What happens when you stop relying on resumes • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when you stop relying on resumes

#191

Post by fsk » Sat, Jun 27, 2015, 4:26 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #159

The "new hiring process" experiment comes up here quite often, and I do appreciate it. However, how can we conclude anything from a procedure that only examines the hired population and none of the unhired?

The only way you can truly be sure of your hiring process is to pick a random sample of people who fail, and hire them anyway.

I see a couple of issues with this:

- Could it get you in legal trouble?

- Are you capable of evaluating who are the best employees AFTER they are hired?

- Only a large corporation would have the resources to gamble on hiring a random sample of people who failed their interview process.

Here's one half-hearted way to do it. Pick a random sample of resumes you reject, and give them phone interviews anyway. Pick a random sample of people who fail your phone interview, and give them an on-site interview anyway.

Re: What happens when you stop relying on resumes

#192

Post by sireat » Sun, Jun 28, 2015, 7:52 AM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #162

NhanH wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know a solution. What strikes me is that as broken as the system seems, we still manage to hire good people most of the time. Interestingly, the simplest conclusion would be that everyone is good, most of the time . So if we throw hiring out the windows and pick employee randomly, we might still get to the same result. Which actually isn't too outrageous, since if we have 10% unemployment, wouldn't it mean…

True, but the costs (both direct and ancillary) of making a bad hire are so high that anything we can do avoid making the wrong hire would be worthwhile. You might be right that randomly picking candidates might be just as efficient, but I can't imagine anyone taking that risk.

I think the European practice of having a candidate on a 3 month evaluation period(when it is easy to fire) and then having a job security afterwards seems a reasonable balance between employer and employee needs.

It is hard to pull wool over someone's eyes for 3 months especially in a results oriented field like programming.

Re: What happens when you stop relying on resumes

#193

Post by Jemmeh » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #185

Jemmeh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequently put my title on resumes as whatever the company I am applying for is calling it. There's so many names for the same thing. If we call it "programmer" at this job and they call it "software developer" at the place I'm applying to-- well, I can read the requirements in the ad. Usually it is similar enough to not matter. So I just put software developer even if that's not the title on my paystub. Gets me pa…

I sometimes put both, but never the full switch like that. I'm too paranoid that I'll come across someone who does balk at the slight difference.

I've never met someone who was like "Programmer" and "Software Developer" are too different! Same with "Coder". "Software Engineer" in some countries would be a no-no but many places it's interchangeable. Further, I've done some research on the psychology behind it and usually "software developer" and "software engineers" is a better way to put it for negotiation if that's possible because you're seen more as someone who makes something rather than "really expensive computer guy".

Re: What happens when you stop relying on resumes

#194

Post by jghn » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 11:28 PM UTC

Jemmeh wrote: post #193

jghn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes put both, but never the full switch like that. I'm too paranoid that I'll come across someone who does balk at the slight difference.

I've never met someone who was like "Programmer" and "Software Developer" are too different! Same with "Coder". "Software Engineer" in some countries would be a no-no but many places it's interchangeable. Further, I've done some research on the psychology behind it and usually "software developer" and "software engineers" is a better way to put it for negotiation if that's possible because you're seen more as someone…

I've seen companies that are real sticklers for that sort of thing claiming that if one falsifies that what else are they about? Yes,nit is asinine but it does happen

Re: What happens when you stop relying on resumes

#195

Post by Jemmeh » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #194

Jemmeh wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met someone who was like "Programmer" and "Software Developer" are too different! Same with "Coder". "Software Engineer" in some countries would be a no-no but many places it's interchangeable. Further, I've done some research on the psychology behind it and usually "software developer" and "software engineers" is a better way to put it for negotiation if that's possible because you're seen more as someone…

I've seen companies that are real sticklers for that sort of thing claiming that if one falsifies that what else are they about? Yes,nit is asinine but it does happen

Well if anyone can be a stickler it'll definitely be that programmer that was once burnt by a rogue semicolon.

I'm sure it happens sometimes. I just haven't personally seen it with the roles "Software developer", "coder", and "programmer". That is effectively the same thing everywhere I've seen it. Now if I'm a programmer and say I worked in primarily QA or database position we have a problem, but there's no real nuance between those three titles.