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Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

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Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#11

Post by shail »

potatolicious wrote: post #10
shail wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid points for sure. This is one of the downsides. But if you clear this round you are definitely going to talk to them. Its just that instead of answering those initial filtering questions to them, you would answer to me and I will convey that to them. But I see your point and its a good point to consider before considering my idea.

Right, so the candidate has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The only beneficiary is the employer - which in the current supply/demand climate for engineers, makes the viability of this idea suspect.

Yes, its a service offered to employers right now so beneficiary is the employer. But I do not completely agree that candidate is at a loss. If the candidate is good enough, he will meet the employer eventually.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#14

Post by mgkimsal »

This is probably something you should pitch to recruiters instead.

I've talked to some tech recruiters in my area, offering to do training for them. I may need to talk to higher-ups, but the low-level people seem to actively not want that knowledge. I certainly don't propose they understand OS design, assembler and mobile app dev down cold, but they need to know the difference between Java and JavaScript, for example.

One chap I spoke with recently - he called me for help wording something - didn't know what "JVM" was, yet was actively recruiting for Fortune 500 companies. Again, they don't need to be tech gods, but ... learn the language of what industry you're in.

Another was telling me they don't need to know much tech, because the clients were more primarily concerned about social fit in with their hires, and they could work out the tech details. While I agree social fit is a factor, too many of us have met those who can't FizzBuzz in an interview, wasting everyone's time (or worse yet, get hired and leave years of crappy legacy tech debt to deal with).

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#15

Post by shail »

furyofantares wrote: post #12

If a one hour single-interviewer interview is a significant improvement then it seems like companies should do this themselves, I'm not sure what service you are really providing unless you are just a really good interviewer.

I am saving lots of developers hours. I am saving critical developer hours during, say a launch, when you had to keep your candidate search on hold. It has happened to me multiple times. I was waiting to hear back from companies while they were busy launching a product. In real world it happens a lot. I know I cannot do later rounds and they should be done by the team themselves but initial round can definitely be done by me. And finally, I am reducing their misses which results in saved developer time.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#16

Post by shail »

mgkimsal wrote: post #14

This is probably something you should pitch to recruiters instead. I've talked to some tech recruiters in my area, offering to do training for them. I may need to talk to higher-ups, but the low-level people seem to actively not want that knowledge. I certainly don't propose they understand OS design, assembler and mobile app dev down cold, but they need to know the difference between Java and JavaScript, for example…

Thanks a lot for this insight. This gives me another thing to try. Yep, if someone can put technology in lay man terms to recruiter they will be able to pick it up and be much better at their work. That will be win for everyone. Great idea.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#17

Post by IgorPartola »

I have gotten paid in the past for doing this. In addition to actually interviewing candidates, I also advised the client on the type of developer they needed etc. I actually have a lot of experience interviewing and making hiring decisions (and getting interviewed) so the client was fairly comfortable with this.

I like this idea since you are not having any conflict of interest when interviewing people. A nothing thing along these lines is the idea of getting pre-interviewed with your results shown online. Basically a crowd-sourced hiring platform.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#18

Post by potatolicious »

shail wrote: post #11
potatolicious wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so the candidate has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The only beneficiary is the employer - which in the current supply/demand climate for engineers, makes the viability of this idea suspect.

Yes, its a service offered to employers right now so beneficiary is the employer. But I do not completely agree that candidate is at a loss. If the candidate is good enough, he will meet the employer eventually.

> "But I do not completely agree that candidate is at a loss."

How is the candidate not at a loss?

Under the current system, a candidate can ask any number of questions about the company, their culture, their technology, and other things that are of extreme importance to the candidate in deciding which opportunities to pursue.

Under your system, none of this can be meaningfully answered except the "brochure" facts that are trivial to discover anyways.

Under the current system, a candidate immediately meets with a member of the company.

Under your system, he/she will meet the employer "eventually".

Everything about this system is a net negative compared to the status quo, for the candidate.

In the current employment climate for (good) software engineers, where demand massively outstrips supply, I simply do not see a system that penalizes candidates going anywhere. I really hate whipping this card out, but the last two times I've been actively seeking a job I've had no less than a dozen companies respond positively within a single day. I would be severely disinclined to do anything through an intermediary.

This goes double if I'm only passively looking. I'm not looking to jump ship, so I have zero desire to spin my wheels on opportunities without any information on whether this is interesting to me or not.

The climate favors the candidate, not the employer, unless the employer is exceptional. IMO your idea can only be viable if it brings something to the table for both sides.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#19

Post by greenyoda »

potatolicious wrote: post #10
shail wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid points for sure. This is one of the downsides. But if you clear this round you are definitely going to talk to them. Its just that instead of answering those initial filtering questions to them, you would answer to me and I will convey that to them. But I see your point and its a good point to consider before considering my idea.

Right, so the candidate has everything to lose and nothing to gain. The only beneficiary is the employer - which in the current supply/demand climate for engineers, makes the viability of this idea suspect.

Agreed. If I were the job candidate, I'd be less than thrilled to find out that the company that was trying to recruit me was "too busy" to interview me themselves. With companies complaining about how hard it is to get qualified candidates, they shouldn't be adding extra layers of bureaucracy between the candidate and the company.

Re: Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?

#20

Post by shail »

jackschultz wrote: post #13

What I'll say after looking for a job for a month now: There aren't many companies who even take the first step of emailing/contacting back after an application. I feel like this, if it was well defined and consistent, then it would be valuable.

Yep, Thats the idea. Make it consistent.
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