Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
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Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
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Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#2People are hired by merits defined by the hiring manager, not a globally consistent set of merits. It's a very well written article.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#3I don't understand the author's problem with "look good on paper" This is paper that the applicant has full control over. The applicant can put whatever they want on their resume and cover letter. Sure this is a writing challenge that doesn't correlate directly with engineering ability but being able to communicate the value of your ideas and explain technical ideas and methods to people with different backgrounds and skill levels seems like something that's just as necessary as engineering ability.
It's always been my mantra that if you can't explain something to someone with no background in it then you don't truly understand what you're trying to explain.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#4People are hired by merits defined by the hiring manager, not a globally consistent set of merits. It's a very well written article.
Yes, and those merits may or may not correlate with ability to do the job the candidate is being hired for.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#5The article is true -- large companies often hire through non-technical recruiters, who aren't qualified to judge applicants.
But I find it disingenuous to single out tech, which is one of the most meritocratic industries. What does the screening process look like in finance? Academia? Journalism? Real estate?
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#6I think it's time that we consider that the problem might not be that we're hiring people based on the wrong things, but that the simple indicators of future success just might not exist.
How long does this have to be an unsolved problem before people start to think, hey, maybe future success just isn't predictable, and certainly not if all you have is a resume and a couple hour interview.
Maybe hire people with at least some demonstrated aptitude and invest in them instead.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#7I don't understand the author's problem with "look good on paper" This is paper that the applicant has full control over. The applicant can put whatever they want on their resume and cover letter. Sure this is a writing challenge that doesn't correlate directly with engineering ability but being able to communicate the value of your ideas and explain technical ideas and methods to people with different backgrounds an…
Author here. The issue is that, much of the time, people reading the paper just look at proxies (for speed reasons and because they're disincentivized to select wild cards). You can do a fantastic job of explaining your projects, but if you don't have pedigree, the reader's eyeballs may never go far enough down the page. It's a matter of how these things are weighed, and the weight assigned to credentialing >>> the weight assigned to everything else.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#8I don't understand the author's problem with "look good on paper" This is paper that the applicant has full control over. The applicant can put whatever they want on their resume and cover letter. Sure this is a writing challenge that doesn't correlate directly with engineering ability but being able to communicate the value of your ideas and explain technical ideas and methods to people with different backgrounds an…
> I don't understand the author's problem with "look good on paper" This is paper that the applicant has full control over. The applicant can put whatever they want on their resume and cover letter.
Yes, up to and including blatant lies. If your company establishes a reputation of screening resumes based on certain features like university you encourage less moral applicants to fluff up their resumes. While these people may not make it through the interview stages, they force the competent but humble or disadvantaged applicants out at the resume screening stage.
> It's always been my mantra that if you can't explain something to someone with no background in it then you don't truly understand what you're trying to explain.
True, but in some cases people aren't allowed to talk about what they have done at that level. That puts anyone from a defense contractor, HFT firm, R&D group, and similar at a significant disadvantage because they can only advertise what they are doing in the broadest terms, if at all.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#9The article is true -- large companies often hire through non-technical recruiters, who aren't qualified to judge applicants. But I find it disingenuous to single out tech, which is one of the most meritocratic industries. What does the screening process look like in finance? Academia? Journalism? Real estate?
Nobody has an image of finance, academia, journalism, or real estate that is bound up in the concept of 'meritocracy', though, so publishing this sort of takedown on any of those industries (and for the less illusioned, in ours as well) would induce a lot of 'no shit, Sherlock' moments.
Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)
#10The article is true -- large companies often hire through non-technical recruiters, who aren't qualified to judge applicants. But I find it disingenuous to single out tech, which is one of the most meritocratic industries. What does the screening process look like in finance? Academia? Journalism? Real estate?
Finance seems to be based mostly on cultural fit and willingness to put in extreme hours. That may actually be easier to test for.