191–200 of 433 posts
> “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…
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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 wh…
There can also be a bias against people who haven't had horrific childhoods or particularly interesting ones, depending on the background or attitude of the interviewer. "If he hasn't struggled, then what does he really know about anything at all?"
> 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.
The "disagree and commit" scenarios I see in the real world are usually one of the following:
- Disagreements within a team. One "domain expert" disagrees with others about what should be done. The only way forward is to disagree and commit, or remove that person from the team (or company). So disagree and commit is the first choice.
- Disagreements about NIH. Someone wants to build a custom framework or new library instead of using one off the shelf. Building things from scratch is fun, adapting existing things to your need is less so. Given limited resources and time you have to disagree and commit to using something off the shelf.
- Disagreements about priorities. Someone thinks we need to rewrite the codebase or refactor everything or address a low-priority bug instead of working on important feature work for the business. There are cases where too much tech debt is bad, but often it's necessary to focus on what the business needs to keep moving forward. If someone can't disagree and commit to working on what the business needs, that's not going to work out.
Some people simply can't commit to a plan they don't agree with, which means you're either letting them hold everything hostage to their own plan or you're going a different way while they sulk about it. Neither situation is good for planning.
I mean, I'm just starting a job-search and the top HackerNews story's about how prospective employers ought to be looking for applications like mine! I'd love to talk to such prospective employers; I wonder how to make that connection?
> “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. God damn that sounds exhausting. How about…
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i think that in the United States, this is simply not the case up until the true super-rich. the vast majority of rich people are not well-connected enough to drive any business your way. if you have a tech startup do you really care that you hired the son or daughter of a car dealership magnate from the other side of the country? in the USA it's possible and in fact more common to become a very wealthy without becom…
> if you have a tech startup do you really care that you hired the son or daughter of a car dealership magnate from the other side of the country? Of course! That's an incredible resource. Even if they don't specifically drive business your way, having the person's ear is something that can be leveraged to great effect. You don't exactly become a car dealership magnate without knowing a thing or two about business an…
This is an enormous stretch. I highly doubt the son of the owner of Henrysburg Chevrolet in Henrysburg, Georgia is going to bring anything to the table that a startup in San Francisco needs, purely due to his dad. You have no idea if dad knows anything about business. And if he does, you have no idea if dad taught any of it to kid. And if he did, you have no idea if any of it is relevant to developing biotech software. Nobody in the company is going to care about dad's connections to the dude that runs Henrysburg Laundromat. But sure, go hire his kid because of some vague pedigree reason.
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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…
Aren't these quadrants from about 100 years ago? Some Prussian General von Whatshisname? Edit: General von Hammerstein I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the…
> “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…
You've never had to take a psych test before an interview?