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The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

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Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#21
Interviews, all of them, should be working on problem with and agent and a human interviewer.

Just had a "guess the teachers password" moment at some interview as a senior and the interviewer didn't understand my answer and didn't ask questions.

The problem is incentives. A lot of people probably need to be fired who are gate keeping by blocking hiring.

All interviews should be bilateral win win recommendation chats.

They should not end because one person didn't understand the other or someone who was not yet interested in the job did g remember some weird detail of something.

Our memories are getting worse with AI and augmentation.

We need to judge marginal add and make recommendations.

Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#23

Hiring was broken long before ai

AI and remote interviewing have definitely exacerbated the problems that existed before though. Leetcode was always weak, but now that it is easy to cheat on it is a negative selector, because the cheaters do best. Leetcode was originally supposed to be done in-person on a whiteboard to assess a candidate's collaborative problem solving skills, but with remote interviewing it has evolved into writing passing code wit…

Yes. People are gatekeeping. They are not interviewing with the aim of having an interesting conversation. They are trying to block hiring.

Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#24

> “There is a growing gap between the candidate’s written persona and their live presence. I’ll see a cover letter that is poetic and a résumé that is flawlessly structured, but then the person on the video call struggles to explain their own bullet points. This has always been a problem: Candidate applies with an amazing resume but then flails when you ask them questions or “can’t remember”. I can remember a few int…

The bigger issue is the screening filters are flooded now (and also largely AI “enhanced”) so getting real signal through the noise is becoming basically impossible.

Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#25

> “There is a growing gap between the candidate’s written persona and their live presence. I’ll see a cover letter that is poetic and a résumé that is flawlessly structured, but then the person on the video call struggles to explain their own bullet points. This has always been a problem: Candidate applies with an amazing resume but then flails when you ask them questions or “can’t remember”. I can remember a few int…

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Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#27
Principle: Problem created by X are also solvable by X. (where X = railways, internet, mobile phones, now AI)

In practical terms Problem: AI made "skill-fishing" easy, and previous signals like good cover letters, well-crafted CV, even correct answers in interviews now don't have their old signalling power - because anyone can do it.

Solution: If this is the case, a) now recruiters need to assess AI skills (exactly what I'm working on - but won't link as it's flagged anytime I link it - but you can search for "aisa test")

b) we need to move on to a system where we accept it's agents talking to each other. CV is for human-human communication but now agent writes, another agent reads. If THAT'S THE CASE - we need an updated protocol for representative agents of each party to contact. (this is the product I'd be working on if I wasn't working on the former)

Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends

#28
> Google, McKinsey, and other companies have responded by reintroducing in-person interviews for some candidates, a meaningful step backward in efficiency (due to travel time and costs) that signals how seriously they are treating this problem.

Maybe the relentless pursuit of "efficiency" at all costs has broken the world?

I remember when I applied for my first job. I got dressed up and my mom drove me to the interview because I didn't have a driver's license or car at the time. It wasn't "efficient" for me and I suppose it wasn't "efficient" for the company but much to my surprise, I got an offer and that was my first "tech job"...before tech jobs were cool.

It's very strange that the authors talk about how "making a bad hire is terribly expensive" but then call out "travel time and costs". Well, if B And yeah, I get that huge companies like Google and Facebook hire from around the world and not everyone is located in close proximity to Mountain View and Palo Alto, but that speaks more to the oligopolistic world we're living in than anything else.

If a small number of companies weren't distorting the labor markets, this might matter less.

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