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I don't hire unlucky people

raganwald.posterous.com

221–230 of 281 posts

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#221

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…

A couple of years ago I saw a programming job ad with language along the lines of "don't bother applying if you have a gmail address on your resume." Wonder how that panned out for them.

They would probably get applicants with a hotmail address...

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know, and that sucks. Let me ask you a question though - developers who can't put their code online, will some of them not engage online otherwise? Say, consume professional content on twitter, post on HN, or answer questions on Stack Overflow? Our goal is to look at any kind of professional activity online, not only code. What do you think?

I'm not inclined to do any of those things in a serious way, much less in a way that I'd call professional. I post on HN sporadically and solely for my own amusement, and I don't know that any employers would find my history here relevant in any way. I don't really get into the social media aspect of development even when I'm allowed to contribute to open projects, so I doubt I'd be very visible (or very attractive i…

Thanks for the edit :)

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#223
post #4

This is exactly what we've been thinking about for the last year while we've been building http://skillsapp.com . Exactly. Love it when lucid, articulate writers take my mess of a brain and put the right words to it.

Well-made logo and landing page but I doubt that the idea will work at all. There might be some correlation of let's call it "social media activity" and skill. So, somebody who blogs a lot technical stuff, tweets about it and contributes to open projects on Github often is surely somebody to look at—but that's just it. Social media activity is a nice to have and btw can be checked with a few clicks, why do I need a d…

Glad you like our style!

When you say "there's so much noise in social channels and generally you find many people there who look rather for attention than real long-sighted achievements and it's hard to recognize the real gems in that noise.", could that not make room for a company that aims to do just that - recognize the real gems?

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#224
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…

Agree, you just need to know which type you're targeting. The opposite of "rockstar" might be mentioning a "family friendly atmosphere". It will appeal to a certain audience which might or might not be your target.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#225

I 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…

Stories are powerful and can aid in remembering and understanding the message - but can be taken too far. For example I found the scenes of the lead character's marriage problems in 'The Goal' quite off-putting and unnecessary.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know, and we're working hard at that problem. Here's two thoughts: (1) It's not our goal to make candidates like you look bad, not at all. When candidates have professional stuff online, we think employers should be interested in getting a good view of it. That's all we try to do. We wouldn't give you a bad score - we'd give you no score at all. Essentially, we're telling employers: "we can't know anything about t…

After rereading my comment I think maybe it may have come off harsher than I intended. But I see you understand my message. And I don't for a minute think you would intentionally try to make people look bad. But this type of assessment definitely favors a certain type of person. And as someone else pointed out is kin to tossing half the resumes straight to the trash. Maybe I'm more old school than others but I just d…

I understand, and you raise important questions. We think about these things quite often, and we're very much prepared to feel our way to a product that works. The big question for us is - is online professional activity valuable for a large enough group of employers and candidates? We think the answer is yes, but we can't be sure until we (or someone else) builds a successful business around it.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#227
This is how I've been hiring in the last 3 years: I created a business by myself. As business grows, my goal is 1) to amplify and multiply my skills, which made this business possible. That way I can delegate work, be in many places at once and do things faster and better. 2) to patch and overcome my flaws, which I'm self-conscious enough to know, and fear that they could hurt business.

So when I look through resumes and interview people, I look for signals that tell me this person can (or has the potential to) either emulate my most demanded virtues, or provide wished-for aptitudes onboard. So, if I read a resume with spelling mistakes, I think "I would never allow me to be this sloppy" -- I think it sends a message of carelessness that may put in question the quality of the work being done -- and I throw the resume away. On the other hand, when I meet a person that shows me a code sample with a well-organized and thoroughly commented api class hierarchy, I think "I wish I was like that!" -- and that's a keeper.

Hence I don't agree with the article when it says to "ignore little theories". Since I believe there's no universally-accepted, truly objective way to effectively spot strangers that will make your enterprise succeed, I choose to clone myself: me who is undeniably the right person for the job, otherwise this company would never launched in the first place. Then, bit-by-bit, I "genetically engineer" the selection process to create this better super-self (the team) that will take us to the next level.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#228
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I consistently write long essays and I lack the patience to edit them to manageable length. More importantly, I lack the moral fibre to discard perfectly good points. Any fool can chop filler out of an essay. It takes an author of sterling character to discard perfectly good ideas in the interest of making what remains an even better essay.

And I lack that character. Having written words about an idea I like, I find it very difficult to let go of them, and my writing suffers for it

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

To the grand-parent, I got a job off of an HN comment once, and I learned more at my time there then in 4 years of schooling, and it was a blast. Contact this man.

Even more so when the company founder is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#230

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…

This reminds me of that job advert which specifically asked for programmers with MacBooks only. No way in a million years would I apply there! I have an iMac, but only because I'm interested in different sorts of computer. I mean seriously, not everyone can afford an Mac. I've had this on my chest since I saw that advert. Just needed to vent :)

I can't fine one exactly like that. I remember:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2370022

http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/arc/000433.html

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