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How to hire low experience, high potential people
61–70 of 433 posts
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#62I like that this isn't your typical skills demo. I changed careers at age 40+, learned to code, now years later enjoying it. It just took someone who thought I could grow. Interestingly I was hired along side some capable, albeit green, college grads. The difference in terms of understanding how a business works, speaking to customers, asking questions / follow through to get down to the problem we're solving was eno…
I'm 36 And also trying to get my foot in. It's very hard, wish I could find someone who gives me an opportunity. I've been interviewed but it's always about the skillset you bring to the table.
Can I throw you against a codebase and be productive quickly? Do you already have experience with this obscure library? I want to build now a website using React + Function Calling + Puppeteer, IDK what else to do to impress people.
Same happening with my gf, who is a graphic designer + UI/UX. She has some experience but only as freelancer, she's never been hired by anyone because it seems never enough.
I teached her HTML + CSS and she's been able to do this by herself (https://sofialenti.com/) so IDK what more a designer can learn. The only thing that's left IMO is to learn JS and be able to code some awesome stuff, but at that point she would be almost an unicorn.
It seems the market is just too saturated, despite the frequent news about we need millions of people who can do X! It seems like a way to get cheap and disposable labor.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#63People'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 a…
How do you test for curiosity?
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#64> “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…
I like the general idea of this article. But that question would be a huge red flag for me. That’s intrusive and I would consider such a question as offensive.
But maybe this is a cultural thing, and works differently in other cultures (didn’t check where the author is from).
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#65> “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…
This sort of question reminds me of the now-discredited “cultural fit” question in standard interview rounds.
In almost all situations, it meant “are you of the same socioeconomic background as the interviewer?”, so it ended up being incredibly racist and also ensured that teams had very little technical diversity.
It did optimize for fun nights out with cliques within the teams (and epic political infighting) though.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#66Earlier 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 mean, can anyone (layperson or not) actually "psychologically evaluate" someone based on anecdotes from their life?
Doubtful indeed. They're more likely to just open themselves up to unconscious bias and prefer to hire candidates with similar backgrounds to them. 'Ohh this person started tinkering with technology in grade 8 in the basement like I did'. While passing up qualified candidates with backgrounds different than theirs.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#67Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#68> “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…
Almost anyone can solve problems. You want to find someone who you actually want to work with. The days of the anti social "lone genius" are long gone.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#69The succinct guidelines from "Mastering the Art of War" (Zhuge Liang, Liu Ju) for interviewing people are still among the best (c.200 / 1300 CE). This is also good practive for the interviewee, you want to assess whether or not accepting a job offer at Theranos is a good idea (#5 is perhaps questionable):
Hard though it be to know people, there are ways.
First is to question them concerning right and wrong, to observe their ideas.
Second is to exhaust all their arguments, to see how they change.
Third is to consult with them about strategy, to see how perceptive they are.
Fourth is to announce that there is trouble, to see how brave they are.
Fifth is to get them drunk, to observe their nature.
Sixth is to present them with the prospect of gain, to see how modest they are.
Seventh is to give them a task to do within a specific time, to see how trustworthy they are.
Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point! Seems like the writer has accidentally optimized his interview for narcissists, psychopaths and pathological liers who excel at manipulation, instead of true high-potential young people :)
All interviews except hard technical ones are optimized for liars.
And even hard technical interviews greatly fail folks who don’t do well under pressure (ie, not at all how typical software is written / projects are conducted in the real world).