wrote: post #39
jrflowers wrote: post #14

I was once asked “why do you want to work here?” while interviewing at a Hardee’s as a teenager.

That's a legit question for a throw-away fast food job. Since most of these jobs are fungible, it can be useful to know why someone picked your greasy burger joint over the one down the road. "It's close to where I live / I can walk here" = You probably don't have to worry about their "car breaking down" or general issues getting to work. "My friends work here" = You're going to have a bunch of teenagers dicking off…

> general issues getting to work

When I was applying for jobs like this as a teen, applications specifically asked about my transportation situation.

> You're going to have a bunch of teenagers dicking off if you're not running a tight ship

Just run a tight ship, then. People who didn't know each other beforehand will also dick around. I've made plenty of friends out of work colleagues.

> "I need a job and you all are hiring" is a perfectly acceptable, accurate answer to this question that literally every applicant can provide

Then I'd argue it's the opposite of legit: it's completely superfluous.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#83

Post by uptownfunk »

seattle_spring wrote: post #69
throwaway19423 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NVidia was truly a spectacular opportunity. So was Microsoft, Databricks, etc. I picked a dud, and didn't realize it until it was too late (just now). Question is .. what are the obvious winners today, and for the next 10 years? Some opportunities I missed but they didn't go anywhere: Docker, Qualcomm. Consumer Devices is a general dud I think. Software and data is where it is at. I dunno?

I remember losing a candidate to databricks around 2012/2013. I thought he was making a bad decision. Hoo-boy was I wrong.

Right, now he’s got really valuable Paper money that they offer to buy back at a very steep discount. Anyhow wouldn’t feel bad about missing that one!

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#84

Post by logicalmonster »

icedchai wrote: post #27
logicalmonster wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand having this policy in place for projects that directly compete with a company. Working on a search engine at home when you're working on search at Google, or working on a banking product for farmers when you do the same thing at work could be a direct conflict of interest and incentivize unethical or possibly even criminal behavior. I think setting some guidelines in place for that kind of thing is r…

If it had nothing to do with their business, why did you even tell them about your side project? I would've just kept my mouth shut.

You can do this and I know of people who have done this. In virtually all cases, it's never going to come up.

But, for companies that are batshit anal about side-projects, they're going to make you sign some onerous contract and have management that are assholes about this kind of thing.

What happens in the event that you "hit the lottery" and some side-project becomes a big deal worth a lot of money? Somebody from your company is eventually going to find out about it: maybe from a public interview or from public records. If they put 2 + 2 together about when you built this and figure out that they can file some legal claim to it, you're in a mess of a legal situation that you don't need to be in.

Safer to put your cards on the table and make sure there's nothing in an employment agreement that puts something you really care about at risk.

The percentage of companies that are very anal about side-projects isn't substantial. They need you more than you need them and it's safer to be honest and look elsewhere for employment.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#85

Post by jeffrallen »

I went to a university where the NSA was heavily recruiting. I had a bad feeling about it and not only stayed clear but also asked some fellow students about the ethics of going to work for the spooks. At least one told me, something like "someone else takes care of ethics, I will just get to work on amazing stuff!"

Never looked back, never got a security clearance. Now I'm a dual citizen, so basically neither of my countries probably trusts me. :)

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#86

Post by Jugurtha »

jakedata wrote: post #17

I was summoned to a nondescript industrial building, found my way upstairs and wound up in a grubby room posing as a lobby. I was seated on a low futon and had several discussions with my knees nearly level with my ears. The conversations were overly casual but with some oddly specific IT security questions. I seriously contemplated walking out of what was clearly an amateurish, shoestring operation. Nope... I have w…

If you ever contemplate a career change, even if never, please consider writing.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#87

Post by natsucks »

outsidetheparty wrote: post #19

I should have spotted it but didn't: They took me out skiing one day between interviews (they were courting me pretty hard, and good snow was a selling point for the region) and I met the CEO for the first time on the slopes. He wore a full motorcycle-style helmet with a mirrored face visor which he refused to open; it was like talking to a member of Daft Punk. It had fake hologram bullet-holes on it. More importantl…

hilarious.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#88

Post by jakedata »

Jugurtha wrote: post #86
jakedata wrote: post #17

I was summoned to a nondescript industrial building, found my way upstairs and wound up in a grubby room posing as a lobby. I was seated on a low futon and had several discussions with my knees nearly level with my ears. The conversations were overly casual but with some oddly specific IT security questions. I seriously contemplated walking out of what was clearly an amateurish, shoestring operation. Nope... I have w…

If you ever contemplate a career change, even if never, please consider writing.

Thanks! I consider writing well to be a differentiating skill, especially in IT.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#89

Post by icepat »

postalrat wrote: post #22
jebarker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For coding jobs?

Probably read about it somewhere.

Funny enough, my curent position did not give me a coding interview. Rather they asked difficult technical questions about the technologies I used, and asked me to justify my use of them. I found this was a far better test, because coding out an algorithm is something you can just memorise.

Example: "You've used k8s, how and in what context?" "Ok, great, so you've AWS EC2 instances, how did you manage cost and performance there?" "You're listing Clojure here, what were your thoughts on X feature/limitation"? It was a rather fluid discussion about the ins and outs of technologies, stacks by engineers.

Sometimes actually interrogating someone's knowledge of a system works just as well. I code a lot of things slowly, and need to think through my designs with a pad of paper. I really can't do it when someone is hovering over my shoulder.

Re: Ask HN: What's the biggest red flag you've encountered during a hiring process?

#90

Post by abdullahkhalids »

jerkstate wrote: post #61
allo37 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the answer was. I've read plenty about how the boutique finance sector is basically a parasite that only benefits a small cohort of already wealthy individuals, would like to hear what the other side has to say.

The answer I get from people working at market makers I’ve talked to is that they provide liquidity (so you can buy or sell a security immediately rather than waiting minutes or hours?) and decrease volatility. An example is onions futures; see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act and check the onions price history: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU01130216/ compared to a commodity where futures tra…

One set of markers of a "good" industry or organization is whether they pay for all the harm they create in society and whether their profits are equal to or below the value they create for society.

For instance, the oil/car industry pays for basically none of the large negative externalities they create. In this case, I hazard that futures industry captures more value than they create. And that value is extracted from other players in the vertical chain, particularly farmers.

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