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I don't hire unlucky people

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#211

Post by sanderjd »

erikb wrote: post #137
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Like in every skill you need to choose your heuristics carefully and like in most jobs, HR and CTOs often aren't the best. That doesn't mean the whole idea is crap. The thing about formatting I can't answer if you are right or "most HR people" are right. The argument they bring seems as legitimate as yours: People who care about the looks of their result are more disciplined, probably faster (because they get the con…

> It's more likely (of course not 100%) they have more data and experience than you and me.

Having data does not imply usefully analyzing it, and "experience" is nothing more than a plurality of anecdote. Without actually seeing the data, I think your best guess here should be 50/50, rather than the very biased-toward-the-high-end "more likely (of course not 100%)" that you have. Appeal to authority is especially dangerous when you are making decisions that affect your company's bottom line based on peoples' ability to format text.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#212

Post by tomkin »

sesqu wrote: post #208
tomkin wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like that we can't question this story because it's fictional . It has legs because of the way it is written, but no one can jab or poke at it without the obvious " well, it's just a story, man " line. I hate outs like that. It's been mentioned that there is an overall religious feel to these articles. I think it's because religion always has an out when it needs to explain something using evidence. Then ther…

I have to somewhat agree. I read a bestselling short story once about two mice, one of whom ventured out into the world to find a new place to live, while the other stayed put. The one who abandoned everything came out of it better in the end, and so the moral of the story was that we should all abandon what works in hopes of stumbling on to something better. I detested the book, and will instantly have a lower opini…

The author sees his time better spent addressing each comment rather than just do something simple like using the Posterous tagging feature. A 'fiction' tag would be sufficient and no one would be confused. I doubt the author would tolerate end-user confusion in his software, why defend it in this case? His blog is full of non-fictional, fictional, opinion, etc. There is no obvious delineation for those who don't read his material and the fix is easy.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#213

Post by zacharycohn »

wonnage wrote: post #176
brazzy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not to mention the importance of cultural fit, too. People dismiss cultural fit because it seems superficial. In reality, programming ability is part of cultural fit - who wants to work with an incompetent? A good programmer does not exist in isolation, a good programmer exists in context of the people s/he works with. So if you find that rockstar/ninja advertising attracts the type of people you want - why not? Pers…

We're currently hiring at Startup Weekend, and at the end of the job ad we said something like "Ninjas, rockstars, gurus, and jedi masters need not apply."

In hindsight, I think that actually says a fair bit about who we're looking for AND our culture. "Do a good job. Don't get distracted by buzzwords."

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#214

Post by vinayan3 »

raganwald wrote: post #144
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I agree with everything you are all saying. What I was trying to claim is that there’s a relationship between heuristics and the ham/spam ratio of the documents being classified. When there is very little ham and a lot of spam, my claim is that false negatives are extremely expensive. When the benefit of hiring is very high and the cost of interviewing is low, my claim is that false positives are relatively cheap. Gi…

I agree. If there was a TLDR; it'd have been nice :).

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#215

Post by eli_gottlieb »

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…

Ugh. I know the feeling.

I once answered a job ad - on HN no less! - asking if I had ever wanted to create a programming language and saying I should contact this company to show them if I had.

Well, I was a PL researcher by the end of undergrad. So of course I sent them my research paper, my senior thesis, and my project link.

Turned out they make a mobile furniture-sale application. They've got really cool guys working on it who've done things like compilers or languages before, but when it came right down to it, they stopped calling me back when they realized I haven't done mobile development before.

For fuck's sake, if you wanted an experienced mobile dev, ASK FOR ONE! And if you asked for a PL researcher, WHAT ELSE DID YOU EXPECT? AND WHY ARE YOU EMPLOYING COMPILER EXPERTS TO WORK ON SELLING FURNITURE?!

It would be really nice certain companies stopped trying to make themselves sound cool or important, and just let job-seekers know what they are hiring for. Obscuring your intent, in hiring, is equivalent to wanting a bad match.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#216

Post by bestes »

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.

I dunno. Think about Steve Jobs recruiting for Mac engineers with a pirate flag flying from the building. If 'pirate' then == ninja/rockstar now, you might be missing a great job.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#217

Post by erikb »

raganwald wrote: post #148
erikb wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for telling me, so I could give this guy an upvote to counter :)

Notice that I actually agree that my words were too long! I rarely actually downvote people, and almost never when they're criticizing me.

Was that agreement stated in another comment?

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#218

Post by danenania »

krschultz wrote: post #184
zanny wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is in no way condescending to you, but realize that your options will massively open after 2 years of work experience. I graduated in 2010, I got 3 job offers out of the 3 companies I applied to. However, none were exactly my dream job and the few companies I really wanted to work for didn't even talk to new grads. Today I can absolutely get those jobs. My girlfriend went through the exact same evolution. It was…

I see where you're coming from, but software is a lot different from banking.

"You have to get a job right away." definitely isn't true or good advice for a programmer. You can learn a lot more a lot faster and add more impressive pieces to your portfolio by working on your own projects, open source, or contracting than by accepting a bad job at some dysfunctional company.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#219

Post by aangjie »

alttag wrote: post #189
wonnage wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the importance of cultural fit, too. People dismiss cultural fit because it seems superficial. In reality, programming ability is part of cultural fit - who wants to work with an incompetent? A good programmer does not exist in isolation, a good programmer exists in context of the people s/he works with. So if you find that rockstar/ninja advertising attracts the type of people you want - why not? Pers…

Yes, cultural fit is important. Programmers need to be able to work together ... BUT ... ... I once hired a guy precisely because of his strong stance against some of the norms in the local culture (and he passed the minimum programming threshold and was willing to work for the peanuts we were offering). I inferred from his political/cultural views—which he was not shy about expressing—that he would have the will to…

This is the only use-case/meaning of cultural fit that makes sense to me. But, i do think we ought to find a more specific name(http://lesswrong.com/lw/bc3/sotw_be_specific/). Perhaps something along the lines of balancing the team.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#220

Post by liljimmytables »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #124
brazzy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I confess, after spending a few years as an inexperienced coder applying for anything I could get, that I take a perverse pleasure in updating my shitty resume only occasionally now, and not giving a wet fish about the formatting. (a) because it's cathartic, (b) because I don't need to suck up to assholes any more, and (c) because one of the smartest, most reliable people I ever hired submitted her CV to me entirely in Comic Sans.
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