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What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

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Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#111

Post by smsm42 »

dlss wrote: post #35

This part was golden: Agency : How much did you pay for your last rental car? Applicant : I don't see how that matters. What are you charging? Agency : We like to know what you paid before so you get a fair rate. Applicant : I paid market rates. Agency : Sorry, we must know how much...

Well, if you buy instead of rent, especially used car, that's what 99.99% of salesmen would do. "How much is that car?" - "well, how much can you pay?" They have sometimes prices posted but everybody knows these have little meaning except generic signal of "we consider it an expensive car" or "this one is cheap".

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#112

Post by droidist2 »

smsm42 wrote: post #111
dlss wrote: post #35

This part was golden: Agency : How much did you pay for your last rental car? Applicant : I don't see how that matters. What are you charging? Agency : We like to know what you paid before so you get a fair rate. Applicant : I paid market rates. Agency : Sorry, we must know how much...

Well, if you buy instead of rent, especially used car, that's what 99.99% of salesmen would do. "How much is that car?" - "well, how much can you pay?" They have sometimes prices posted but everybody knows these have little meaning except generic signal of "we consider it an expensive car" or "this one is cheap".

True. Negotiation 101: the first person to say a number loses.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#113

Post by lessnonymous »

npsimons wrote: post #105
lessnonymous wrote: post #76

As a hiring manager, the thing I find most interesting on posts like this (ignoring that the analogy is TERRIBLE) are the comments of people used to being on the other side of the desk. I don't think we (as interviewers) do a good job of explaining why we ask the questions we ask. And I don't think we do a good job of communicating what our job is. Our job is to stop you getting hired. If we get 100 people applying f…

First off, not sure how your company does it, but I've had companies ask me to interview when I wasn't even looking, and then not extend an offer. So interviews are not always to separate the wheat from the chaff. Second, the gist I got from the "color of the wire" question was it was an analogy for asking someone to write code for a linked list. It's banal and been done before, so it seems ludicrous to ask, but many…

First point has nothing to do with my company in particular. Talent interviews are just different from vacancy interviews. In a talent interview I really am looking for someone who meets our future needs. And without my crystal ball, that means I'm looking for someone with the currently require skill set, but who has the ability to pick up wherever we go in the future.

Agree with you on the second point. This comes into us not explaining ourselves very well. Questions like this ARE banal and ludicrous. But FizzBuzz filters are a great first screening. People lie (shock! horror!) on their resumes all the time. So asking them to write something banal in front of you is annoying for the people who can do it, but quickly finds the pretenders and lets me cut an interview short.

(Oh, and before anyone calls out 'interview pressure', I'll work through the problem with people who struggle. The difference between nerves and talent is blatantly obvious)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#114

Post by ucee054 »

lessnonymous wrote: post #87
logn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the guy who can fix wiring in distributor caps might be able to do that specific task. But maybe it took him 5 years to learn that and a much better candidate who has no clue how to do that could master it in a week and will be fixing those caps at a higher quality. It's also that it's incredibly short-sighted to seek such specific skills in the technology industry with the rate of change in tech. F…

The problem with the analogy is that it's too specific. But I'm still hiring for right now. That you can easily learn next year's technology is something I'd rather you don't do on my time.

Then don't complain that you can't find any candidates.

That's what you employers do: you filter out everybody, so there are left like 3 people in the same continent who fit your arbitrary criteria. Then all of you get into a bidding war over those 3, and most of you find that you can't afford to hire.

Finally, you start whinging about a "talent crisis" and blaming the universities for not producing people with the right skills.

Well you made your beds, now lie in them.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#115

Post by mikle »

tzz wrote: post #39

Interviewer#3: How long you been driving your 2010 Escort? Applicant: About 3 years. Interviewer#3: Sorry, but we are looking for someone with experience of driving 2010 Escort for at least 10 years.

I was witness to the sending of a request for candidates with 3 years of Android experience to HR at 2011 at Intel. They just insisted that two or one isn't enough.

First Android phones were release at 2008.

In other news - I thank god I never were in as bad as interviews as some of you. My worst experience was the interviewer giving up and starting to ask me personal and professional stuff about another candidate to the same position. I guess I did a good job because the other candidate got it, company shutdown withing a year.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#116

Post by lessnonymous »

Cookingboy wrote: post #108
lessnonymous wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the analogy is that it's too specific. But I'm still hiring for right now. That you can easily learn next year's technology is something I'd rather you don't do on my time.

Then you are the one being short-sighted here. A good engineer is a good engineer is a good engineer, someone with great learning aptitude is a great asset for any company. Say you hire someone for today's task, but next year the technology changes and the guy you hired is horrible at learning new things. What do you do? Do you fire him and hire someone for next year's task? What if the old technology still requires…

Of course I'm looking for people who can learn. I'm looking for people who will jump onto Stack Overflow and Google before spending a week reinventing the wheel. I'm looking for someone who writes in a dozen languages (like human languages, someone who knows a couple can pick up more very easily).

But I don't want people learning the "right now" skill on my time.

If I need a PHP developer right now, then I'm going to hire someone who knows it right now. I'll preference someone with C skills and I'll preference someone who participates in an open source project. And I'll preference someone who reads Hacker News. And I'll preference someone who has a great profile on Stack Overflow. And I'll preference someone who attends or presents at conferences.

But if they don't know PHP, they're not going to be learning it on my time as I need someone who knows it right now.

There's no need to feel sorry for my team. The things you read on a Hacker News comment reply aren't the entirety of working for me. Maybe you'll be sitting across the desk from me one day and you'll get to work with an awesome team of talented engineers. Carefully selected.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#117

Post by rsheridan6 »

greendestiny wrote: post #107
codemac wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You post this every time, and I want to decry the astro turfing.. but it's good information, well referenced, and I don't have the background or time to refute anything you've said.

I don't think posting the same information again and again is welcome. The people who might be inspired to debate it simply can't have a discussion about it every time it appears - and it goes beyond wanting to engage with the community and share something and becomes an attempt to manipulate. I'd certainly encourage tokenadult to stop posting it.

He posts the same thing over and over again because essentially the same article is posted over and over again. It all gets pretty repetitive anyway.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#118

Post by ucee054 »

wrecks1 wrote: post #104
lessnonymous wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're hiring 100 people, you still only get the same number of applicants. If you get 100 applicants, you're not going to fill your 100 positions. (Note the "at least 99" in my post) If I'm desperate to hire 100 people and I can't get 100 qualified applicants, that's when I start looking to people who could be the right people in very quick order. I've done that and ended up with some true super stars. But that w…

I think this reveals some of the root of the problem. The interviewers have no incentive for hiring good or great people ("superstars"), but absolutely cannot let crappy applicants inside, under no circumstances, under the risk of losing their jobs. So they just don't care if you are good at what you do, if you can learn fast, etc -- all they care if whether you are not shit and can certainly fulfill the specific req…

There is the option of NOT changing it but switching to a better job than tech

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#119

Post by rsheridan6 »

I just had to interview people for a (non-tech) job who didn't even want it, and who we had no intention of hiring, because of our company's rules about how many people you have to interview before hiring. At least the hiring process described in the post has some sort of point, however badly executed.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#120

Post by lessnonymous »

ucee054 wrote: post #114
lessnonymous wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the analogy is that it's too specific. But I'm still hiring for right now. That you can easily learn next year's technology is something I'd rather you don't do on my time.

Then don't complain that you can't find any candidates. That's what you employers do: you filter out everybody, so there are left like 3 people in the same continent who fit your arbitrary criteria. Then all of you get into a bidding war over those 3, and most of you find that you can't afford to hire. Finally, you start whinging about a "talent crisis" and blaming the universities for not producing people with the r…

Where did I complain about not finding candidates? Where did I whinge about a 'talent crisis'. Nowhere I'm aware of.

At a guess you're projecting other managers complaints on to me. I'm not in the U.S. and don't have these problems.

So you've got actual words from actual me:

* Those three people are worth the bidding war. They're worth 10 times the next rung down.

* I need to fill the position with the best possible person. It doesn't matter that Google et al have take the top people, I still need a new engineer.

* Universities generally suck time and deliver little. Spend the three or four years getting a ton of experience and participating in the community and you'll jump ahead of someone who's passed university, but doesn't have their own project.

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