Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

blog.alinelerner.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#21

Post by iamthepieman »

vonmoltke wrote: post #8
iamthepieman wrote: post #3

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. 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 peo…

> Yes, up to and including blatant lies

I wasn't suggesting that people lie on their resume or cover letter.

> That puts anyone from a defense contractor, HFT firm, R&D group, and similar at a significant disadvantage.

I was a defense contractor and experienced this first hand. I found that good communication skills both verbal and written were able to overcome this. Since the hypothetical non-technical recruiter in the OP isn't going to understand the technical things that you can't talk about anyways, being able to communicate how you added value is even more important.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#22

Post by flinty »

bkjelden wrote: post #17
drblast wrote: post #6

I 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 l…

As an engineer on the other side of the table - I would much rather this be the case too. I would much rather join a company, devote myself to a problem, a team, and a product, and have the company reward me as such. Instead, engineers who are willing to jump are generally able to attain much higher compensation than those who stay put - so we're incentivized to do so, rather than investing ourselves in a company and…

Great points. The idea of having to switch companies to get any meaningful raise or using it as a threat is a misalignment of incentives that over the long term leads to bad culture

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#23

Post by jedmeyers »

Swizec wrote: post #13
cp9 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe hire people with at least some demonstrated aptitude and invest in them instead how do you demonstrate this?

The old mantra has been: released projects. Someone who can show their own past work, either open-source, side-project, launched projects, or work at somebody else's company ... well there is a high chance that they can at least code their way out of a wet paper bag. Probably more than that too. Another, perhaps better, approach is to just hire a few of the most promising candidates for a couple of days. Give them a…

How will you verify the released projects if the person only worked in-house?

I think that the issue is not only about predicting future success but about trust as well.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#24

Post by anthony_d »

Zigurd wrote: post #19
cp9 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe hire people with at least some demonstrated aptitude and invest in them instead how do you demonstrate this?

I ask potential hires to bring samples of their work and have them discuss it in depth.

I work in an industry that would fire then sue me for taking samples of my actual work.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#25

Post by WaxProlix »

madcaptenor wrote: post #14
WaxProlix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Academia certainly likes to consider itself a meritocracy. (Like software, it's not.)

Good point, that's pretty true. Much like software, there's a projected image which involves the ideal of 'meritocracy', and much like software that's not how it works on the inside.

Unlike software, nobody who's been in or involved with academia for more than a year or two (read: grad students) holds on to that illusion or parrots that brand of nonsense.

My suspicion about software's need to maintain a veneer of meritocratic legitimacy is that there's a lot of money being tossed around, and a lot of founders/entrepreneur types making and losing money. Those who succeed have the loudest voices, and they don't want their successes to have been be influenced by the whims of fate or chance. So we end up with this Horatio Alger mythos born of the dissonance between success and merit.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#26

Post by iamthepieman »

leeny wrote: post #7
iamthepieman wrote: post #3

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. 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 w…

I don't even have a degree. I've always made it to the interview stage by putting myself on the cover letter and, to a lesser extent, in the resume. I might say what I would like to do for the company, mention some changes or improvements I would make to their products or tell them why I think they could use a geospatial engineer even if they don't use GIS in an obvious way in their publicly facing APIs/products.

This is just as much a filter for me as it is for the company.

One thing I've learned in my job searches is that I'm looking to filter just as much and quickly as the companies I'm applying to.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#27

Post by bsdpython »

I've got a crazy idea: we should start evaluating recruiters. I once had a very experienced recruiter get upset and pushy when I told her I was a bad fit for a job and I didn't want to apply. After some back and forth I realized that the source of confusion was that she didn't understand the difference between Java and JavaScript. Weeding out incompetent recruiters would help the whole process.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#28

Post by iamthepieman »

bkjelden wrote: post #17
drblast wrote: post #6

I 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 l…

As an engineer on the other side of the table - I would much rather this be the case too. I would much rather join a company, devote myself to a problem, a team, and a product, and have the company reward me as such. Instead, engineers who are willing to jump are generally able to attain much higher compensation than those who stay put - so we're incentivized to do so, rather than investing ourselves in a company and…

I totally agree with this. I actively try to improve my job hunting skills just like I try to improve my technical skills.

And except for the time I gave up government contracting to move to the middle of nowhere, I've always made much more by switching jobs than I would have by asking for a raise.

That said, I've never switched jobs just because of the money. Either there was no more room for growth, the company was falling apart around me or I just wanted to take a different path in my career.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#29

Post by vonmoltke »

iamthepieman wrote: post #21
vonmoltke wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 peo…

> Yes, up to and including blatant lies I wasn't suggesting that people lie on their resume or cover letter. > That puts anyone from a defense contractor, HFT firm, R&D group, and similar at a significant disadvantage. I was a defense contractor and experienced this first hand. I found that good communication skills both verbal and written were able to overcome this. Since the hypothetical non-technical recruiter in…

> I wasn't suggesting that people lie on their resume or cover letter.

I know, and I did not intend to suggest that. I'm just pointing out that people do, and it distorts resume pre-screening.

> I was a defense contractor and experienced this first hand. I found that good communication skills both verbal and written were able to overcome this. Since the hypothetical non-technical recruiter in the OP isn't going to understand the technical things that you can't talk about anyways, being able to communicate how you added value is even more important.

That depends on what you are working on. My first program, I could give you a pretty good description of what I did and how I contributed to the program in meaningful ways. My second program, I couldn't even say what it was when I first started. Even now I'm severely limited as the program has a very low public profile. What is actually in my resume now is pretty much the extent of what I can say.

Re: Silicon Valley hiring is not a meritocracy (2013)

#30

Post by ChuckMcM »

This post is a bit self serving and this statement:

"The sad truth is that if you don’t look great on paper and you’re applying to a startup that has a strong brand, unless you know someone in the company, the odds of you even getting an interview are very slim."

Is, in my experience as someone doing the hiring at a number of 'name brand' companies, completely false.

That said, I've heard it used by recruiter after recruiter trying to play on the fears of an insecure engineer in order to get them to commit to approaching companies only through the recruiter. The motive here is that the recruiter wants to get up to 30% of your first year's salary for introducing you to a company, if you approach the company directly, well then the recruiter gets zip.

I strongly believe that it is this self interest which drives this silly (and bogus) narrative that if you don't come from the "best schools" or have the "best pedigree" you won't even get looked at by the "hot" start ups or companies.

That said, just mailing your resume to the 'jobs@...' address and hoping for the best is not a good strategy either. The key to getting an interview is that the hiring manager has to think you have a shot at being hired into the job, and for that to be true they have to believe that you have the skills to do the job, and would be able to work well with the existing team.

The easiest way for that communication to happen is to have someone that knows you and knows the manager make that connection. The next easiest way is to participate in activities that people who do that kind of job participate in. I know people who have been located in World of Warcraft guild chat, at maker spaces, and at conferences. Here is a clue, hiring managers go to subject matter conferences to meet people who might have the skills to to fill the positions they are looking for. It is efficient, you meet a lot of people quickly, and it is "safe" (you don't have to set expectations you just start talking). Another great source of recommendations? Professors. People who have seen you working on problems, ideally in small teams, and coming up with solutions.

Post reply on HN