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How to hire low experience, high potential people

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Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#51

Post by the_mar »

slibhb wrote: post #28
notpachet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when the…

It's unclear to me how "non-engineering types" can make use of stories about e.g. "caring for a dying parent" in the context of a job interview. I mean, can anyone (layperson or not) actually "psychologically evaluate" someone based on anecdotes from their life? I also worry that this stuff can be gamed. If an applicant gains an advantage by telling a story about how he "cared for his dying aunt while finishing a deg…

I have a ton of stories of a "cared for his dying aunt..." variety, 99% of the time when asked about personal stuff in the interview I am forced to lie, because otherwise the interviewer is coming out of that deeply scarred.

So my perspective is that anyone who tells you a "cared for his dying aunt..." story is full of shit and definitely is playing you.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#52

Post by beretguy »

stefanos82 wrote: post #38
noamchomsky1 wrote: post #6

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Utterly ridiculous.

This reminds me of an interview I have had in the past that made me very uncomfortable. They asked me the same question and I paused for a moment and replied "excuse me, but this question makes me feel uncomfortable; I'm here for an interview not for a date!". They realized they overdid it and asked me actual questions. Eventually decided I was the right candidate for them, but until they decided to reply back, I alr…

> Why do they ask such type of questions anyway?!

They are incompetent at doing their jobs.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#54

Post by CharlieDigital »

smeeth wrote: post #41

People's intuitions around hiring aren't Bayesian enough. I think a good process reduces down to something like: - Are they smart? (understands quickly + communicates effectively) - Are they cool? (won't put poison in the keurig + pleasant to be around) - Are they high energy? (initiative + action bias) - Do they have the experience needed to be successful in the role? Those are pretty strong priors for success. If y…

I have a 4-quardrant way of thinking about this that's similar.

- Y-axis is "drive"

- X-axis is "aptitude"

- low drive + low aptitude: never hire

- low drive + high aptitude: hire for targeted use cases where you need expertise

- high drive + low aptitude: hire, train, and foster aptitude growth

- high drive + high aptitude: hire on the spot

There's an indirect way of testing for this which is to test for curiosity and lack of ego. My experience has been that candidates with high curiosity tend to have low ego (they know what they don't know and are curious to learn). These candidates make great hires because you can teach them anything.

Wrote about this a little bit here (with a handy diagram): https://charliedigital.com/2020/01/15/effective-hiring-for-s...

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#55

Post by the_mar »

em-bee wrote: post #34
finnthehuman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think “oh haha aren’t engineers robotic personalities” applies here. Fucking nobody I know gives too much of their real personality at work, let alone when interviewing. But “haha aren’t all engineers only friends with other nerds and barely live in the real word” so what do I know?

nobody I know gives too much of their real personality at work i don't believe that. are you claiming that they are all faking it? i would not want to work in a place where people fake their personality just to fit in. my experience from working on FOSS projects suggests that the stereotypical behavior we see in some engineers is in fact real. not as exaggerated as people claim, but the signs are there. more importan…

It's not really faking it, but it is surface level. My coworkers don't really need to know about my childhood trauma, my struggles or my hopes and dreams.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#56

Post by mywittyname »

> Disagree and commit:

I hate that this is such a common thought process. This is something that makes sense for soldiers in the military. But outside of this context (being a low-information cog in a gigantic machine), it's terrible. If you can't convince domain experts that the plan is sound, then maybe it's a bad plan.

Honestly, disagree and commit goes against my...

> Theory for excellence.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#57

Post by nineplay »

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

There's a nauseating bias here against people who've had horrific childhoods.

"Let me tell you about the years of physical/emotional/sexual abuse I've suffered though." That's just not going to happen - and if it did happen the interviewer is probably not going to come away with "What a brave person to overcome all of that!" but "What a damaged person, I don't need them around".

Well done, you've weeded out people who've already suffered enough.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#58

Post by unshavedyak »

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

Yup. I had a rough childhood. Not something i'm exactly keen on diving into, let alone sharing.

edit: Sidenote, i take real pride in knowing the little bit i contribute to our hiring process is nothing like this. Just help me understand if you know the tech i think you'll need to know. There's no gotcha questions, no arbitrary count questions you have to answer correctly to pass, etc.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#60

Post by tuatoru »

PaulHoule wrote: post #33
notpachet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when the…

Sometimes I think some people in business have a pathological need for things to be poorly defined. They dread a visit to the ontologist even more than they do to the orthodontist. I think some people just don't feel like things are in control unless they have a large arbitrary structure that confounds everybody else and lets them do whatever they hell they want. (Meanwhile, Steven Covey would say you should be proac…

It's just that the real world is fractal. With apologies to Jonathan Swift, the exceptions have smaller exceptions that upon them prey, and they have smaller yet to bite 'em.
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