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My spiciest take on tech hiring

haskellforall.com

11–20 of 88 posts

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#11
This is a mayonnaise-spicy take as far as I'm concerned, in the sense that I agree with it entirely.

Once you've read someone's resume you should have a pretty good idea whether or not you want to hire them. The interview should confirm that they can discuss their relevant experience and address any potential concerns that you might have without raising red flags.

Beyond that, if they have deep flaws that you didn't suspect from the resume or the interview, they're probably good enough at hiding them and more interviews aren't going to help.

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#12
If you want to see a weird process, apply for a dev role at Meta. They appear to optimize for people who have either memorized leetcode or are really good at cheating. I’m in their process as a pretty senior dev mostly on a lark (I hate the company). I’m pretty sure the only way I could get hired is to cheat. Why would they want to hire folks that way?

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#13
post #2

This is not a very spicy take. A spicier take is that you can hire people without administering any interviews at all. Hire like an orchestra: through an audition process, which, in a work setting, is also known as "work-sample testing". It works a treat.

I had a great experience with work-sample testing once until I had to work with the founder's wife who was an absolute nightmare to work with and was forced to sit in on zoom calls with the investors just because they wanted to be face to face with who they were paying for. It was only then that I realized that my performance didn't mean shit and I was playing an optics game.

The problem isn't the process. It's just like dating. Everyone is lying and pretending to be their best self. Hiring process can't fix that -- you fix it by making employing people and taking employment low risk. Give a generous evaluation period and the option to take walk-away money/severance.

You can never see how terrible a company's culture truly is until you've been there 3-6 months.

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#14
post #2

This is not a very spicy take. A spicier take is that you can hire people without administering any interviews at all. Hire like an orchestra: through an audition process, which, in a work setting, is also known as "work-sample testing". It works a treat.

I agree. If your organization has the resources for it, go contract-to-hire. 3 to 6 month contractor and then make your decision bringing them on as a full employee.

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#15
post #6

Priors and bias is exactly why you want MORE interviewers though.

Addressed directly in TFA:

"Drawing out the interview process is a thinly veiled attempt to launder this bias with a "neutral" process that they will likely disregard/overrule if it contradicts their personal preference.

That doesn't mean that I think this sort of interviewing bias is good or acceptable, but I also don't think drawing out the interviewing process corrects for this bias either."

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#16
post #12

If you want to see a weird process, apply for a dev role at Meta. They appear to optimize for people who have either memorized leetcode or are really good at cheating. I’m in their process as a pretty senior dev mostly on a lark (I hate the company). I’m pretty sure the only way I could get hired is to cheat. Why would they want to hire folks that way?

It's weirder than that. For Meta's interview, how well you do on preparing specifically for their interview and trying to max out the specific metrics that they're judging you on isn't just tied to whether you get an offer or not but where in the scale they pay you.

They care a lot less about what you've done and where you are in your career, mainly because most of the what and how of the job is fairly unique to Meta.

They want good Meta employees and people who thrive specifically in their culture and not necessarily people with a career trajectory and goals beyond the company.

Turns out that there's a lot of over-achieving types out there whose sole desire in life is to be Good Germans. You will know immediately if this is or isn't you.

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#17
post #6

Priors and bias is exactly why you want MORE interviewers though.

Exactly! Google famously did 8-10 interviews during their startup stage and they absolutely hired rock stars who helped them lay the foundation for Google's $2T company.

People who haven't build sustainable, profitable organizations typically have no clue about hiring. Sure, they may be able to hire well for their little project. But, if you care about the culture of the company and how you want to shape it, you almost want all of your current members to have a say in the new member

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#18
post #2

This is not a very spicy take. A spicier take is that you can hire people without administering any interviews at all. Hire like an orchestra: through an audition process, which, in a work setting, is also known as "work-sample testing". It works a treat.

What senior person wants to do this?

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#19
post #6

Priors and bias is exactly why you want MORE interviewers though.

Addressed directly in TFA: "Drawing out the interview process is a thinly veiled attempt to launder this bias with a "neutral" process that they will likely disregard/overrule if it contradicts their personal preference. That doesn't mean that I think this sort of interviewing bias is good or acceptable, but I also don't think drawing out the interviewing process corrects for this bias either."

Yeah this part didn't make any sense to me - is he claiming that later interviewers will be heavily biased by talking to previous interviewers? If so, I think that's probably not as strong an effect as he's claiming, and its also easily correctable by just having interviewers not talk to each other.

I do agree about the "you only need 15 minutes" part, but the solution there would seem to be replacing four hour long interviews with four 15 minute interviews, rather than with 1 hour long interview.

Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring

#20

This is a mayonnaise-spicy take as far as I'm concerned, in the sense that I agree with it entirely. Once you've read someone's resume you should have a pretty good idea whether or not you want to hire them. The interview should confirm that they can discuss their relevant experience and address any potential concerns that you might have without raising red flags. Beyond that, if they have deep flaws that you didn't…

In the AI/ChatGPT world that we are in, cooking up a neat resume is not that hard. But I agree, you are going to interview someone who did at least that part good, and worked a little hard to prepare for it.
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