He got 1%, we can't hire him • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by gvb » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:30 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #14

Improving a company 101: * Get rid of HR people. * Profit.

The problem with departments named "Human Resources" is that employees are not resources and they resent the dehumanization of being treated as such. All the HR horror stories have the same thread: they are dehumanizing employees.

In my limted experience this is much more of a problem in big companies than small. In small companies, employees know each other as fellow human beings from the owner to the interns. In big companies, the humans are numbers in a computer to be ranked, graded, and filed yearly.

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

#192

Post by theorique » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:31 PM UTC

antirez wrote: post #14

Improving a company 101: * Get rid of HR people. * Profit.

HR performs some useful functions though - administration of healthcare, benefits, and retirement plans are some things that come to mind.

If they needlessly block good hires, that's a bad thing, but I'd rather not be responsible for dealing with administering my own pension or benefits.

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

#193

Post by chiph » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:35 PM UTC

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?

Their job is to protect the company from the risk that employees represent.

If you get a moment, read "Corporate Confidential" by Cynthia Shapiro. Only 200 or so pages, and it's a quick read. But very enlightening.

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

#194

Post by cLeEOGPw » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:36 PM UTC

It's actually a natural selection. If the metrics are bad, the company get's a competitive disadvantage and should be on the way to bankruptcy in the long run. If the metrics actually are quite good, producing only few false negatives and few of the opposite, then there's no problem.

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

#195

Post by Spooky23 » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:41 PM UTC

alan_cx wrote: post #159

Spooky23 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 3: Grow, and attract some parasitic employees Step 4: Lose a trivial discrimination / disability / wrongful termination suit because you didn't keep the right paperwork.

Trivial? I've seen business go bust as a result of this sort of negligence. BTW, suing for wrong doing is NOT parasitic. Its often the only recourse avaliable with bad employers

The point I was trying to make was that with a good, professional HR folks, your company will avoid stupid mistakes that can become very expensive when dealing with an employee who knows how to work the system to their advantage.

One of the folks who worked for me several years back had complaints filed against her by an employee whom she had woken up from a dead sleep during the day a few times. (The employee was working from 6-2AM as a night clerk at a hotel) The employee claimed that although the supervisor had 5 employees, she only checked his sleep/wake status, and did so because he was a member of a protected class. (Yes, really)

This nonsense required administrative hearings with the human rights commission/eeoc and untold gobs of paperwork. The HR people saved the day, and were able to use the good processes that they had in place to keep an awful situation from getting worse.

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

#196

Post by JonnieCache » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:42 PM UTC

Blahah wrote: post #120

jacquesm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article posted about someone that worked for a large corporation and they forgot about him but continued to pay him for years. At the time I thought it was a hoax, after your story I'm not so sure. https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6087935

It was a hoax, but there are plenty of true stories in the same vein. What sets the parent's true story apart is that the protagonist did something productive with the time he had been given, whereas in the story you linked, the guy spends his days wasting away.

Here's another fun one, which was also posted here: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Firing-Offense.aspx

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

#197

Post by matwood » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:42 PM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #131

Drakim wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even really their fault. The HR person wouldn't know about databases and the deep knowledge and great insight a candidate might possess. What the HR person would know is how the person appears socially and how he manages to present himself. The company should make sure the HR person isn't the only one deciding if somebody gets hired or not, because the HR person simply does not possess the tools needed to ge…

I could see a possible role for HR. I don't think it remotely resembles what they are usually there to do. True story: I got an ad for a consulting position for "Postgre" The description had as a listed skill: "PostgreSQL USE GOOGLE TO VERIFY SPELLING" That's a bad sign there.

Or a recent job posting I saw for a Java tech lead:

Required:

Java

Open source technologies

Microsoft Visual Studio

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

#198

Post by columbo » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:42 PM UTC

I used to work for a company that writes and administers these tests. This company broke the cardinal rule.

#1 - Only give personality tests in their native language.

This is unacceptable, a personality test is NOT a language aptitude test.

Personality tests will have questions like this:

        True or False I am happy when others are taking advantage of me.

Non-native speakers may not appreciate that "taking advantage" is a negative term and might read it as "I am happy when others are taking advantage of my abilities". Hell I WORKED for the company and had to double-triple take some of the questions.

Some of these personality tests are even written for English / UK-English because of the nuances involved.

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

#199

Post by garethadams » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:44 PM UTC

Wait, I see the problem! You've sorted by:

  [hr_score, tech_score]

when you meant to sort by:

  [tech_score, hr_score]

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

#200

Post by Wilya » Wed, Aug 28, 2013, 12:47 PM UTC

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?

Another way to see things is that the US, and especially Silicon Valley, have ridiculously high salaries. I'd say that compared to the rest of Europe, developer salaries in London are probably on the high side.

The service prices (health, education, banking, communications, etc) are generally much lower than in the US, though, so it's hard to get an accurate comparison of cost-of-life.