That's about right. I'm OK with 3 rounds (plus a short phone screen as the 0th round) but anything more than that would bore me.
My spiciest take on tech hiring
51–60 of 88 posts
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#52IMO, any strategy or attempt to filter out the "right" candidates can always be gamed that a change of culture is inevitable. Iron Law of Bureaucracy. You can delay it, but it will happen. Just look at Google today despite their massive investments in the hiring process. I think if you really want to preserve your culture long term, you need to start looking to exporting your culture outwards into general society rat…
Your solution is "change society" because you think that's easier than fixing your hiring process???
I agree it's hard, but it is A solution rather than no solution. I
just don't think you can "fix" the process with a purely isolationist approach. You either change the world or the world changes you.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How many talented folks in the field will accept that kind of job insecurity? If my offer is between 500k+ TC or “do work for us until we feel like commitment and maybe you’ll be on your ass in the street doing all this interview bullshit in 12 weeks; maybe you’ll get an offer better than the competition — but probably not because we’ll be in a position of negotiating strength knowing you probably don’t want to inter…
Plenty of talented folks will do it as actual contractors taking on projects for a few months at $250-300/hr. I did that for five years and was always open to my clients bringing me on full time for the right price. But the opportunity cost/price of exclusivity is very high.
"Contract to hire" is the worst of both worlds; I've only seen that work for bottom-of-the-barrel employers/employees.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In practice this almost never happens. Most contract to hire roles don't appropriately pay you like you're a contractor (really should be at least 3x salary) and get worse/desperate candidates who will take an unsecure job with no benefits for 3-6 months. Real human beings with real responsibilities are usually looking for fulltime work or they're running their own business and charging you for services.
Many contractor orgs provide benefits during the contracting period and pay at least 1.5x salary before the employee comes aboard as a full employee.
Also, as so many others have stated on this site, many people just as talented or better than in silicon valley aren't looking for 500k+ a year because they don't live in a hyperinflated shithole, but that's another topic altogether.
All I can say is salary is relative and nobody should let that go to their head. The economy in the USA, but especially on the west coast has never experienced inflation like we currently have and are in for a rude awakening soon.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice this almost never happens. Most contract to hire roles don't appropriately pay you like you're a contractor (really should be at least 3x salary) and get worse/desperate candidates who will take an unsecure job with no benefits for 3-6 months. Real human beings with real responsibilities are usually looking for fulltime work or they're running their own business and charging you for services.
I would like to be running my own business.. have a few times in the past.. but usually run out of money before the next SaaS attempt or whatever is ready and have to find a contract on short notice. I guess I'm not a real human being.
No, you just have a higher risk tolerance than most and also probably a spouse that really believes in you.
You are blessed.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#56Priors 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 almo…
They hired rockstars because back then, all the rockstars wanted to work for them. The only focus of their hiring process was how to reject the 'B' candidates. They knew they would get enough 'A's applying that they couldn't avoid hiring a bunch.
For most companies, including Google as a more mature company, the dynamics are different. You might be quite happy to hire candidates who weren't top of their class but who are going to be easy to work with and get stuff done. And you want to make very sure you don't either reject or turn off the (maybe small number of) outstanding performers who want to work for you.
Google IMHO completely fail at the latter these days. A solid A student who knows how to present themself and really wants to work at Google will be hired. A genius with an unconventional educational background probably won't be.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#57This 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?
In lieu of a regular interview? And if I get paid? In a heartbeat.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
What senior person wants to do this?
I’ve never tried it, but it doesn’t sound terrible. As I approach 25 years in industry, what does sound terrible is more rote studying for interviews, and I don’t mean just leetcode. The idea of just giving the work a go in situ, and we either like each other or not, sounds sort of refreshing should I find myself job shopping.
I don't know your life circumstances, but as I am slightly beyond 25 YOE, it has been over two decades since I found myself job shopping, just job choosing. There's no way I'd be working my current job and also doing whatever weird contract-to-hire gig some company that can't vet employees would ask.
For most senior people, a new job is leaving an existing cushy job. We're not going to do that for some nonsense like this.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
In practice this almost never happens. Most contract to hire roles don't appropriately pay you like you're a contractor (really should be at least 3x salary) and get worse/desperate candidates who will take an unsecure job with no benefits for 3-6 months. Real human beings with real responsibilities are usually looking for fulltime work or they're running their own business and charging you for services.
Many contractor orgs provide benefits during the contracting period and pay at least 1.5x salary before the employee comes aboard as a full employee. Also, as so many others have stated on this site, many people just as talented or better than in silicon valley aren't looking for 500k+ a year because they don't live in a hyperinflated shithole, but that's another topic altogether. All I can say is salary is relative…
My whole point is it's a worse deal at anything less than 3x pay. Three to six months of 1.5x pay just to have to look for a job again and you probably haven't done any meaningful work in the last three to six months?
My brother used to contract-to-hire in the 90s-00s for banks and not even getting issued a laptop for the first few months of a contract happened nearly 100% of the time. Literally months of sitting around writing emails going "I can't do the work you're paying me for because you haven't issued me equipment yet" and that was routine. Or if it wasn't working equipment, it was company accounts/logins. I even did a year of this once with a hedge fund in the early 00s. Once and never again.
Contractors don't get meaningful responsibilities and meaningful responsibilities are how I justify myself (and my price) to my next job. No thanks.
Re: My spiciest take on tech hiring
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many contractor orgs provide benefits during the contracting period and pay at least 1.5x salary before the employee comes aboard as a full employee. Also, as so many others have stated on this site, many people just as talented or better than in silicon valley aren't looking for 500k+ a year because they don't live in a hyperinflated shithole, but that's another topic altogether. All I can say is salary is relative…
My whole point is it's a worse deal at anything less than 3x pay. Three to six months of 1.5x pay just to have to look for a job again and you probably haven't done any meaningful work in the last three to six months? My brother used to contract-to-hire in the 90s-00s for banks and not even getting issued a laptop for the first few months of a contract happened nearly 100% of the time. Literally months of sitting aro…
> Three to six months of 1.5x pay just to have to look for a job again and you probably haven't done any meaningful work in the last three to six months?
Hard disagree. They're not really looking to extend full employment to people like you, but may from time to time. If you're really that good you have nothing to worry about. I'm speaking from experience working on both ends of the contract-to-hire process.