41–50 of 200 posts
I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's will…
I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically,…
I don't know about D-K and mediocre developers, but I do know that those coming out on top of any test only proves one thing: that you are good at the test. Let's say for argument's sake that the test is accurate (it flawlessly measures what its creators intended to measure.) This still doesn't mean that those who score highest are the "best." It only indicates congruence with the test designers. The fact that Fog Cr…
But the way that the industry is set up, we have very little knowledge of whether the test produces false negatives, meaning we don’t know how many of the people who failed the test turn out to be successful or even spectacular somewhere else.
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It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting pr…
Only if you have a policy of not having positions for Junior programmers. Fog Creek has the same hypocrisy as any other company that demands X years of experience from applicants but consider it somebody else's problem how they get that.
I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically,…
I believe your interpretation of the Dunning-Kruger effect is slightly wrong. The effect is not that the least skilled estimate their skill to be above average. The effect is that the least skilled tend to overestimate their skill level greater than those with higher skill levels. Also, those at the highest tend to overestimate the least (and indeed often times underestimate).
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Why is the lack of gender diversity in tech an obvious problem? Women can do whatever they want to do, if they aren't in tech, they probably don't want to be there. You might say something about discrimination or sexism or some such thing, however I am highly skeptical of that. I have been a programmer for 10+ years and never saw any kind of negative discrimination against women. I have seen many examples of positive…
Why don't they want to be there though? There's gender imbalances in lots of places now between executives, teachers, prison, the military, some of those are positive places to have a gender balance in. I've seen lots of discrimination against females in the places I have worked, behind their back for the most part. I have also seen examples of positive discrimination in their favour, but not as much. Personally, I t…
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It's tough though, because when you are a small company that expects developers to jump in and be productive, you do need some kind of process. That process can be referral based, in which case testing isn't as necessary because you can rely on past shared experience, but that obviously limits your talent pool. When you are interacting with an unknown (or a less known) person, you have to have some kind of vetting pr…
You're making fair points. I think I understand the equation you're setting up here (harm of false positive vs harm of false negative, along with probabilities for each). I'm just starting to believe that the damage of so many false negatives to avoid the occasional false positive may be harming the industry more than we realize. Let's not forget, we're an industry where employers very consistently claim a serious an…
I think you have "false positive" and "false negative" backwards, but I agree with your point. I have long thought that the industry systematically understates the damage of false negatives and overstates the damage of false positives.
If you are hiring, it fits one of two broad categories: catch as catch can, or specific need. In a catch as catch can situation, the "always hiring" mode, the company can afford to place more emphasis on minimizing the false positive rate at the expense of the false negative rate because the desire is to skim the cream off the top of the applicant pool as it comes to you. The company doesn't need new people per se; it finds slots for these highly-capable people somewhere in the company after the hire is made.
In the specific need situation, the company is hiring to fill a hole. Either work is not getting done, or other people are overburdened with the responsibilities this new hire will take on. In this case, every day that passes costs the company in some way. The cost of a false negative is related to the quality and size of the applicant pipeline. A false negative could add anywhere from a few days, if the company has a strong pipeline, to a few months, if the company has a weak pipeline, to the timeline for filling this position. The "false negatives are cheap" position comes from the former, but I would say that very few companies actually have an applicant pipeline that strong. Furthermore, if you can go months without filling a position and not suffer any ill effects, you need to ask yourself why you are looking for someone in the first place.
I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically,…
It's a provocative thesis that Fog Creek hires mediocre developers. The evidence of their products suggests otherwise. Of course as Atwood's friend Scott says, "We're all amateurs," so perhaps Fog Creek just hires the less mediocre on an absolute rather than relative scale.
I agree that lack of gender diversity in tech is an obvious problem, and I laud Fog Creek for trying to address this problem. However, I'd like to strongly emphasis the fact that one of the main problems Fog Creek identified as hindering the most talented female developers from applying to Fog Creek, is also a huge problem that prevents many of the most talented male developers from applying to Fog Creek. Ironically,…
I don't know about D-K and mediocre developers, but I do know that those coming out on top of any test only proves one thing: that you are good at the test. Let's say for argument's sake that the test is accurate (it flawlessly measures what its creators intended to measure.) This still doesn't mean that those who score highest are the "best." It only indicates congruence with the test designers. The fact that Fog Cr…
No it's not. Do the math - at the rate of women in the application pool, and the total number of devs Fog Creek has ever hired, it would actually be fairly surprising if they'd ever hired a woman. The internship program, on the other hand (larger sample size) runs at more or less the expected rate, if memory serves.
This seems to make it pretty clear that the applicant pool is the problem, no?
I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's will…
By using a technical challenge as the first step and fast forwarding people to an advanced interview stage, we're eliminating candidate reluctance and increasing transparency (the candidate interacts directly with the hiring manager through our platform).
In our experience, telling the candidate "Show us your skills, impress us, and you'll get an interview" is better than "Tune up your resume to pass every possible filter". Showing your skills early on also removes a lot of stress from the candidate and gives you something solid to talk about during the interview.
Edit:Our homepage shows some numbers and case studies are available on request: http://www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults
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And get rid of hallway usability tests.
Not sure why you think that. I have found getting feedback from team members before user testing finds a lot of low-hanging issues.