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

#291

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

dbenhur wrote: post #227

lukeholder wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 understandi…

I have yet to encounter a situation in my career that called for a binary tree. I use general trees and graphs all the time, but never any of the specialized forms.

Maybe the problems your companies have worked on did. That's fine. Don't go telling people to "stop asking people to pay you to write software" just because they don't know how to use or write a binary tree, though.

I agree with you that I wouldn't hire someone who doesn't understand linked lists, but I still think your statement is too harsh for that situation as well.

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

#292

Post by no_wave » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

RobertKerans wrote: post #98

kazinator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

You're going to hammered for this, but it's absolutely true.

I find that phone interviews actually work differently - I've been able to turn around an unenthusiastic interviewer and I've been able to lose someone who liked me. For that reason, I think questions of actual code aptitude are best done on the phone, as that's the only place where you really can evaluate someone's thought process isolated from mitigating psychological barriers that occur during face-to-face interactions.

The icky reality is that face-to-face impressions are pretty much determined by how you smell. I think there are two reasons for this - first, there's the concept that people naturally want to be around winners and if you come in looking like a loser they'll be predisposed to dislike you in ways that escape their conscious thought. To work this one, try to chalk up a win before your interview (or get laid - again, hate that it works this way).

The second is that as people we unconsciously recognize whether or not the candidate believes that they're a good fit for the position. If you go in freaked out, you're going to set off a bad feel no matter how hard you try to cover it up. The feeling a recruiter responds to in the first thirty seconds is "this could work". You can't fake this, and this is why being as good as possible at what you do really does matter. It definitely rewards intrinsic overconfidence, but the more intrinsically underconfident people are generally smarter anyways and will eventually be so much better at what they do than their peers that they'll win in the long run. If you feel insecure in your ability to fill a position, get better at what you do and prove it to yourself by having other people evaluate your work - the feeling will go away eventually. Code review is scary for people insecure in their abilities, but it's easily the fastest way to wipe away pathological insecurity.

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

#293

Post by AnonJ » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:36 PM UTC

msteinberg wrote: post #276

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…

Robert, It's interesting that you're allowing hiring decisions to be influenced by what you think is best for yourself. What's best for the company can and should be a secondary concern. I've also found it useful to do the following: 1 Telling HR that candidates are flaky. It's easy to convince HR that every single one will leave in a year or less, especially these hipster kids that are interested in the latest start…

Honestly I don't get what you're trying to say here at all. Sorry to be rude, but please either have something constructive, or don't leave senseless comments that are unpleasant and pointless to read.

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

#294

Post by aminok » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #226

jerf wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is nothing fictitious about the capital, and means of making a living, lost from a lawsuit that a corporation loses. Legal abstractions like corporations represent people's property.

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

#295

Post by AnonJ » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:48 PM 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…

Couldn't such absolute statements actually be your own "rationalization" and prejudice? How can you be sure it was others who messed it up, not you, if you keep thinking this way everywhere? Very probably you indeed have some aspects to improve, but you just convinced yourself that "no, I'm perfectly capable, but that interviewer sucked and judged me arbitrarily. That was his fault, not mine." Thus you look at the world through hostile, cynical eyes and miss up on the opportunity to improve yourself. Isn't that even more harmful and irrational thinking, which you seem to be up against?

In short, possessing such a mentality is dangerous and likely to keep your mind shut.

I don't doubt that you might happen upon some pathetically incompetent interviewers. But if you treat every "no" response in this same manner it's awful.

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

#296

Post by darkarmani » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 4:52 PM UTC

forgotten wrote: post #259

tomp wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Less educated? Perhaps. Less intelligent? Now you're sounding like a bigot. Poor people in rough neighborhoods have survival skills and street smarts that the rest of us don't.

> Less educated? Perhaps. Less intelligent? Now you're sounding like a bigot.

This only needs to be true for a higher percentage of the represented population to say that it is more likely. It doesn't make someone a bigot to talk about statistical measures. (i don't have the stats in front of me but i'm merely commenting on your accusation.)

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

#297

Post by msteinberg » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 5:03 PM UTC

AnonJ wrote: post #293

msteinberg wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert, It's interesting that you're allowing hiring decisions to be influenced by what you think is best for yourself. What's best for the company can and should be a secondary concern. I've also found it useful to do the following: 1 Telling HR that candidates are flaky. It's easy to convince HR that every single one will leave in a year or less, especially these hipster kids that are interested in the latest start…

Honestly I don't get what you're trying to say here at all. Sorry to be rude, but please either have something constructive, or don't leave senseless comments that are unpleasant and pointless to read.

Thanks for the perspective, but this is actually a standard practice in the software industry. Also, If you voiced that kind of attitude with many of the folks at my company, you would never be hired.

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

#298

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

yaddayadda wrote: post #269

waylandsmithers wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately I'm in bind with first impressions. By nature, I'm a massive introvert, which has always caused me problems. But I'm also coming from a toxic workplace environment (our boss regularly berates employees in front of other employees, to include profanity and yelling loud enough to be clearly understood through multiple walls, and he's been know to literally rip doors off their hinges, just because he's mad…

So get better at being a fake extrovert for 90 seconds. Programmers as a class of people are shy and awkward. Not hard to be not the shyest and awkwardest around.

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

#299

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

AnonJ wrote: post #295

kazinator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Couldn't such absolute statements actually be your own "rationalization" and prejudice? How can you be sure it was others who messed it up, not you, if you keep thinking this way everywhere? Very probably you indeed have some aspects to improve, but you just convinced yourself that "no, I'm perfectly capable, but that interviewer sucked and judged me arbitrarily. That was his fault, not mine." Thus you look at the wo…

The problem is there's no good heuristic for determining when that "no" was a resolt of a clear flaw of the candidate, or of subjective prejudice of the interviewer. On that situation the prevailing policy is to always assume prejudice and try to discover you flaws by some other mean.

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

#300

Post by logfromblammo » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

pcthrowaway wrote: post #216

midnightclubbed wrote: post #132

So unless I'm reading the cached text wrongly 38 people read the given manual and answered programming questions based on it. They then met informally. Lets say they burnt a day on this. 27 of those people then suggested being taught how to program in APL (after building a classroom). I'm assuming anyone who didnt want to attend got cut. 3 additional days spent. They were then given 3 weeks to solve some difficult pr…

I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. The author was both willing to hire people with no experience, and provided free training to candidates. I realize that APL isn't a skill in incredibly high demand, but I think the author may have helped these candidates out in the long term. The ones with the most aptitude for programming were able to discover that aptitude (and "a number" of them were hired because of t…

Don't confuse training with education.

Free job training is not equivalent to free education. The latter provides skills and knowledge for the future benefit of the student. That determination of future benefit is often made by the student. The former also provides skills and knowledge, but it is for the future benefit of the employer, and employer-directed. That represents a foregone opportunity. Any trainee could have spent the same time acquiring free education, traded it working in a job that does not require that marginal additional skill, or even wasted that time on leisure activity.

Trainees should always be paid. In this case, they were paid with in-kind services upon conclusion of the training program. To do less might have earned the author a reputation for unethical behavior.

Many companies seeking to hire within the software industry do not recognize the opportunity costs imposed by their hiring procedures. If you require candidates to waste an entire day or more on your interview process, yes, you do owe them something for their time. It need not be settled in cash, but if not, honest feedback on the results of the interview is the bare minimum acceptable payment. The interviewees are expecting their lost time to be an investment, not just a gamble.