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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?

#21

Post by mgkimsal »

shail wrote: post #16
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.

It's a big IF. I've talked to a handful of recruiting companies and imo it's a perfect fit, but none of them have been interested - certainly not as a paid service. I think the turnover in tech recruiting may be too high for companies to consider paying for this, but... I may be wrong.

EDIT: Not IF as in - can you do it - but IF they'll buy it.

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

#22

Post by shail »

IgorPartola wrote: post #17

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 th…

I love this fact about this idea that I am getting paid either ways so I do not have any conflict of interest. About the results shown online idea, I think candidates would not like that for the interviews gone bad. Correct me if I got it wrong.

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

#23

Post by shail »

mgkimsal wrote: post #21
shail wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a big IF. I've talked to a handful of recruiting companies and imo it's a perfect fit, but none of them have been interested - certainly not as a paid service. I think the turnover in tech recruiting may be too high for companies to consider paying for this, but... I may be wrong. EDIT: Not IF as in - can you do it - but IF they'll buy it.

I think you are right. The turnover is high and hence little incentive to change the status quo. But if a recruiting company takes this approach, it will definitely have an edge. About the big IF, yes it is and I do not like to boast but I think I can do this very very well if not excellent.

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

#24

Post by eshvk »

I am going to be honest here. I will immediately stop the conversation if a company would pull something like this on me. For me, time spent with a recruiter is time mostly wasted: corporate speak, big magnificent mission statements which tell me only what I can find from the site. For me, the whole idea of talking to a tech person is to figure out very quickly whether aforesaid person is interesting, does interesting work and is possibly a good co-worker. Your service doesn't help me at all: you don't work for the company, your knowledge of the company's backend is going to be superficial unless you have touched their code and I couldn't care less if you were a good person or not because I am never going to see you.

Ultimately such a service is disrespectful of candidate time. Also, if you are a small or medium sized startup, you would be blindingly stupid to do purely a google style Algo/DS interview. You don't have six months to train the candidate and you would be better off focusing more on talking about your own problems, how to solve them and such.

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

#26

Post by theunixbeard »

On the topic of incentives: Does anyone know if a system where a recruiter's compensation is tied to their proposed candidates success/failure ratio as opposed to just the raw number of placements made? Or is it always just more implicit where if too many bad candidates are referred the company switches to a new recruiter?

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

#27

Post by memset »

As someone who is responsible for hiring engineers at a small fashion company (~10 people), I can say that I would not use this service. It would be difficult to justify the cost.

Also, there is one caveat you are missing: the very last question, "Do you have any questions for me?" Interviews ought to be a two-way street, and a qualified candidate, in this model, wouldn't have the chance to ask me questions about our company. How might you address that?

Recruiting is hard, as we all know, because it is difficult not just to find good candidates, but to find people period. At least, this is the case if you are a small business.

Job postings typically cost ~$350 - $500 to post on the well-known job boards. And I have yet to find a promising candidate via that venue.

So you are talking about a cost of 50% of what it cost me to post the job in the first place. And in all likelyhood, that candidate will be a no-go, and now we're out the money for this interview, on top of what is already an expensive proposition.

And if you've decided not to use job boards to hire (because they don't work), then you're already paying tens of thousands of dollars to companies who make money by placing candidates. By that point, I might as well interview the individual myself.

If you can find quality engineering candidates - and vet their interest, and their technical ability - then I would be interested. But as other commenters have said, maybe your services would be better marketed towards recruiting agencies themselves.

As an aside: recruiting is disproportionately, insanely, time-consuming and expensive. Many companies (Etsy, Hacker School) get huge press and accolaids for their progressive stance on recruiting. But if you are a small company trying to bootstrap, it is impossible to pay the fees (grant the scholarships, provide the space, etc) that make for good press and recruiting ability.

Help me solve that problem! Once I have more candidates than I can handle, then let's talk about more efficiently vetting them.

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

#28

Post by shail »

eshvk wrote: post #24

I am going to be honest here. I will immediately stop the conversation if a company would pull something like this on me. For me, time spent with a recruiter is time mostly wasted: corporate speak, big magnificent mission statements which tell me only what I can find from the site. For me, the whole idea of talking to a tech person is to figure out very quickly whether aforesaid person is interesting, does interestin…

Hi eshvk

Thanks a lot for responding. I agree with few points but my argument against the rest is that I am not hijacking the whole interview process. I am just doing that round one which a junior person from the company would have done and I am hoping that if you clear you would have tons of chances to ask your questions and know the company well.

According to me, taking interview is an art. In fact, many times I have seen the person getting rejected by a company because someone inexperienced from the team took the first round and rejected him. I agree that companies should not do this. They should give another chance, but in real world when you have tons of resumes pouring in, companies end up doing this.

How about think along these lines, that if I really find you good. I will definitely make sure that your strengths are played in front of the employer really well and you are given due chance.

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

#30

Post by shail »

memset wrote: post #27

As someone who is responsible for hiring engineers at a small fashion company (~10 people), I can say that I would not use this service. It would be difficult to justify the cost. Also, there is one caveat you are missing: the very last question, "Do you have any questions for me?" Interviews ought to be a two-way street, and a qualified candidate, in this model, wouldn't have the chance to ask me questions about our…

From company perspective: Again, what is more important, money (which I am not charging a hell lot, if incase I am, correct me) or developers time. I am just reducing your cost on those interviews which would have failed already.

From candidate perspective: Do you talk to recruiters from hiring agencies? If yes, then you can see me as another recruiter who is much more technical. On answering the candidate's questions, I can obviously do part of the work. I am only taking one round so you have tons of more rounds to ask your questions.

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