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Resumes suck for hiring engineers

blog.alinelerner.com

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Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#21

Post by pekk »

TTPrograms wrote: post #2

I would think that the other interpretation of this result is just that many engineers suck at writing resumes, which is totally plausible. In fact, one could analyze this in the current data set by looking at the total number of correct predictions versus the different resumes in the set. A well-written resume would then be one which results in correct predictions most frequently. You'd then have two dimensions for…

If a large number of people suck at writing resumes enough to throw off a search, the question is raised of why you are first and foremost evaluating candidates for their ability to write resumes.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#22

Post by stmchn »

hw wrote: post #7

It's hard to gauge a person's qualities from a resume. Things like culture fit (extremely important IMO), fast thinker, quick learner - are all aspects that can't be garnered from a resume. IMO, resumes are only a decent filter for experience, and provides a baseline for the interview. There are many I've interviewed that padded their resumes and said they are experienced in something they really aren't, and there ar…

I think you hit the nail on the head here and probably why so many engineering jobs are gained through personal referrals instead of cold resumes. I know that's how I got hired at most of the companies I've worked at.

The company I work at building a way to capture those recommendations and that concept of trust through peer-to-peer reviews: https://www.roikoi.com/

The site asks you to play a anonymously game comparing your most relevant coworkers to one another and a users' score is generated by their aggregate results from their coworkers playing the game. It essentially crowdsources gauging those qualities that can't be gathered from a resume.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#23

Post by lunaru »

hw wrote: post #7

It's hard to gauge a person's qualities from a resume. Things like culture fit (extremely important IMO), fast thinker, quick learner - are all aspects that can't be garnered from a resume. IMO, resumes are only a decent filter for experience, and provides a baseline for the interview. There are many I've interviewed that padded their resumes and said they are experienced in something they really aren't, and there ar…

This doesn't allow for new people to enter the system, like new college graduates. While hiring within the circle is great for consistency, it also means you may be missing out on great talent. At fast enough growth rates, you'll quickly tap out on the friends-of-friends network and will need a solid plan for hiring unknowns.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#24

Post by pekk »

joelgrus wrote: post #15

I don't see anywhere the Ockham's Razor explanation that bad candidates fudge their resumes in order to make themselves look like good candidates.

I think it's even simpler just to observe that the way someone chooses to write and target a resume has no particular relationship to how well they would do the job.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#26

Post by photoJ »

I am not sure how I would feel if my resume was posted here. I've already found someone I was able to quickly identify by looking at the resumes. I would have expected more discretion on the recruiters part.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#27

Post by mbesto »

> As it turned out, people were pretty bad at filtering resumes across the board, and after running the numbers, it began to look like resumes might not be a particularly effective filtering tool in the first place.

Her theory - people suck at filtering because the tool they use is poor.

> it may not be a matter of being good or bad at judging resumes but rather a matter of the task itself being flawed — at the end of the day, the resume is a low-signal document.

Resumes suck for hiring all people. But that's not the purpose of a resume -- it's a low-signal filter to weed out the initial batch of candidates. If you treat hiring like a sales funnel (and you should), then a resume is a great way to eliminate unnecessary time for your team to assess someone's cultural fit. Expecting the resume to be high signal filter is pretty naive.

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#28

Post by dragonwriter »

mbesto wrote: post #27

> As it turned out, people were pretty bad at filtering resumes across the board, and after running the numbers, it began to look like resumes might not be a particularly effective filtering tool in the first place. Her theory - people suck at filtering because the tool they use is poor. > it may not be a matter of being good or bad at judging resumes but rather a matter of the task itself being flawed — at the end o…

> If you treat hiring like a sales funnel (and you should), then a resume is a great way to eliminate unnecessary time for your team to assess someone's cultural fit.

Where's the evidence that it is great at this? Certainly, its a basis for narrowing the set of candidates that get further review, but is it a good basis?

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#29

Post by Terr_ »

stmchn wrote: post #22
hw wrote: post #7

It's hard to gauge a person's qualities from a resume. Things like culture fit (extremely important IMO), fast thinker, quick learner - are all aspects that can't be garnered from a resume. IMO, resumes are only a decent filter for experience, and provides a baseline for the interview. There are many I've interviewed that padded their resumes and said they are experienced in something they really aren't, and there ar…

I think you hit the nail on the head here and probably why so many engineering jobs are gained through personal referrals instead of cold resumes. I know that's how I got hired at most of the companies I've worked at. The company I work at building a way to capture those recommendations and that concept of trust through peer-to-peer reviews: https://www.roikoi.com/ The site asks you to play a anonymously game compari…

Sounds like it'd be hard to get statistical relevance in most companies...

Re: Resumes suck for hiring engineers

#30

Post by leeny »

photoJ wrote: post #26

I am not sure how I would feel if my resume was posted here. I've already found someone I was able to quickly identify by looking at the resumes. I would have expected more discretion on the recruiters part.

Aline here. I got permission from everyone whose resume I used in this experiment.
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