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The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

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Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#21

Post by fsloth »

namelezz wrote: post #5

How to tell if you are incompetent?

If this is about populations, I would say incompetence is a poor metric. I would measure competence, so that sorting in order of competence just leaves some individuals in the end - in the scope of the metric. They are then least competent.

It's way easier to point out to competence than incompetence. I would use as a prime measure of competence finishing things (projects, software, assignments). While failure to complete things can be due to various facts (including the possibility that the deliverable was impossible to complete in the first place) completion, delivering, is a clear, logical measure.

So, to me, true artists ship, shipping is a good measure of competence but lack of deliverables does not prove incompetence, it just means lack of evidence for competence.

"Incompetent" as a word has a really nasty sound to it. Also, people learn, so several failed projects can actually lead eventually to a success and delivery, if the person is able and willing.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#22

Post by obiefernandez »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

One 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?

Extreme case: Hire the A-team of programming http://atsytp.strikingly.com/

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#23

Post by johan_larson »

whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

Another option would be to hire fairly leniently, but prune ruthlessly and early.

In most jurisdictions, there is a trial period of sorts, typically 60 to 90 days, during which it is easy to fire an employee, before various rules about dismissal kick in. As far as I know, most companies don't really make use of this, except in really serious cases.

But assuming it is in fact easy to fire during this period, we could hire somewhat loosely, and then carefully evaluate the progress of the employee at the 60-day mark. And just dismiss the ones who aren't making good progress. We might dismiss half the hires early.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#24

Post by raving-richard »

whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

If I were ever in charge of hiring for many types of position (whether programming, or writing, or such), I think I would do something similar. The advertisement will say "looking for full time X (must complete initial contract period of Y weeks)" or similar. The best way to see if you like someone's work, is to see it. So, hire them for up to three months (telling them that this is what is happening, and why, and being completely upfront about it), and if it works out, hire them full time. Then, why not hire multiple people? If you have a program that needs work done, then hire six people to work on those parts for a couple of weeks. See who's work you like, then hire them full time.

This requires a change in both thinking, and how programming is done. You want to have nice chunks of work that can be completed by new people in a short period of time. But, I'm sure it's possible.

(Where I'm from, the way to get a full time job in many fields is: get casual work, get short term contracts, get longer term contracts, someone else dies or retires, you get offered a full time job. This is partly due to too many people looking for too few jobs. This is not an ideal situation, but does mean that by the time people are hired for the full time job, the people hiring them know them already, and the quality of their work.)

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#25

Post by [deleted] »

obiefernandez wrote: post #22
lordnacho wrote: post #10

One 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?

Extreme case: Hire the A-team of programming http://atsytp.strikingly.com/

[deleted]

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#26

Post by pluma »

whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default?

That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability.

Static long-term contracts would still be an option because of the reliability they offer to both sides, but it would give employers the benefit of at will employment without the drawbacks that normally has for the employees.

Of course I don't really see it happening in the US -- at least not in a way that's good for the employees. A lot of the welfare system in the US is still based on the idea of traditional long-term employment, even with Obamacare and all that decoupling it a bit.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#27

Post by mseebach »

pluma wrote: post #26
whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability. Static long-term contracts would still be an option because of the reli…

The concept you're looking for is "savings". Contractors and freelancers charge a premium to compensate for the lack of income stability. If that premium is saved up, you get stability.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#28

Post by bad_user »

raving-richard wrote: post #24
whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

If I were ever in charge of hiring for many types of position (whether programming, or writing, or such), I think I would do something similar. The advertisement will say "looking for full time X (must complete initial contract period of Y weeks)" or similar. The best way to see if you like someone's work, is to see it. So, hire them for up to three months (telling them that this is what is happening, and why, and be…

No, that's not similar. There's a huge difference there ...

Good consultants / freelancers have higher hourly rates than normal employees, to cover their expenses and the periods of inactivity. Plus really good ones are much more expensive simply because they can deliver value that can't be delivered by average employees, so they are expensive because there's demand for their skill-set.

Your solution for example would not get me hired by you. Because I hate probation periods. Because getting hired for only X weeks is a risk for me that has to be worth it. So either you're a really sexy company for which I'm dying to work for, or you must pay me enough for those 3 weeks to be worth it.

And furthermore, the relationship between a consultant hired for a limited amount of time and an employee on probation is very different, going beyond just price. A good consultant gets hired based on (initial) trust in that consultant's skill-set, wheres a probation period signals exactly the opposite.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#29

Post by JackMorgan »

raving-richard wrote: post #24
whiddershins wrote: post #6

What 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…

If I were ever in charge of hiring for many types of position (whether programming, or writing, or such), I think I would do something similar. The advertisement will say "looking for full time X (must complete initial contract period of Y weeks)" or similar. The best way to see if you like someone's work, is to see it. So, hire them for up to three months (telling them that this is what is happening, and why, and be…

Very few people would leave a job for a "chance" at another. So you'll limit yourself to only people currently without work, which is a much smaller pool and likely to be filled with a disproportionate number of recently fired people.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#30

Post by ecaradec »

bsder wrote: post #2

While 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.

You can't deduce that because oncologist patients often die in 18 month, oncologist are lesser doctors. Patient died because they were so sick when they arrive that there wasn't a lot of hope left.

50% success rate doesn't indicate that recruiting is like throwing a coin flip. If there are only 10% of people that can do the job across interviewee, then throwing a coin would get you just 10% of people able to do the job.

However if there was a pool were 80% of people are able to do the job, getting 50% would be worse than picking anyone randomly.

Bayesian logic :)

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