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

brookeallen.com

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

#281

Post by qznc »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #140
WalterBright wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person does not need 'very strong' reasons for legal challenges. They can be spurious, with the plaintiff hoping the company will find it cheaper to settle than defend themselves. A system where the loser pays the winner the amount the loser paid their own lawyers will stop most of this nonsense.

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?

Germany has "loser pays everything". However, a settlement means no one lost and everybody pays his own lawyers.

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

#283

Post by eropple »

RobertKerans wrote: post #235
lsiebert wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, seriously, don't understand how this works, unless your candidates appearance and accent are your main tools for judging a candidate. I would prefer to think that's not the case. If you were teaching a new member of the team to make such a decision, what would you point to? What's more important, is I don't understand how anyone could possibly improve their 30 second impression. I guess it could be that you believ…

Yes, I admit there is an element of hyperbole (for 30 seconds probably read 30seconds - 5 minutes depending, and that alters if a candidate [ie for a junior position] is nervous and it takes time to get them to relax somewhat). Appearance is important, and I've never been in an interview situation where it wasn't? Unless you're insinuating choice based on ethinicity (more aimed at _pmf_'s response to your comment). W…

> as are accent/sex/other discriminatory factors that make zero difference to how someone is likely to work within a team

Given the way you're talking about making a hire/no-hire in five seconds, I find it incredibly difficult to buy the idea that you're not taking that into account. You're glorifying the snap-judgment hire.

Because most people do, and a good hiring process takes that into account and counterbalances it.

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

#284

Post by normloman »

This sounds like the job search from hell. Let's break down this trainwreck:

1. The guy posts a vauge help-wanted ad that implies no experience is required. Then he's surprised that 300 people applied and none had relevant experience.

2. He asks applicants to read a 500 page manual, then solve some programming puzzles. With no pay. As if the applicants have nothing better to do.

In the rest of the story, the guy does a nice thing for the remaining applicants. But why does he ask candidates to jump through so many hoops for this job, especially when, as he states in the ad, experience is not required. Not every unemployed person has the time to read a manual, waste time solving puzzles, or attending a class with no guarantee of employment. Some of them really need jobs. Some of them have bills to pay. Some of them have other opportunities, and can't afford to put their life on hold while you make up your mind.

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

#285

Post by king_jester »

edraferi wrote: post #279
yaddayadda wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly – learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing f…

Blind auditions make sense if the candidate will be working independently, but they (deliberately) don't assess cultural compatibility. Do you prefer the most skilled person, or a very skilled person who gets along well with your team, understands your industry, and cares about your mission?

Orchestras are not a collection of independent workers. Everyone works together as a team and chemistry is very important.

> your team, understands your industry, and cares about your mission

When teams are largely made up of a certain kind of person, using this as criteria for hiring is a sure fire bet to make sure your team stays homogenous and never grows outside of its little comfort zone.

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

#286

Post by king_jester »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #264
yaddayadda wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly – learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing f…

That would be pretty cool-- and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras, right?. They simply want the best musicians PERIOD, whereas lots of software companies would probably hesitate to hire someone with a lot of talent but a toxic attitude.

> and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras

Software development IS NOT meritocratic and neither are orchestras. There is just as much politics, networking, and problems with "value" in orchestras as in software development.

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

#287

Post by kyllo »

deedubaya wrote: post #3

When you hire for a person , you find that personality traits are much more important than what an applicant has done in the past, including passion, drive, etc. When you hire to fill a position, all this goes out the window the applicant goes into the hiring lottery pool to maybe get an interview, and then the traditional "You could totally goog this IRL, but I'm going to hire you based off your memory" type of hiri…

This is a very wise observation.

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

#288

Post by king_jester »

tomp wrote: post #250
UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus... did you even read the article you are commenting on? It isn't just one example. And it isnt about being racist, its about racism without racists. > One study conducted by a Brigham Young University economics professor showed that white NBA referees call more fouls on black layers, and black referees call more fouls on white players. Another study that was published in the American Journal of Sociology showed…

> did you even read the article you are commenting on? No, I was just commenting on the logic of the quote in the parent comment, which I find faulty. I'm not saying people aren't racist, or subconsciously racist; I'm just saying that you can't reduce any statistical effect down to racist, while other explanations are just as possible. > And what the hell does someone coming from a poor neighborhood have anything to…

> I'm pretty sure that if you run statistics, you would find out that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminals, violent, less educated, less intelligent.

I'm pretty sure if you run statistics you would find that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to have their activity be criminalized, cast as violent, denied access to education formally and informally, and have their intelligence devalued in comparison to a social norm that has implicit bias.

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

#289

Post by king_jester »

RobertKerans wrote: post #235
lsiebert wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, seriously, don't understand how this works, unless your candidates appearance and accent are your main tools for judging a candidate. I would prefer to think that's not the case. If you were teaching a new member of the team to make such a decision, what would you point to? What's more important, is I don't understand how anyone could possibly improve their 30 second impression. I guess it could be that you believ…

Yes, I admit there is an element of hyperbole (for 30 seconds probably read 30seconds - 5 minutes depending, and that alters if a candidate [ie for a junior position] is nervous and it takes time to get them to relax somewhat). Appearance is important, and I've never been in an interview situation where it wasn't? Unless you're insinuating choice based on ethinicity (more aimed at _pmf_'s response to your comment). W…

> Which is completely irrelevant, as are accent/sex/other discriminatory factors that make zero difference to how someone is likely to work within a team.

This is just plain ignorant. Every single place I have worked has had its share of everyday sexism and racism, and that includes how current employees act in hiring interviews. You claim to not notice these things, but what you are saying is that you don't consider those things valid differences that may affect how someone perceives your team or work environment. How can you ever confront issues in your workplace by shoving your head in the sand?

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

#290

Post by kyllo »

kbart wrote: post #251
kyllo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's somewhat of a misconception that most OSS is written for free in professional programmers' spare time. For small projects yes, but corporations aren't using their code anyway. OSS projects that are prominent enough to achieve corporate adoption, often have a staff of core maintainers that are employed by a company that makes money selling support for that OSS software. Why? Because corporations are risk…

Not always. TrueCrypt and OpenSSL comes to mind first. Sure, OpenSSL is more supported now, but it happened only after Heartbleed panic, when everyone realised how dependant they are on few overworked and underpaid programmers. Except several well known OSS projects, most others get only peanut money from donations.

These are sort of the exception that proves the rule, though. Corporations don't want to rely on poorly supported OSS projects, they prefer to pay for support so they can hold someone accountable for fixing it when it breaks. OpenSSL was a bit of a blind spot in this regard. I think corporations just didn't realize they were depending on it and/or how much of a risk factor it was, they learned that the hard way.
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