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He got 1%, we can't hire him

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Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#141

Post by Xylakant »

einhverfr wrote: post #130
Xylakant wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with all departments in a company, HR does the tasks that they're assigned to do. It's a task, not a mission. There's scope creep and mission creep as with every task we're used to. If they do stuff that they're not supposed to do and make decisions that they're not supposed to make, it's the team and the person handling the team that's broken and time to reevaluate and adjust what value the team is supposed to br…

What, specifically is that task?

The task for an HR person? The scope really depends on your organisations needs and on the quality and qualifications of your HR person. In general: Handle or at least support all tasks that are associated with employees and other people in your company.

The scope can be as narrow as "do background checks on hires, do the math on their desired pay and tell me how much each one would cost and if there's any red flags" or as broad as "do a first phone call and check out if you think that person is a good fit culturally." Handle all associated paperwork, set up interview dates, handle travel and accommodation arrangements for the prospective hire, ... Handle all paperwork associated with employees, sick leave, keep track of holidays, ... Follow changes in applicable law. Organise team building events. I know of an HR department that organises monthly lunches where people of the company get randomly assigned to groups so that they get to know other people working in the same company, not only their team peers. There's a lot of things you can do as HR person. Not everybody needs everything and not every HR person may have the required qualifications for each task, so you probably just have to figure out what exact set of responsibilities right for your place.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#142

Post by octagonal »

rdl wrote: post #6

I don't get it -- was this at an operating company hiring people, or at the author's recruiting company (which seems to be a depressingly common way to hire people in Europe)? If a recruiting company is so incompetent as to require personality profiling, and worse, enforce it so rigidly, it would explain why Europe lags so far behind the US in tech startups, despite having at least as many (if not substantially more)…

The main reason we lag so far behind is that most of us don't have a "Let's do something prone to failure and find out if it will actually work!" mentality. In general we pay too much attention to thoughts and too little to feelings when it comes to business ventures. Add to that a dash of extreme risk avoidance and you've got the perfect recept for a very weak startup culture. Of course, the ones who are the opposite of that get struck down relentlessly by the collective mentality.

These wacko interviewing processes are just another symptom of this. Don't think any comptetent business leader actually believe these scores matter at all. In the end it's just another safeguard against (gasp!) taking a risk.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#143

Post by Tycho »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80
illumen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. London does quite a lot of risky financial shit. Also you might have heard of a little company kicking the shit out of Intel... ARM. Based in Cambridge UK, that is also where most tech investments in Europe are happening (not London or Berlin). Also, Germany and Switzerland are much more quiet and private about investments. You won't hear about many of them. These days you can invest in a UK startup, and have th…

Don't developers in London get paid crap though? I've heard horror stories about ridiculously low London salaries here on Hackernews. Are the low salaries just because their is a surplus developer talent in the UK?

I was speaking to a Welsh comp-sci grad who was moving to London to be a programmer, for £19,000 p.a.

There's something mysterious about the low wages for programmers.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#145

Post by lutusp »

Fuxy wrote: post #121
flexie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is a need to "respectfully disagree" to a disrespectful comment. Just like there are terrible dev teams there are terrible HR departments, and this sounds like one of them. But as you mention, if developers were to handle everything related to hiring, firing, sick reports, vacation, benefits, contracts, compliance etc. that HR does, I doubt there would be any profit.

Are there good HR departments? I haven't had the honor of seeing any so by my book they're classified in the same section as unicorns and fairies.

> Are there good HR departments?

That depends. Are they staffed by psychologists? If yes, then no. Psychology and psychological testing are losing credibility very rapidly right now:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-...

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#146

Post by aaron695 »

Interesting article.

RE: Nuremberg Defence.

Do you really think it would have been smart for the Germans to hire people who wouldn't have followed their orders?

But in a profession environment, yep I'd agree you don't want all people who just follow orders, quite different to work environments where you want people to act more like machines aka call centres, sweat shops, army etc.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#147

Post by mgkimsal »

tehwalrus wrote: post #135
mgkimsal wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - they're not the be-all answer to everything, but I've found them helpful in (re)assessing myself lately. I found much more static-ness in my IQ over the last 30+ years. I was actually surprised at how consistent it was over decades and various tests (and, dare I say, slightly disappointed).

I agree about MBTI - until I understood that I was allowed to have a personality preference for perceiving over judging (preferring to live in the moment than plan ahead in detail) I was stressing myself worrying about why I was so rubbish at planning, rather than trying to find a career where it was less important! (the only careers I've come up with so far are stock exchange trading and politics - if anyone has any…

IQ numbers vary based on tests, to some degree, so "130" doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. What I'd found is that I was in the same percentile on all tests (took 3 a few years ago) compared to tests from 30 and 20 years ago.

The raw score numbers might have changed up or down slightly, but same percentile in my case.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#148

Post by Xylakant »

einhverfr wrote: post #138
mathattack wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree very much. There are many bad HR people, and many HR people who are given bad direction. It's very hard to imagine a company of over 30 or 40 people surviving without one. Is the CEO supposed to be up on all the HR rules? Is the CEO out in the market calibrating salaries every day? Does the CEO have time to analyze optimal organization designs? Should the CEO do all the initial fit screens? Chase down back…

> Does the CEO have time to analyze optimal organization designs? Optimal for what? I do think the CEO or someone similar needs to figure out what you want from the organization and design it. HR may have input but it is just input. HR can do the market calibration research. That's a good role for them. Initial fit? That should be the team or team manager. Background checks? Either HR or an administrative assistant s…

Short question: Do you have employees? We do have a handful and the amount of work associated with them [1] is astounding. On average it used to cost me 20% of my time until we hired someone for administrative and HR work. Now, we're a small company and have no need for a full HR position, but that role is taken by a person and I can quite well tell that the more employees we hire, the more we'll move to a dedicated HR position. It's not a "big" role, but it's still an important one. I value that work being taken off me.

[1] paperwork, monthly company events, ...

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#149

Post by Piskvorrr »

bostik wrote: post #85
Wilya wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to fizzbuzz doesn't make you a good programmer. But not being able to do it is a very strong signal that someone can't program in any professional setting, no matter what they pretend. It's a very simple and effective test to rule out people who think/pretend they can program, but really can't.

So... it's basically a bloom filter for developer aptitude? :)

Yes, yes it is.

Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him

#150

Post by illumen »

Peroni wrote: post #108
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't developers in London get paid crap though? I've heard horror stories about ridiculously low London salaries here on Hackernews. Are the low salaries just because their is a surplus developer talent in the UK?

It really depends on your definition of crap. London dev salaries range from £24k for absolute juniors to £120k+ for the top 2%. Contractors fare substantially better. In my recruiter days I placed a Python developer who had experience with a particular trading system on a contract with a large trading firm. His contract was £1,100 per day for 6 months. Keep in mind the other notable differences between here and the…

Yeah, that's definitely a possible rate. A high end one though. I think contract rates for Python devs average around 500/day ($772 USD). Base salary seems to average at 45-50k.

Also bonuses. Bonuses in London can be 100% of salary or more.

National health insurance is not really free in the UK... but UK contractors pay less tax than US ones generally. German freelancers get paid more, but pay more tax (and get more holidays).

Developers outside of London can earn less, but many prefer it.

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