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Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

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Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#121

Post by michaelt »

jsnell wrote: post #108
michaelt wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that the people you'd most like to hire probably have little interest in taking a programming test. So you're just filtering them out and left with the dregs. For this to work you need one of the following: That may be the case if you're trying to headhunt experienced developers who are currently in good jobs. But if you're an unemployed programmer, or an employed programmer actively looking for a dif…

There's a big difference between a programming assignment used as a filter to decide whom to interview vs an interview question. The hiring process is very expensive. But it's expensive in a fairly symmetric way. It's in the interest of both parties to stop the process if there isn't mutual interest. Both the company and the candidate will spend a lot of time in interviews, so it's in everyone's best interests to mak…

When there are 630 resumes in the pile, the read/filter will be done by a junior HR person who probably couldn't tell XML from SQL.

I'd rather be filtered by a programming test, where my programming abilities put me ahead of the pack!

With that said, most of the programming tests I've been given in the past have been fairly interesting so perhaps that biases my opinion. I'm certainly no fan of jobs where they send you a huge MS Word application form.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#122

Post by l3amm »

btilly wrote: post #98
l3amm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that work samples are definitely the way to go, I'm unsure how you could possibly engineer a work-sample that is time effective for 600 people. Clearly, the first pass of the screen cannot be the work sample alone or you will be administering dozens if not hundreds, since I doubt the threat of a worksample in a job ad would scare many people away (could very well be wrong about that.) I think this is wh…

Here is a simple example of how to automate this for developers. Everyone who applies is sent a link. That link contains a problem description, and a stub program. You're supposed to write the program and send it back. When you send it back, they compile your program and run a standard set of unit tests on it. If it passes the unit tests, then a human looks at it. Generally the code will be "good enough" to bring the…

This is great solution and the impetus behind Interiew Street.

And while HN is a very programmer centric culture, most jobs can't be automated in this way. Look at the OP's job description, how do you automate that? And how does someone like the OP automate that process? Believe me, I would love to live in a world where every position in every company is able to command a great developer to build a customer filtering solution, but most companies in the valley (much less out of it) won't invest this time/infrastructure. Hence the rise of BS keyword filtering systems. I'm personally very interested in solutions that can make this process better, but it's a highly non-trivial problem in most subject areas.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#123

Post by btilly »

jsnell wrote: post #103
btilly wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a simple example of how to automate this for developers. Everyone who applies is sent a link. That link contains a problem description, and a stub program. You're supposed to write the program and send it back. When you send it back, they compile your program and run a standard set of unit tests on it. If it passes the unit tests, then a human looks at it. Generally the code will be "good enough" to bring the…

The problem is that the people you'd most like to hire probably have little interest in taking a programming test. So you're just filtering them out and left with the dregs. For this to work you need one of the following: * Problems that are so interesting that people would hack on them just for the fun of it, even if they have no interest in the job. * A company that's high profile enough (and in a good way) that th…

I disagree.

One of my top concerns if I'm interviewing for a company is, "Are these people going to be sufficiently competent to be fun to work with?" If the interview doesn't provide a good enough filter for incompetence, then I am going to not want to interview there.

If my first experience demonstrates that only competent people will get through, then that is going to improve the company in my eyes.

That said, it will slow hiring down. If you want to hire a bunch of people, you can't put a restrictive filter like that up. But if you just need a few, it can work out in your favor.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#124

Post by leeny »

I wonder how many of the applicants had well-written cover letters and resumes (good sentence structure, interesting content, devoid of massive typos and grammatical errors). I would bet that it's no more than 20%, and all of a sudden, things aren't so dismal anymore.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#125

Post by jsnell »

michaelt wrote: post #121
jsnell wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between a programming assignment used as a filter to decide whom to interview vs an interview question. The hiring process is very expensive. But it's expensive in a fairly symmetric way. It's in the interest of both parties to stop the process if there isn't mutual interest. Both the company and the candidate will spend a lot of time in interviews, so it's in everyone's best interests to mak…

When there are 630 resumes in the pile, the read/filter will be done by a junior HR person who probably couldn't tell XML from SQL. I'd rather be filtered by a programming test, where my programming abilities put me ahead of the pack! With that said, most of the programming tests I've been given in the past have been fairly interesting so perhaps that biases my opinion. I'm certainly no fan of jobs where they send yo…

And I'd rather not work at a place where my resume alone doesn't warrant at least a phone interview :-) Either I really wasn't a good fit for the job, or they have a broken hiring process. If it's the latter, chances are that a company with that bad a HR department is also dysfunctional other ways.

Programming tests can indeed be interesting. Anyone feeling bored could do worse than to attempt solving something from ITA's hiring puzzle archives. But unless you're extremely certain that your tests hit the sweet spot, it seems really dangerous to make them a mandatory first filter. A test once both parties are at least a little bit invested in the process, sure. Or if resume screening really is a problem, allow someone to "skip the queue" by sending a test solution along with the application.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#126

Post by stevejabs »

danmaz74 wrote: post #115
stevejabs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This method has worked for me 3 times now. I turned down one of the opportunities. Not necessarily the best sample size, but the method shows very clearly that you intend to work for that company or at least that you are extremely interested in going the extra mile.

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. I was curious because you have to change jobs very often to have enough exprience. By the way, it worked 3 times out of 3 attempts?

So far, yes.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#127

Post by yummyfajitas »

digitalengineer wrote: post #117
yummyfajitas wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can tell that the United States economy is in recession The recession ended years ago. May 2009, if I remember right.

Somebody must of forgot to tell the people: - Pending Sales of U.S. Homes Unexpectedly Fell 1.4% in June - Foreclosure Filings Increase in 60% of Large U.S. Cities - Household Income Still Bottom-Bouncing - June Home Sales Fall-Off, Quarterly Growth Slows/Contracts - New U.S. home sales decline 8.4% in June - One-Third Of Colleges, Universities In ‘Real Financial Trouble’

A recession isn't just general bad stuff happening. Recessions do tend to cause general bad stuff, but bad stuff can happen without a recession.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#128

Post by robryan »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #113
robryan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that this high rate of payment is much lower than the Australia minimum wage in USD. I guess the purchasing power in America might be a little higher but still sounds like a pretty sad state of affairs.

Australia is 65% more expensive than the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity#OECD_c...

Probably due in part to some of the crazy markups Australians were/ are accustomed to paying at retail. Although this is changing as people become more comfortable with online buying.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#129

Post by xiaoma »

patio11 wrote: post #88
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Editing and journalism are still very necessary, but somehow the actual streams of monetary income for them have almost entirely dried up. The result is that we get very little independent (of state funding) journalism, and what we do get from any sources is very badly edited. But somehow there's no need being expressed on the market for journalists or editors? Sounds like a market failure to me.

It is a market failure if people want to sell editing and people want to buy editing and no transactions take place. If no one wants to buy editing, no sales of editing is a market success. For example, it informs people wondering if they should learn editing or nursing that nursing is the socially and personally optimal choice. One could argue gl that government subsidies for editing misinform participants about wha…

Actually, market failure is when the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto optimal. That is, there exists another conceivable outcome where a market participant may be made better-off without making someone else worse-off.

This is entirely possible in situations when nobody wants to buy X and nobody is buying X. One common example is when there are externalities involved -- e.g. companies using highly polluting processes that are bourne by not just the customers but also uninvolved 3rd parties. Another common example is due to informational gaps -- imagine a benign physician selling polio vaccinations to a less educated populace that doesn't want them. No one wants to buy, but no sales of vaccinations is very far from Pareto optimal.

It is well recognized that non-competitive markets and principal–agent problems can also lead to market failure and there is probably a case to be made that the supply side of high-end journalism suffers from both.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#130

Post by pjnewton »

Cd00d wrote: post #90
pjnewton wrote: post #43

Great timing on this for me. I just posted a job (a real one) to Craigslist and received a handful of responses. Making the assumption that I would get a bunch of resumes I decided to add one little hurdle. I asked the applicant to copy & paste their resume into the email body. I did this to see who was actually paying attention and who was just spamming every posting and hoping someone would bite. Sadly this hurdle…

Personally, I hate the hurdle of the .txt only, or pasted in resume. I put a lot of effort into the layout and style of my resume, and wrote it in TeX. My knee-jerk response when people won't glance at my .pdf resume is that they are lazy, don't respect the effort that goes into design and layout, and only wish to keyword search. This may not be true of your case, just saying what my emotional response is in that sit…

Yeah I can see how it would be annoying. I know I wouldn't be too happy if I had to copy and paste since I also spent a good deal of time on the format. However, I think that if I really wanted "THAT" job then the few extra steps, reformatting, etc. would be worth it.

Turns out it did help screen a bunch of people that were seemingly just spamming every posting with their resume along with one who copy and pasted an entire (unedited) email mail chain she used to apply to another position...

Overall I'm not very happy with the performance of the posting, maybe it's my fault...

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