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I don't hire unlucky people

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#251

Post by TheBoff »

simonbrown wrote: post #230
TheBoff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ahh, I can't find it. I just remember that it was looked like a normal HN story but you couldn't comment on it, and that it didn't ever actually mention the company name.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#252

Post by kharasoft »

dustingetz wrote: post #21

i know a guy running a software shop. he's an active participant in the local meetup community, and he cares about people. it's no surpise that he has all sorts of talented people trying to work with him, and not enough funding to hire them all . (at least, i think that's why he hasn't hired me ;) i also know a few other people running software shops, who don't participate in the local meetup community. none of the b…

There was a question on Programmer's.SE asking the best way to recruit developers. That was my exact answer as well. http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/47312/best-wa...

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#253

Post by kharasoft »

wisty wrote: post #156
robterrell wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that just another filter for luck? You're filtering out candidates who don't know about the meetup, or have kids and can't make the meetup's evening hours, or prefer another meetup that happens to be at the same time elsewhere, etc.

Yes, and if you get really good candidates (by going to meetups and being a nice person), then you can afford to do that.

I don't think he was saying exclusively hire from the meetups...he was saying to add that to your recruitment portfolio. There are a number of developers who aren't looking per se but by engaging them in a more social environment than a job board, you have a chance of catching their attention about the new job you're hiring for. The biggest thing that Raganwald never touched on is that many of the best developers won't even apply to your job under normal circumstances because they're content where they are. Getting involved in the community helps engage those people.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#254

Post by r00fus »

bestes wrote: post #216
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was that part of Steve's recruiting schtick? IIRC, that was just internal company culture and not something that Apple HR (or Steve if he was interviewing) would have mentioned.

I do believe he used words like "changing the world", etc. These are more about results than ego. Huge difference.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#255

Post by slavak »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #106
joshAg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my typical response to ads for rockstars is pointing out that rockstars tend to earn 10 to 100 times more than a great studio musician and generally have to be the prima donna all the time. Then I ask if forcing myself to be the center of attention is part of the job description, and just how much better the position pays compared to the typical valley salary.

Along that same lines... you never see a good ninja. So if I'm hired under the guise of being a ninja you can expect to never see me in the office. So telecommuting would be expected?

This is great.

I'm going to apply for and get a job at a company advertising for "ninjas," then not let my boss know when I'm taking vacation or a sick day - just so when he calls to ask where I am, I can reply with "Well, you did say you wanted a ninja programmer..."

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#256

Post by roryokane »

raganwald wrote: post #92
roryokane wrote: post #79

Earlier 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…

Saying that I think the story really happened is an exaggeration in my case. Obviously I recognized that the story was false strongly enough for me to know that I should put my skepticism filters on. I knew intellectually the story didn't happen soon after starting reading, from the style of writing. But it took extra, conscious effort to ensure that that understanding was shared by my more base word-understanding mind, too. Basically, I read in words as truth, and have to manually tag each thought as "dubious" after reading them. Or perhaps I would still disbelieve what I read even if I didn't consciously attempt to disbelieve it, but consciously disbelieving what I read is a much-practiced habit that I would find hard to stop, so I still prefer straightforwardly-presented arguments to fictional-story arguments.

Apart from that misunderstanding, I do find it plausible that, as you hypothesize, most people need less effort to disbelieve what they read than me.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#258

Post by joe_the_user »

raganwald wrote: post #195
joe_the_user wrote: post #191

Can I call bullshit on the claim the 99% of people applying for a given programming are unqualified? Can I even call total bullshit ? Perhaps I could suggest a further that all this 99% unqualified noise is mostly a bureaucrat ideology epiphany, based on intensifying the usual "I want a Perl-programmer with five years Rails experience who can start yesterday while riding a bicycle under water".

I’m pretty sure the empirical evidence backs up the statistic. The Fine Article links to Joel Spolsky’s explanation of the math: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

Dude!

You know the link post debunks that canard rather than supporting?

Edit: And you wrote the original blog post and you're always on hn. I would suggest reading closely the link you posted.

Re: I don't hire unlucky people

#260

Post by zxcvb »

danenania wrote: post #245
zxcvb wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Getting a programming job at a company that uses the technologies you want to work with will seriously help you move into another role in the near future. Even if the company is crap. It's nice that some people will care about your personal projects but A LOT of good companies won't see these in the same light as real professional experience dealing with real production, team and stake holder issues. Also,…

Speaking from experience, most of your assumptions are completely wrong. It's much easier to gain valuable skills in personal, open source, and consulting projects, because you can target your work towards sought after languages, tools, and frameworks, and clients you contract with will often let you choose the technologies if you make a good case for them. Bad companies will tend to use bad and outdated technologies…

Speaking from experience, most of what you say is wrong.

Most of the contracting positions available in London (where I live) are only available to experienced professionals. There's no way anyone is going to hire a nobody for £500 per day. Good luck finding much work available below this level, I used to contract myself at £200 per day but this only because I personally knew the manager on the project and I had worked with him as an engineer as an intern one year previously.

Showing you have good ideas and that you get things done means NOTHING. The other guy applying for the same job who has 6 years of experience will beat you every time. Maybe things are different where ever you are from but where I am from you don't get to work on anything that anyone cares about unless you have solid experience.

If you want to land a role at some small web dev shop where you will be stuck working on crappy rails or other nonsense things then go make your portfolio out of $60 a day "contracts" and have a great life. This does not exist in the UK and when people say 'contracting' they mean real work earning real money.

The best thing you can do is get an awesome internship then leverage that to get a good perm role somewhere else. This is exactly what I did. I didn't return to the place where I did my internship as I landed a better package elsewhere.

If you can afford to work for $60 a day and you are lucky to live in the Valley or somewhere where these roles are available, then lucky you. I prefer something a little more rigorous where I'm not a slave working on crap.

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