31–40 of 51 posts
You've got an excellent value proposition for recruiters, too. Anything that would improve their hit rate would presumably be extremely valuable.
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?
Can I suggest that you pitch this service not to tech companies, but to recruiters? I think that's where the biggest disconnect lies - between tech recruiters and tech candidates. You've got an excellent value proposition for recruiters, too. Anything that would improve their hit rate would presumably be extremely valuable.
I think I have a value proposition for companies as well. I am reducing their filtering time (the time where technical folks from the company itself in involved).
Again, for candidates, if you speak to outside recruiters and judged by them before your resume get fwded, so you can see me as another recruiter who is actually technical and I am testing on your tech skills.
for me one of my deciding questions I ask people is "Any questions for me?" If they ask a lot, I know they are interested and I'll bring them in for an in person.
Would you still consider? Obviously I am not talking about roles which do not require CS fundamentals to be strong.
edit: obviously again I am taking just round one.
Do you speak to outside recruiters. Do they ask you questions about your skills before fwding you resume? If the answer is yes, then I am just another recruiter who happens to be actually technical and instead of asking you "Whether you know this tech? or How many years of experience you have with this tech?" kind of questions, I am actually taking proper tech interviews before fwding your resume.
Thoughts?
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 ha…
> 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.
If I am really good, you will be wasting my time by not giving me a chance to tell me what on earth the company I am interviewing for is doing. Interviewing is a two-way street. It is not only about me passing your tests but it is also whether I will decide to like the company. That time that I spend interviewing with you is time where I still have no idea what the codebase looks like, what the latest problems the company is tussling with, why I would be a right fit.
I am seeing lots of comments about candidates feeling bad about it. Just to clarify on that end. Do you speak to outside recruiters. Do they ask you questions about your skills before fwding you resume? If the answer is yes, then I am just another recruiter who happens to be actually technical and instead of asking you "Whether you know this tech? or How many years of experience you have with this tech?" kind of ques…
Oh, for the record. I have a firm policy of not answering technical questions posed by a non-technical recruiter who reads from a Q&A sheet.
What about all your jobs that you only stayed a year or less at on your resume? Has no one questioned that? Do you have any explanation for such apparent job hopping? Not that I blame you...
As you know things change a lot in startups. Statistics show >95% of them fail. Hence the jump. I am not saying I jumped because they fail. But you work in a startup not because you want it to be next run of the mill company. You work in a startup so that it becomes the next Google.
But if my senses say that a company is not going to become next Google, I move on instead of wasting my time and companies time and money. I am not sure whether I answered your question but its more philosophical than anything else.
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 question…
How many individuals would you interview before a successful hire? Let's say 20. That amounts to a $3,000 headhunting fee.
You can certainly make an argument for developers' time being worth more than $150/hr. Then again, the bottleneck isn't doing interviews, it's finding qualified people in the first place.
Then again, I know I'm not making $150/hr, even after you factor in benefits. (But what about opportunity cost? We can go down this rabbit hole too.)
Finally, at the end of the day, I'm not the one with the checkbook. I'd have to ask my boss. His first question will be "how do you know this will work? Have others had success before? What is your real cost of doing an interview?"
He gets people asking for money every day. So if I'm going to bug him about something - particularly if I'm going to try and chip away at our runway - then I have to have very strong guarantees that it will solve our business problem. And really, I'm not sure I'd be ready to throw my trust behind this concept.
So nothing you are suggesting is incorrect! I think it is an enterprising idea, modulo some of the comments in this thread. I'm offering, however, that for so many of the aforementioned reasons, for our particular company and the constraints I have, I would not pay money for this (since you "Ask HN'd") and there are other parts of the hiring process that are a bigger bottleneck than assessing fizzbuzz or someone's background.