How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire • Hacker News Board

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#221

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:21 AM UTC

courtf wrote: post #85

georgeecollins wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think kazinator is wrong about this. And yes I take the commenters point below that they take hiring very seriously. Study after study shows that people are much less objective than they think. And that they have an impression that they rationalize. I have seen people be very strongly influenced negatively or positively by a word or phrase on the resume that in the scheme of things wasn't that important. I am…

Agree with this. No amount of formality and forced stoicism is going to eliminate the myriad biases that creep into every minute action and decision we all make every day. Hiring is a notorious minefield where believing in your own impartiality merely demonstrates a lack of self-awareness, or worse.

[deleted]

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#222

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #165

benihana wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not wrong in that people often rationalize their 'instinctual' choices, but to imply that nobody is cognizant of any of their thoughts or biases and that we're all slaves to our lizard brains is a bit of a stretch.

There is a TON of data out there demonstrating we all have subconscious bias. Moreso than we believe. Even of our own groups! We are slaves to our brain! This is a good summary of some of the data: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-b... Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualification…

[deleted]

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#223

Post by reality_czech » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:32 AM UTC

dccoolgai wrote: post #40

bbcbasic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that > 90% of interviews to be the latter, unfortunately. The ones where I got the job were the former! I am stronger at concepts than memory.

The worst is when you have to go through one of those interviews with some smug hoser across from you whose face is contorted into a rictus grin because you couldn't recall, immediately from memory, some obscure Junior Year Computer Science thing. It's just amazing how bad the hiring situation is - It makes me a lot less likely to look around because I just don't want to go through that.

Hey, you have no right to complain about my rictus grin. I even let you grab a free snack from the snack bar on your way out.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#224

Post by pandaman » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:33 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #147

GauntletWizard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loser pays sounds like a good system, and I'll admit your suggestion for amount makes a lot of sense, but what if the lawyer is working entirely on contingency, as many of these cases are?

The interesting thing about contingency is a lawyer isn't going to take on a frivolous lawsuit on contingency. A lawyer will only take one on that he knows he can win, otherwise it's a giant waste of the lawyer's time and money, which he won't do. So I don't think it would be a problem.

This is true if contingency lawyers only charge their regular rate. Do they really? I thought they work for a stake in the award they are going to win. Otherwise, why would anybody take a case on contingency? There is no 100% guarantee of winning a civil case so it's effectively reducing your own rate since you are going to lose* some cases eventually (* you might even win every case but some of them did not get awarded enough money to pay the lawyer's fees).

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#225

Post by mrcsparker » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:40 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #68

sekasi wrote: post #28

I've done a LOT of interviewing, recruiting and ultimately a lot of saying "no" to people. Over the years I've landed on a series of personal rules on how to do just that. 1. Always explain rationale around the No, to help them improve 2. Always let people down gently reinforcing positive notions as well, you never know what state of mind they are in. 3. Always respond to requests for more information This takes me a…

Then there is the perspective from having heard "no": 1. Never believe anyone's rationale regarding their "no". They acted on instinct, and made up a clever story to afterward to convince themselves it was a rational decision. Or worse: it was some prejudice that they are consciously covering up. Or perhaps some internal reasons that they don't want to discuss with outsiders like sudden news that affects all hiring a…

Second opinions are also great to get - I could be wrong about the person, or maybe we didn't click.

I like interviews to be like secret ballots:

* write down what you think about the person without any external influence

* then share the information with the other people who interviewed the same person

You are right on this - bias can interfere with decision making. A single gatekeeper who makes the wrong decision could be turning away someone fantastic.

The hardest thing is saying no to someone you know is great, or is going to be great. It isn't personal - it might be that one of the candidates had 5 more years experience on something that we were really looking for. In this case, if I am working with a recruiter, I always let them know how great the candidate was.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#226

Post by eropple » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:53 AM UTC

jerf wrote: post #164

eropple wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a better example of people rationalizing away humanity under the guise of "preventing liability" regarding things that, in practice, will never happen. Bill S. Preston told you everything you need to know. People are not out to get you. Acting as if they are is toxic and inhumane.

A person is not out to get you. People collectively are. That is, that one person who sues you out of a literal thousand candidates will on their own still create enough of a stink that you'll do what you can to never have it happen again. There's no way to avoid this and retain the capability for lawsuits to cause actual damage, either. You can't have it all every way which around.

If you prioritize, or allow to be prioritized for you, the health of a fictitious entity such as a corporation over the nine hundred and ninety nine people who just want to know how to be better equipped to get a job so they can survive, I don't really think your fictitious entity deserves its survival.

Do what's right, not what's safe.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#227

Post by dbenhur » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:55 AM UTC

lukeholder wrote: post #208

MichaelGG wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I doubt that explains it. In my experience, the response is shock. Not "oh hmm well, lemme think". It's " I've never written that code since school! That's a terrible thing to ask! Why would I ever write that? " Also, for trivial algorithms and data structures, mind blanking is a potentially bad sign. Like, if you cannot explain the idea of garbage collection (not necessarily implementation details), then I gotta…

I am reasonably experienced programmer who has delivered numerous web applications and websites. I could not explain to you how a linked list or binary tree worked - although I am sure I could look them up on google and understand the concepts given 30 minutes.

"Experienced programmers" who don't understand linked lists and binary trees without looking them up are strong no hires anywhere I have worked in the last three decades. Please stop writing software until this isn't a problem.

* edit: please stop asking people to pay you to write software. Keep writing software on your own until such elementary ideas such as linked lists and binary trees are core to your understanding, then apply again.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#228

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 6:56 AM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #224

WalterBright wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing about contingency is a lawyer isn't going to take on a frivolous lawsuit on contingency. A lawyer will only take one on that he knows he can win, otherwise it's a giant waste of the lawyer's time and money, which he won't do. So I don't think it would be a problem.

This is true if contingency lawyers only charge their regular rate. Do they really? I thought they work for a stake in the award they are going to win. Otherwise, why would anybody take a case on contingency? There is no 100% guarantee of winning a civil case so it's effectively reducing your own rate since you are going to lose* some cases eventually (* you might even win every case but some of them did not get awar…

Contingency means they charge a percentage of the winnings. If they lose, they get $0. Hence, lawyers don't take on contingency cases unless it's a strong case.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#229

Post by RobertKerans » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 7:18 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #198

RobertKerans wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't do the actual hiring, but sit in in one of the two interviews, and as a team we carefully discuss each candidate. We've got a good team, the work environment & people are great, hiring process is solid enough. And we all agree that, almost without exception, we can tell within about thirty seconds of meeting them whether someone is likely to be hired. I assume this is overwhelmingly common? Bar sending a poli…

Yuck. Maybe your company sucks at interviewing? Maybe you're lucky and all of your candidates are good enough to do the work so you can cherry pick the ones that "fit"? I've interviewed a reasonably large number of people, and I've worked with some folks who were good at interviewing, and there were many times where it took most of a day to figure out whether or not someone was worth hiring. What I've found is that c…

There are several factors in play, which push it toward about 80-90% cases:

1. The IT world in the [geographic] area of the UK I live/work in is small (this is critical, because experienced candidates have a high likelihood of being known). 2. The company I work at isn't a tech company. 3. The company operates in an unfashionable sector.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#230

Post by pandaman » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 7:32 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #228

pandaman wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true if contingency lawyers only charge their regular rate. Do they really? I thought they work for a stake in the award they are going to win. Otherwise, why would anybody take a case on contingency? There is no 100% guarantee of winning a civil case so it's effectively reducing your own rate since you are going to lose* some cases eventually (* you might even win every case but some of them did not get awar…

Contingency means they charge a percentage of the winnings. If they lose, they get $0. Hence, lawyers don't take on contingency cases unless it's a strong case.

And if they win they might get a giant pile of money. Hence, rational lawyers take on contingency cases based on the strength of the case relative to the potential payout. A weak case with high payout could be a better option than a sure-win case with low payout. This very website is created by people who practice this strategy in investment and they seem to be doing just fine.