TL;DR
I don't hire unlucky people
91–100 of 281 posts
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#92I agree with every point Reginald makes but (and I am being nitpicky here) the form of the story - the seeming overtailored parable nature of it, of the kind you'd find in the Reader's Digest or a religious tract - rubs me ever so slightly the wrong way. I could have done without all the fake (or seemingly fake anyway) dialogue between the Wooster/Oscar etc and would have preferred a straightforward "This is what I(R…
I dislike the story form too, and I can explain why. The style gives the impression that Reginald is claiming "this really happened, and those people used this technique, and they lived happily ever after – so if it worked for them, it will work for you; give this technique a try". But this tale never happened, so that implied argument is a lie. This story forces me to put on my "disbelieve, disbelieve, disbelieve" m…
The style gives the impression that Raganwald is claiming "this really happened, and those people used this technique, and they lived happily ever after – so if it worked for them, it will work for you; give this technique a try
Respectfully, no it doesn’t. Try showing the story to one hundred randomly selected people and ask whether they think this really happened. I think you will find that there are a few people who have a certain type of extremely literal brain who don’t take well to parables, to satire, or anything else that isn’t a direct recitation of facts.
The fact that such people are in a minority doesn’t invalidate their (or your) feelings, but it is important to recognize that the feelings you have are not universal, just as I must recognize that not everybody likes the format.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#93This article is superb. We tried placing ads for ninjas, rock stars, and so on, but I discovered this was the cultural equivalent of advertising for white males who drink dry martinis. Not that white males who drink dry martinis can’t do the job, but there’s no real difference between advertising for a Ninja and throwing half your resumés away because you don’t like unlucky people. Either way, you end up with fewer r…
Indeed. My ad scoring program deducts 5 points and transparently kills off ads that contain terms like "ninja" and "rock star" because to my mind they indicate a propensity for either abuse ("a rock star should be able to code this in three days!!") or fad-following ineptitude ("rock stars are the coolest kind of programmers, I must have them! also, we write EVERYTHING in Ruby, it's like the Mac of programming").
It would be great if you made your software available as a web app for all of us to use.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took a look at skills app -- I like the approach and the clean layout, but a couple thoughts from this hiring manager: * Most of the really good devs I know and hire do not bother with easy metrics like number of tweets, followers, or StackOverflow points. They are perfect to paste together on summary reports and look "complete," but their absolute values or essence don't mean anything. * The high numbers on public…
Thanks for sharing your brain (and experience) with us! We don't think number of tweets or followers is a relevant means of assessment at all—quite the opposite. Ashton Kutcher is not an interesting candidate for a rails job, and that should be reflected in our report for him (were he ever to apply for such a position.) We obviously gather a lot of metrics (hey, storage is cheap) but the ones we actually use in our s…
My resume isn't like that, and I think that's why I don't have any problem finding jobs. My resume tells the story of each role I've had, including concrete examples and metrics of success.
I think your site is a perfect example of "lucky" candidates winning over unlucky candidates. A bunch of data probably unrelated to paying employment that a certain, lucky, subset of developers happen to score well on while others, especially those who traditionally hide on the Internet, look really bad in comparison.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#95Awesome article. I just came here to submit a note about style: If your text includes a large, multi-paragraph quote, it is common to elide the trailing quote between paragraphs. Including that trailing quote means that the second person in a two person conversation is now speaking. It just confused me at first, because I thought Oscar was the character to say "But it’s dangerous to confuse correlation with causation. And especially dangerous to...".
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#96Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dislike the story form too, and I can explain why. The style gives the impression that Reginald is claiming "this really happened, and those people used this technique, and they lived happily ever after – so if it worked for them, it will work for you; give this technique a try". But this tale never happened, so that implied argument is a lie. This story forces me to put on my "disbelieve, disbelieve, disbelieve" m…
The style gives the impression that Raganwald is claiming "this really happened, and those people used this technique, and they lived happily ever after – so if it worked for them, it will work for you; give this technique a try Respectfully, no it doesn’t. Try showing the story to one hundred randomly selected people and ask whether they think this really happened. I think you will find that there are a few people w…
I found the style grating as well, but not because I thought it might have happened or even that you intended for me to think so. It was more that I found the parable style condescending. Heavy-handed and self-indulgent are a couple of hyphenated terms that might apply to some small extent.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
The writing style reminded me a lot of the book "Leadership and self-deception" ( http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-out-... ) in which a guy shows up at a new job and gets a day-long welcoming from the CEO, during which they slowly go through the idea of putting people in boxes and what to do about it. The ending of raganwald's post especially was similar in tone with "You belong here. We'll do…
It seems very common among books targeted at CEO-types ("Be The Hero" being the one I read lately). I don't know what it is about managers that means they like stories more than explication, but it seems to be common perception.
Stories can be useful. You could say [arbitrary example] that "I'm trustworthy", or you could tell a story of the time you were given privileged information and didn't use it for personal gain.
The story is much more convincing, because it invokes empathy from the audience. The trick is to tell a good story. That means understanding plot, characters, tempo, your audience, and so on.
Not saying it's the be-all and end-all, but when done right stories have their place.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#99I agree with every point Reginald makes but (and I am being nitpicky here) the form of the story - the seeming overtailored parable nature of it, of the kind you'd find in the Reader's Digest or a religious tract - rubs me ever so slightly the wrong way. I could have done without all the fake (or seemingly fake anyway) dialogue between the Wooster/Oscar etc and would have preferred a straightforward "This is what I(R…
I preferred the parable, personally -- I think it's just a preference thing. Viewing things as an interaction, even just a sort of Socratic dialogue, works well at least for my mind.
> Socratic dialogue
There are more references to culture as well. See below for a discussion of the Sesame Street (or was that "It's a Wonderful Life") names.
Re: I don't hire unlucky people
#100So the most efficient interviewing process for the employer is also the nicest to candidates? What a curious coincidence. Are you sure there was no wishful thinking involved in writing this post?
Right now it's a candidate's market (unless you actually suck).
The best chance companies that would like to hire me now had was seven years ago when my resume was thin and unconventional but my code was solid. Now that my background conventional (except for the lack of a related degree) they are falling all over themselves, and I am quite content in a brilliant job making more than most of them are willing to pay. I'm more skilled now, sure, but I was a good junior developer then. The fringe company that took a risk and hired me despite my resume got more than their money's worth.
You are welcome to be less nice to candidates. Let us know how that goes for you.