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I don't hire unlucky people

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#121

Post by iandanforth »

zanny wrote: post #111
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

This 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…

I'm a semi-introvert graduating with my BS in CS and am looking for jobs right now. And this is all I ever feel. I read dozens of job ads across the country (I look through all of them because I really want to get out and move some place new, see the world - being fresh out of college is the best time for me to do that and all) and in the process I see only two kinds of jobs for someone like me. The ads either come a…

How do you feel about python and machine learning? Numenta is hiring in Redwood City, CA and this post has motivated me to leave no stone left unturned. :) (Contact info in profile)

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#122

Post by _delirium »

msbarnett wrote: post #73
swang wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true at all schools in the US. At least not when I applied around 10 years ago. A lot of schools, especially the top tier CS programs told me that I would not be allowed to go in undeclared and then transfer into their CS program. I had to declare as a CS or I wouldn't get in. I knew some people were able to get away with not declaring and transferring in but I didn't want to risk it.

10 years exactly, or a bit more than that? The reason I asked is that CS enrollment changed dramatically after the .com bubble burst. When I applied to CS a little more than 10 years ago the bubble was in full swing, and only the top 1/4 of applicants to the program had a hope of getting in. Transferring in was a no-go. 2 years later enrollment had dropped so low that the quotas were gone and transferring in was easy…

These days Stanford, at least, has an active program trying to convince non-CS first-years to switch their major to CS!

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#123

Post by jack-r-abbit »

civilian wrote: post #118
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #105

I'm not sure I agree with putting people who can't put together a resume without spelling/grammar mistakes into the same unlucky group that simply had their resumes tossed by chance. Having spelling and grammar mistakes on a resume is sloppy... not unlucky. At a minimum it indicates they may not pay attention to details when it really matters. But maybe that is just me. Or maybe it just doesn't matter on a resume any…

No. One of my coworkers is a terrible speller, and especially so in IM. I haven't seen his resume, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a mistake or two in it. And he's pretty scatterbrained. But when it comes to coding CSS or using javascript design patterns, he is awesome. I ask him tons of questions. He is incredibly valuable. I mean, it's okay for you to keep on doing what you're comfortable with. But do you u…

I am a terrible speller as well. I just take that extra bit of time to correct things with that squiggly line under them. Technology allows me to hide my horrible spelling ability very easily. So it is not so much that potential candidates are bad at spelling (particularly since I am too) but more that they just didn't take the time to do it right. I think resumes are still pretty important documents. Maybe not as important as a patent application or the actual code being written. But if they didn't take the time to do the resume right... what else are they going to overlook when it is important? Just my feelings.

And like I said, sometimes the second string does end up having the one. But if I already found the one in the first stack, then I'm still getting a great developer... just not the one with spelling mistakes. Plus, I'm not even a hiring manager. I review resumes of would-be peers.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#124

Post by JumpCrisscross »

brazzy wrote: post #83
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

This 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…

The article is almost completely useless. It claims you shouldn't throw out resumes based on simple heuristics and stuff that only correlates with programming ability because there are so few people applying who are any good, but has exactly one sentence to say about how to then actually find those few people: "I grill them, hard, on actual programming and actual software development." Right. Sure. Every single one o…

The article criticises the unquestioning use of bad heuristics. One needs to think very carefully about how accurate the heuristics employed are at describing the unseen (but directly desired) attribute(s) as well as what un-desirable attributes it may be silently signalling.

As someone who worked at an investment bank, I'd go ballistic when managers would turn away candidates because their resumes weren't properly aligned or formatted. The irony was amplified by the fact that we were not a client-facing trading desk. Here the heuristic used (resume formatting) did not correlate with the desired attribute ([trading skills]) but did correlate well with some undesirable attributes (insecure children more concerned with form than function).

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#125

Post by taw »

reinhardt wrote: post #59
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

This 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…

Ironically, a job seeker that rejects an ad based on a keyword or two is exactly the shallow reasoning this article criticizes; it's just the other side of the same coin. I'm pretty sure there are actually good startups that put out "cool" (lame) ads just, like good programmers that let a typo slip by.

Close but not quite. Even just in CV there's ton more relevant data than in job ad.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#126

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

cookiecaper wrote: post #31
DarkShikari wrote: post #10

This 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").

The argument made in the article applies in both directions.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#127

Post by huhtenberg »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #60
cookiecaper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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").

Personally I think those terms indicate feeble attempts at psychological manipulation. I feel like responding to job ads like that would be like admitting you're a gullible fool. They're trying to recruit and stroke egos, not people.

Or they think of themselves as ninjas, which is too a big red flag.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#128

Post by guyzero »

devs1010 wrote: post #104
raganwald wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the difference between a spelling mistake and failing to wear a tie to an interview? I suggest nothing except for cultural standards. Once upon a time, they were both punishable by immediate removal from the process. Today one is tolerated but the other not tolerated. they both signal the same thing: “I meticulously went over my presentation to ensure that it meets your expectations.” Let’s be clear: I think…

I'm not quite sure I follow.. are you suggesting that not wearing a tie would mean "removal from the process", even today? I've never worn a tie to a programming interview and generally it seems most experienced developers don't, at least in on the west coast of the US

Once upon a time, not wearing a tie would have been unacceptable in a job interview. This is no longer the case and the world has not collapsed into a heap of smouldering cinders. I believe the point was that a few spelling mistakes should not disqualify someone from being interviewed for a programming job.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#129

Post by stcredzero »

terryk88a wrote: post #54
stcredzero wrote: post #48

Just this morning, I was thinking about metrics. It should be possible to develop a set of metrics for code quality that would apply to apps using particular languages and libraries. These metrics would be general and very imperfect, but they would still have some utility. For example, it would be fairly easy to develop an automated metrics program to run on a given Ruby on Rails app. Things like depth of nesting in…

No No NO. There really Really REALLY has never been a satisfactory set of metrics for code quality. Not for COBOL and not for rails.

So the Rails community is free of deeply nested spaghetti logic and long run-on cut and paste methods? There are no Rails apps with overly deep class hierarchies?

Metrics are not so much for code quality as to flag widespread code suckage. I still think this could benefit hiring.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#130

Post by trotsky »

Steko wrote: post #116
cosecant wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Job descriptions just shouldn't have "rock star" or "ninja" unless they are hired on their ability to perform music in front of an audience or on their katana wielding skills.

Rock Star: that guy who shows up late and worked on a hit project 15 years ago that he's always bringing up. Ninja: that guy who's never at his desk and never says anything in meetings.

wow, i never knew i was a rock star
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