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Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

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Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#91

Post by bialpio »

whatsakandr wrote: post #29

We hired a guy like that. Clear deficiency in hiring process. I wasn't in management, but letting the mistake fester won't make it better. Additionally, if someone is that "senior" and good at interviewing, but not at thier job, it's unlikely they will come up to speed at a reasoble rate. Thier primary skill is interviewing, they might not be able to learn the skills they need to succeed. Let him go!

And also change the interviewing process, because clearly it's not testing for the skills that are needed.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#92

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #12
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #4

Why it needs another 6-12 months to get them to be productive? Is it some system programming position? I can't imagine anything else that would require a year to get people into shape.

Kernel development, simulations, numerical methods, ML, graphics, database internals, compilers, infosec engineering, etc.

Yeah that's why I asked if it's a system programming position. Anything else should not take a year.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#94

Post by uhhhd »

Fast fire. You've gotten past the hard part, admitting the mistake. The quicker you let someone like that go, the better for you and your team. The mistake here would be to work on their performance and drag it on. Your team morale will take a big hit. At best you'll see a marginal performance improvement over months. At worst you'll waste months on this employee and have to fire them anyway.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#95

Post by nkmnz »

itqwertz wrote: post #23

Get that interview process fixed ASAP and let this lemon go. Don’t be surprised if there is pushback from non-technicals if this hire checked a bunch of boxes for other departments. A good strategy would be to have them be a lead on a minor project that requires technical chops and communication. Ensure there is a daily standup and grind them on details and timelines. Get them some juniors as direct reports to expose…

This proto-sociopathic behavior is the direct result of European employment law. It's disgusting.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#96

Post by ltbarcly3 »

throwaway42668 wrote: post #75

Let them go. Provide a respectable severance, since it's the company's fault they were hired in the first place. One of the most cost effective and humane things you can do is extend their health benefits out further than their monetary severance. For example, a month's pay with 2-3 months health benefits. At least in cases where I've had to let people go, I've found they appreciate an approach like this. It's a rela…

It was a mistake to hire, but they misrepresented thrmselves and aplied for a position they must have known they didn't qualify for. To be considered they must have significantly embellished their resume. Fire for incompetence, no severence.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#97

Post by hypeatei »

Dealing with the exact same situation now but I'm not the manager. The new hire has a 12+ YoE but severely lacking technical ability. While they fall short in the specific stack we use (not a huge deal), they're completely unwilling or unable to adapt & learn it seems.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#99

Post by rvz »

> Do you think there is any way to rescue this situation?

No. Let them go and move on. This is the problem with title inflation and it happens all the time.

How did you evaluate this candidate for this role exactly?

Some candidates are great at acing the interviews (since 90% of the time it is measured on predictable leetcode puzzles) but as soon as the real work begins, the new hire lacks basic skills, asks for too much help on issues that can be solved by 5 second googling or they take extremely long on simple tasks.

If you used Leetcode and yet this was the result, then perhaps you might need to find another way of evaluating actual 'senior' hires.

A wrong hire is worse than no hire. Not only the money is spent but time is also wasted and will be wasted further by training.

Re: Ask HN: How to handle a senior hire turning out to be junior?

#100

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

whatsakandr wrote: post #29

We hired a guy like that. Clear deficiency in hiring process. I wasn't in management, but letting the mistake fester won't make it better. Additionally, if someone is that "senior" and good at interviewing, but not at thier job, it's unlikely they will come up to speed at a reasoble rate. Thier primary skill is interviewing, they might not be able to learn the skills they need to succeed. Let him go!

I'm wondering if it's possible, given the current job market climate, to spend way too long trying to get a job, in multiple rounds of interviews, and basically pigeonhole oneself into passing the interview but losing other skills that are pertinent to performing and keeping the job.

The stories I keep hearing, about companies ghosting the applicant after 5-6 exhausting rounds of interviews, are scaring me, to be frank. It feels like the companies are optimizing towards not hiring as much as possible, and it's very tempting to optimize for passing the interview and make it into the primary skill...

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