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The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

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Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#71

Post by ansible »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #46

>Staffup Weekend put the lie to Stein’s pronouncement. As Nicholson later wrote me, “The fact that people stayed for 48 hours to work on something put them head and shoulders above the thousands of applications we receive, because the participants are people who show up and see things through.” And this event is an attempt to make showing up for a 48 hour 'work trial' a norm. This favors the younger, single populatio…

And this event is an attempt to make showing up for a 48 hour 'work trial' a norm. This favors the younger, single population, and while you're working on whatever this event is, you are not putting more resumes out. There's the potential for abuse in getting free work out of applicants from other people mimicking this event.

Totally agree. Sounds like each applicant should be getting paid or something. Even so, dropping the rest of your life for two days stinks.

You have to balance the time it takes to tailor your resume to the company versus moving on and finding the next company to submit a resume to. At the extremes, some people don't tailor at all and throw their resume and cover letter at everyone in a suit. Others will do deep-dive research and make 27 drafts of a resume/cover to the point where they already know more about the company than the person who may hire them.

You know, there should be an app for that. Something where you can just put in everything, and then when sending out one resume to a particular company, it would help you customize it for them.

Maybe you could feed in the job ad, and the app uses some fancy NLP to then select which topics you should emphasize on your resume.

It should also keep track of what version you've sent out to whom, so that you can view it when talking to the potential employer on the phone.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#72

Post by kyllo »

ErrantX wrote: post #39
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? I've heard this line a lot. The interesting thing is that there are areas, even inside tech, that this is the default. And it's nto necessarily better. For example, steelworks or the oil industry. A pretty significant portion of the employees in these fields (including IT sectors) are contractors. They have minimal job se…

But short-term working is not a coverall solution IMO.

Indeed. A coverall solution would be a basic income for all permanent residents, coupled with a nationalized healthcare program. People want stable employment because freelancing is so risky without the benefit of any guaranteed regular paycheck or insurance. If the government actually provided a minimum subsistence income and insurance program for working adults, there would be much less incentive to get "married" to a corporation, and the labor market would be much more fluid, fungible and efficient as a result.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#73

Post by kyllo »

fuzzygroup wrote: post #9
crdoconnor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Yes, that's because companies that hire people as 1099 independent contractors also usually provide their equipment, train and direct them on how the work is to be performed, etc.

The litmus test for a 1099 is that "an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done."

Companies frequently fail this test when hiring people as 1099.

http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#74

Post by vonmoltke »

engendered wrote: post #63
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? Many of the replies thus far have quite rightly pointed out that the predominate contract/freeland/short term model actually puts even more power in the employer's hands, and is often used in an abusive, diminishing way. It is full-time employment made worse -- all of the problems and detriments, with fewer of the benefits.…

> if you have a learning curve in what you do (the classic "employees can't be productive for the first n months), you probably don't actually know what you're doing

Either that or you have a crapload of self-imposed complexity.

That said, some roles really do have a major learning curve due to the amount of background domain knowledge required.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#75

Post by dragonwriter »

whiddershins wrote: post #14
fuzzygroup wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

IANAA && IANAL but maybe you shouldn't take your payroll company's word for this. I would guess if you meet your tax obligations and employment law obligations you should be ok. Maybe get a second (and third) opinion??

> I would guess if you meet your tax obligations and employment law obligations you should be ok.

If its an audit red flag, that's a risk even if you aren't breaking the tax rules associated with that transaction -- it increases the risk associated with any tax rules you might, knowingly or not, be breaking.

Further, if you are using it to vet potential permanent employees in working conditions as much like the ones they will be working in as employees as possible, its quite likely you aren't meeting your employment law obligations when you designate them as contractors (and, because tax treatment is tied to that designation, quite likely as a result not meeting your tax law obligations.)

Certainly, the best advice is a domain expert working for you in that capacity, that knows exactly what you are planning, rather than your payroll company speaking in generalities, but in generalities the advice given doesn't seem all that bad.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#76

Post by vonmoltke »

fuzzygroup wrote: post #9
crdoconnor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

> We've hired no one because of this - its too hard to vet engineers without seeing their work.

I really wish certain segments of this industry would stop being so irrationally paranoid about hiring. I think so many of our hiring and talent problems are self-inflicted.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#77

Post by vonmoltke »

dragonwriter wrote: post #75
whiddershins wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAA && IANAL but maybe you shouldn't take your payroll company's word for this. I would guess if you meet your tax obligations and employment law obligations you should be ok. Maybe get a second (and third) opinion??

> I would guess if you meet your tax obligations and employment law obligations you should be ok. If its an audit red flag, that's a risk even if you aren't breaking the tax rules associated with that transaction -- it increases the risk associated with any tax rules you might, knowingly or not, be breaking. Further, if you are using it to vet potential permanent employees in working conditions as much like the ones…

What you say makes perfect sense, but in that context how do "contract to hire" places do what they do legally?

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#78

Post by darkmarmot »

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?

That's exactly what my company did! My team's last boss was dropped from our company. He got a new job and we all quit and were hired en masse to work for him again. Since we already had great team cohesion, we hit the ground running and won Dev Team of the Year for our city. I think it's an awesome way to go -- kind of like an aqui-hire but you get more loyalty I think...

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#79

Post by ansible »

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…

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.

Don't forget health care. That plus a basic living stipend would be quite a revolution to the economy. We'd start to price activities more sanely, and use automation more effectively.

The people still driven by status will still work their asses off to get ahead, and in general I think things would still get done. With the energy resources and automation we already have, we can do this now.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#80

Post by droopyEyelids »

ansible wrote: post #71
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #46

>Staffup Weekend put the lie to Stein’s pronouncement. As Nicholson later wrote me, “The fact that people stayed for 48 hours to work on something put them head and shoulders above the thousands of applications we receive, because the participants are people who show up and see things through.” And this event is an attempt to make showing up for a 48 hour 'work trial' a norm. This favors the younger, single populatio…

And this event is an attempt to make showing up for a 48 hour 'work trial' a norm. This favors the younger, single population, and while you're working on whatever this event is, you are not putting more resumes out. There's the potential for abuse in getting free work out of applicants from other people mimicking this event. Totally agree. Sounds like each applicant should be getting paid or something. Even so, drop…

And then the app checks if you were asked to interview, and can analyze how to successfully customize resumes for each employer...
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