The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
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The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
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Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#2While I do agree that the interview process is arbitrary, I think that having a 50% success rate indicts far more than that.
If "success" is a coin flip, that means that EVERYTHING inside a company failed--interviewing, hiring, training, management, everything. If even one of those things was working, the success rate should be better than a coin flip.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#3While I do agree that the interview process is arbitrary, I think that having a 50% success rate indicts far more than that. If "success" is a coin flip, that means that EVERYTHING inside a company failed--interviewing, hiring, training, management, everything. If even one of those things was working, the success rate should be better than a coin flip.
I think the part about the coin flip is misleading on two counts:
1) if you chose randomly from the pool of job applications, does OP really think you have 50% chance to fail / not fail? (probability doesn't work this way)
2) what does it mean that the hire "failed"?
EDIT: I do agree with the general sentiment of the article though.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#4See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859199 for a great discussion (329 comments) on Brooke Allen's APL hiring story.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#5How to tell if you are incompetent?
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#6What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it.
Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face.
What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default?
Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of an investment of time and money which will likely result in a person being unemployed and/or a company paying a person far beyond when they are providing value.
This is like getting married after one date. Every time.
If employees were assumed to be exploring many things simultaneously, both sides would have plenty of chances to gather meaningful data about the employer/employee relationship, and if it is really a great fit, a long term employment arrangement could be worked out, with a contract that reflects mutual responsibilities revolving around this shift to an all-eggs-in-one-basket situation for the employee - and likely a corresponding move to much more critical functions being performed for the company.
I cynically suspect the current concept of full-time work evolved to suit employers, it allows them to manipulate and scare employees, especially when (for example) health insurance is at stake. Employers naturally have more data about salaries and so forth, in general most employers have many employees, while most employees only have one employer. That is inherently asymmetrical. Now that certain skill sets are harder to hire for, it is hurting everyone.
But the situation was never that great from the beginning, let's figure out a way to make it better for everyone.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#7What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it. Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face. What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of…
Many companies hire contractors and then turn them into permanent employees.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#8What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it. Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face. What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of…
Many companies hire contractors and then turn them into permanent employees.
While that sounds like a reasonable hiring approach most of the contractors I know (in the UK and Ireland) wouldn't take permanency because contractors earn significantly more. Maybe it's a bit different in the US though.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#9What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it. Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face. What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of…
Many companies hire contractors and then turn them into permanent employees.
I'm a startup founder and while this had been our initial approach to evaluating new engineers, our payroll company, PayChex, has specifically advised us to NOT do this. Why? Because it sends a red flag to the IRS to come after us for taxes for the period when they were a contractor.
Crazily enough PayChex has told us that the real solution here is for us to "sign" the person over to a contracting company so we can hire them thru the contracting company for the evaluation period. Yes we'll pay more for them since we have to pay that company's markup but we won't get gone after by the IRS. And, yes, it adds another layer of BS / paperwork. End result? We've hired no one because of this - its too hard to vet engineers without seeing their work. Sigh.
Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong
#10One thing I've wondered is why companies hire people one at a time.
Barely anyone works alone on anything, yet to decide whether to hire someone, you invite people individually through a funnel process and expect them to be able to work together. The best teams are not necessarily the ones with the most Ivy Leaguers on them.
Why don't more companies let the applicants self-organise, and then hire the best teams?