271–280 of 433 posts
>> How to hire low experience, high potential people In other words interns. Wouldn't have guessed.
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…
We built Fly.io resume-blind and without interviews, hiring people at every level of experience without having to make decisions based on that experience. We did it by throwing away all this stuff, ditching interviews, and replacing them with work-sample tests. Some of the best people on our team, the best I've worked with in my whole career, are working here in their first job in our field. I'm a little grumpy about…
In a world where chat gpt exists I think even work samples are untrustworthy sources of excellence unfortunately. It would seem one has to either watch the process or devise unique and difficult to game tests.
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> maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. Yeah, you would have to claw this out of me with a hammer. There's absolutely no way I would be comfortable sharing that level of intimacy with a stranger.
That isnt everyone. Some folks had a lot of adversity in their lives and are OK with talking about how they delt with it. Some people pay others to listen to this and call it therapy. There are other ways to ask these sorts of questions: did you ever have a job that you dont want to go back to but would not give up the experience of? (Do you know how shitty a job can be, were you an amazon driver or a pickle shoveler…
We built Fly.io resume-blind and without interviews, hiring people at every level of experience without having to make decisions based on that experience. We did it by throwing away all this stuff, ditching interviews, and replacing them with work-sample tests. Some of the best people on our team, the best I've worked with in my whole career, are working here in their first job in our field. I'm a little grumpy about…
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> That isnt everyone. > Some folks had a lot of adversity in their lives and are OK with talking about how they delt with it. Some people pay others to listen to this and call it therapy. Sure. But is "willing to talk about dealing with trauma" really a valid filter to sort potential employees by?
Ability to function during emotionally-difficult circumstances can be a job requirement. (Likely not software engineering, hence the scorn on this forum!) It's unlikely the interviewers are curious about the interviewee's story, but if a question about a traumatic experience makes someone freeze up then they may not be able to perform certain roles.
What certain roles are needed to plunge into reliving the time they were raped or assaulted? When they were a war refugee? And while reliving being assaulted to navigate a professional space??
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 a…
This needs to be subdivided. There are plenty of people who've had a lot of opportunity for aptitude growth, but they didn't grow. And having high energy in those circumstances really messes up a lot of stuff (they're incompetent, but jump into and be involved in everything, and you have to politely tell them to get off your project).
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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.
(One followup question I find myself asking a lot is "you said 'we' did X, tell me more about who was part of that" -- great people sometimes give away too much of the credit)
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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.
ok, yes, putting it this way does make more sense. reality however is that at least for me, my childhood experience affects how i work. although i acknowledge that this is more about self reflection and not about actually sharing this with anyone at work. but it does deeply affect how i interact with them. for example as a team leader i can become very protective of those under me.
You may choose to share some of the deeper reasoning as to why you act one way or another, with certain people under certain circumstances. But it is a choice and not a requirement.
"I tend to be very protective of my team" should be sufficient, especially in an an interview setting