Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interviews are Broken

erniemiller.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 88 posts

Re: Interviews are Broken

#71

Post by JackMorgan »

jasonlotito wrote: post #18
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? I've seen it happen and it's a very good excuse to give to HR. Just like in social situations you can judge anyone pretty well in the first 5 minutes of a phone conversation, see if they will "click" with your team - hell you can almost do that just by looking at their open source (how they think/design). I don't need a high…

> Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? While that may be, it doesn't mean cultural fit is only used in those cases. There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that. Are you the type of person to put in your own time to advance your knowledge, or do y…

> There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job.

I like this as a definition of cultural fit. I have worked a place where I felt like the only guy who cared about his job, and it was suffocating, similarly, I have seen the one guy who is just doing his job in a team of those to love to do their job well, and he was like a ball and chain.

Perhaps we need to stop using "cultural fit", as a replacement for "professionalism". When I think about "cultural fit", I think, "what do I like, and does this person like it too?" When I ask myself and others, "is this person a professional", I think, "do they exhibit: passion, discipline, dedication, drive, and care in their work, skills, and interactions with everyone?" I would rather tell HR, "not as professional about his craft as we like to see", than a wishy-washy, "not a good cultural fit". The first sounds like we are professionals who treat ourselves, our craft, and others with respect, the second like a frat house blackballing a pledge because he doesn't like the same beer we all do.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#72

Post by Fishkins »

emiller829 wrote: post #27
balloot wrote: post #16

This person sounds completely insufferable. He basically is declaring himself too good for interviews (except for C-level execs, whom he apparently tolerates). Heaven forbid you don't just assume Ernie Miller is god's gift to your job position, because he is Ernie Miller and he is a special unique snowflake who is not to be insulted with petty questions pertaining to his ability to do the job. Anyway, good luck with…

Did you actually read the article, or just the big, bold letters? The point wasn't that I am special. It's that each person is an individual, and a company that doesn't recognize that situations differ and make reasonable accommodations is unlikely to be a company at which I (or many like me, if the comments are any indicator) would enjoy working.

Did you read his comment? He referred to your "C-level execs" comment, which was in normal font about half way into the article. I didn't really have a problem with your original article, but responding like this doesn't make you look good.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#73

Post by JackMorgan »

Apocryphon wrote: post #42

You know, there's a lot of these interview articles. Where whiteboarding doesn't work. Or whiteboarding works but filters out a vast majority of applicants. Give homework problems instead. No, applicants can easily cheat or resort to copy pasting code when given time away from the interviewer. The future is GitHub repos to see candidates' prior work. No, open-source code is not verifiable and easily falsifiable. What…

Plenty of places do this, I have run training programs and helped with co-op training for new developers now in three different companies, and I can say, yes, there is room.

And, yet, our demand for developers with experience surpassing the average co-op or college grad doesn't change. It can be hard to make much progress with a team of mostly younger developers when every technical discussion someone is asking, "what is FTP", or "I read that GET is the only safe way to pass values", etc. Sometimes, it _really_ pays off to just hire someone who has already figured out a certain level of the fundamentals and can hit the ground running into more advanced walls like lack of business domain knowledge.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#74

Post by JackMorgan »

nissimk wrote: post #24

It's interesting to note how many people that actually work at a place had to jump through all of the pre job offer hoops. I think you'll usually find a lot of people who were able to avoid much of that stuff because: 1) they were hired before the company started doing it 2) they new someone going in so they got hired without as much rigmarole. 3) they started as a contractor/freelancer and were converted to employee…

Oh, dark. Maybe all the people there beat the system. I have to ask around my office now, see if that was the case.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#75

Post by derefr »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #58
cpprototypes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If technical competency has already been established, then there should be no problem with asking these kinds of subjective questions since it's meant to screen for a subjective area (team/culture fit).

It's not obvious that the examples given do that (besides whether you'd want to have a beer with them). If there is a specific set of behaviors that you believe will better gel with the team, then ask questions that are signals for those specific behaviors. Or, perhaps you should simply set up processes that enforce those behaviors.

I do believe what is being suggested is that people only hire people they want to have beers with.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#76

Post by derefr »

JackMorgan wrote: post #70
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? I've seen it happen and it's a very good excuse to give to HR. Just like in social situations you can judge anyone pretty well in the first 5 minutes of a phone conversation, see if they will "click" with your team - hell you can almost do that just by looking at their open source (how they think/design). I don't need a high…

Oh man, I read this and get a sinking pit in my stomach. I don't care about a person's color, reproductive organs, creed or whatever, but I wonder if perhaps I care a little too much about their "similar thought process", "go out for a drink"-ness (gulp, and what does that say about age), and most nebulously, "comfort". I thankfully cannot think of a time when I turned away a candidate for any reason but pure technic…

> "go out for a drink"-ness (gulp, and what does that say about age)

This reminds me: I think I've yet to see a tech company where the default assumption is that you're a teetotaler. Why do y'all SV-ites insist on taking me out to consume (legal) mind-altering drugs?

Re: Interviews are Broken

#77

Post by derefr »

JackMorgan wrote: post #71
jasonlotito wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? While that may be, it doesn't mean cultural fit is only used in those cases. There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that. Are you the type of person to put in your own time to advance your knowledge, or do y…

> There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. I like this as a definition of cultural fit. I have worked a place where I felt like the only guy who cared about his job, and it was suffocating, similarly, I have seen the one guy who is just doing his job in a team of those to love to do their job well, and he was like a ball and chain. Perhaps we need…

This definition (caring about doing your job) is a bit annoying, because it means it's sort of impossible to work at any company that looks for this, while also trying to start your own company. All my passion is reserved for my start-up; you get my professionalism, but nothing more. Why is that not enough? (This is assuming salary and no equity.)

Re: Interviews are Broken

#78

Post by djillionsmix »

jasonlotito wrote: post #18
BigChiefSmokem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? I've seen it happen and it's a very good excuse to give to HR. Just like in social situations you can judge anyone pretty well in the first 5 minutes of a phone conversation, see if they will "click" with your team - hell you can almost do that just by looking at their open source (how they think/design). I don't need a high…

> Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? While that may be, it doesn't mean cultural fit is only used in those cases. There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that. Are you the type of person to put in your own time to advance your knowledge, or do y…

>There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that.

There is so little of a difference between those sorts of person that they are frequently the exact same person except on different days or in different working environments.

Re: Interviews are Broken

#79

Post by dustingetz »

JackMorgan wrote: post #71
jasonlotito wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't "cultural fit" another way to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process? While that may be, it doesn't mean cultural fit is only used in those cases. There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that. Are you the type of person to put in your own time to advance your knowledge, or do y…

> There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. I like this as a definition of cultural fit. I have worked a place where I felt like the only guy who cared about his job, and it was suffocating, similarly, I have seen the one guy who is just doing his job in a team of those to love to do their job well, and he was like a ball and chain. Perhaps we need…

"no cultural fit" is a HR euphemism for either "you aren't good enough" or "you're fired" at facebook, at least according to a few HN comments. Similarly, at google, "performance improvement plan" means "we don't want to get sued, but please find a new job"

Re: Interviews are Broken

#80

Post by [deleted] »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #44
Peroni wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An hour in a relatively relaxed environment over a cup of coffee is more than enough for me to work out if you would get along with our team, work well with your potential new boss, actually enjoy working for us or not and whether or not you are likely to stay loyal to our company.

In a single meeting, I believe it is often easy to determine if there is likely to be no fit. Going with your gut here makes a lot of sense. But it is completely unrealistic to believe that in a single meeting you will be able to predict with any certainty that a candidate will work well with your team, enjoy the position and remain loyal. You simply can't establish these things until a person is on the job. If you d…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN