As an engineer working on my company’s top of funnel it’s tough. Currently we’ve switched to a short (15-30m) technical problem that we hand grade before candidates get a call. Async technical challenges are obviously gamed but you’d be surprised at how few people both cheat + take longer than 3m to submit the solution
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
#32I have very little sympathy for companies grappling with this. They use AI to reject applicants within seconds, and make people jump through so many hoops (not to mention ghost jobs) that it's almost a humiliation ritual.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#33Good hiring almost certainly has to be a significant competitive advantage. It makes me wonder why so many otherwise successful companies let HR bungle the hiring process.
Because it is really hard to reliably hire good people. Almost all typical signals & methods (CVs, experience based interviews, …) have very low reliability. An IQ test has the highest reliability according to studies but would be illegal in most jurisdictions. Plus, hiring managers frequently don’t know what they want or they believe they want something that they actually don’t
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#34> “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.
I think we'll just end up going back to referrals. It might generate more nepotism, but at least the company will feel like it's doing a better job and not cause it to overly focus on hiring to the detriment of its current employees.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#35> “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…
It goes the other way as well though. Companies are increasingly filtering resumes/candidates in a sufficiently aggressive fashion to the point that they're strongly incentivizing, if not actively selecting for, people that are gaming the system in some way or another. Quite odd this is all happening when ostensibly the unemployment rate is very low, which should make it an employee's market.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#36I'm responsible for hiring junior C++ developers in a small company (first role). Let met tell you that almost all candidates are stating "medium" level in C++ in their resume but don't even know how to work with pointers or references, they don't even have the level of someone studying the language for half a day. And I don't even think it's related to AI. Whatever the reason, it's very easy to assert a candidate competency with a 30 minutes to an hour interview in person.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#37Hiring has always been broken.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#38None of that stuff done during hiring should matter as long as the one hired can satisfactorily perform their duties, regardless of their actual knowledge/skills and the tools they use. Break firing as well so it's easy to get rid of those who underperform. Problem solved.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#39> 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 intervi…
In the not too distant past (like 10 years ago) flying people to a final in person round was standard practice.
Re: The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends
#40> 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 intervi…
Maybe companies should say “Wanna apply for a job? Come to our office during these hours for a pre-screening and to drop off your resume” you can’t email or apply online anymore