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

Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 794 posts

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#121

Post by AndyNemmity »

PainfullyNormal wrote: post #89
svillar wrote: post #80

Lots of great comments here; My thoughts on this as other Seniors have pointed out (and I am a Senior myself) 1- I have not looked for a job since 2014, every job since came through my network. Then the interviews were basically friendly meet&greets but super informal, not a single coding test or take home assignment - note than I always started as Tech lead/Architect. I put in the hours and took pride in my work, ha…

> Then the interviews were basically friendly meet&greets but super informal, not a single coding test or take home assignment I have 20 years experience and this is completely alien to my experience. I've gotten lots of job referrals over the years, but all it did was get my foot in the door. From there, it was the standard interview process with whiteboarding and take home tests. What am I missing here?

Not sure. The majority of comments from Seniors with 20 years of experience so far (including myself) are of the same type.

Friendly meet and greets that are informal, no coding test or take home assignment.

My best guess is your job referrals aren't from senior level people, while ours are. The CTO is the one who wants me. Or the top Senior who has control of the process.

But I'm just guessing. The norm for me is informal conversation.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#122

Post by nindalf »

corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

> If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you.

Just wanted to back this up a little bit. This is exactly what happened to me on my last job search.

I was interviewing with 5-6 companies. It didn’t make sense for me to spend a whole weekend for a chance at an offer from a single company. Instead I spent that time brushing up on design. In hindsight that was the right call.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#124

Post by AndyNemmity »

angarg12 wrote: post #68
potamic wrote: post #17

Good, experienced people would usually have built a decent network for themselves over their career. As seniority grows, you will find them less and less applying for new jobs, and more and more relying on their networks for new work. And if they are good, they very likely are sitting on open offers from well known ex-colleagues that they could take up at anytime. You will do much better to tap in through your own ne…

This should be the top comment. Many senior, great engineers aren't looking, and when they do, they usually don't just apply to job postings. You need to overhaul your hiring process for Senior+ folks. Tap onto your network, encourage existing employees to refer candidates, or otherwise just reach to prospect candidates.

This is the right answer. There are a level of people that exist as Senior+ people that anyone they've worked for or with would take in a heartbeat. They'd move mountains to have you.

Those people are not part of your talent pool if you put up barriers to entry for them. I understand those barriers exist to keep unethical people out, but that's just the trade off you have to accept with barriers in.

You're not going to get top class people.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#125

Post by AnimalMuppet »

corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

Yeah. They're looking for seniors, but they're treating them like juniors. Then they're surprised that they can't find any seniors.

You want actual seniors? Seniors have options. You have to be a place that seniors want to work, want more than they want to work somewhere else. Take home code assignments don't fit anywhere in that.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#126

Post by valbaca »

Post the salary range. It's 2022, you can't just say "Benefits and salary are good " That is absolutely meaningless.

You're wanting ~6hrs investment (30 call, 1hr interview, and 4hr+ assignment) for an offer? NO thank you.

Why the scare quotes around "DevOps"? Is it DevOps or not? These words do mean things and matter.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#127

Post by bombcar »

jhot wrote: post #93
matwood wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's against company policy to put the range in the ad. Very very stupid, but probably nothing I can do about that. This is already against the rules in CO and soon WA and NYC. Your company may as well get use to posting ranges. Ranges are also thought of to lead to more equitable outcomes for those working at the company.

I am in CO and saw one ad that had a link to a special page on their website to "comply" with this regulation. It was a blanket statement that salary can be between $20k (can't remember the low end but it was something like that) and $1MM based on position and experience. I was very put off by that and did not apply. I didn't take the time to look into the legality of using a blanket statement like that but it seems…

The legality is "not so much" but for smaller companies they can get away with it (because small companies are unlikely to have defined titles and bands to begin with).

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#128

Post by justrudd »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #121
PainfullyNormal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then the interviews were basically friendly meet&greets but super informal, not a single coding test or take home assignment I have 20 years experience and this is completely alien to my experience. I've gotten lots of job referrals over the years, but all it did was get my foot in the door. From there, it was the standard interview process with whiteboarding and take home tests. What am I missing here?

Not sure. The majority of comments from Seniors with 20 years of experience so far (including myself) are of the same type. Friendly meet and greets that are informal, no coding test or take home assignment. My best guess is your job referrals aren't from senior level people, while ours are. The CTO is the one who wants me. Or the top Senior who has control of the process. But I'm just guessing. The norm for me is in…

For me (20+ year club):

1.) Senior Dev referred me, and they had a remarkable relationship with management - informal chat and offer that afternoon

2.) Senior Dev referred me, and they had a normal relationship with management - regular interview

3.) CTO referred me - informal chat with them and the CEO, offer letter handed to me at the end of the chat with the CEO.

So I've found that it really depends on who is referring you and what type of relationship they have with the person that controls the money.

edit: fixed formatting.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#129

Post by rmk »

The 4h take-home will narrow your funnel a lot. Most senior people will not do a free 4-hour take home. Try replacing it with a 2-hour interview by 3 people (that is, three 40-minute interviews each). One interviewer can do a hypothetical design question and the two others can do a programming question each. These do not have to be very difficult, but only to ensure that you are not hiring an architecture astronaut. If they can code and can explain a coherent design + some followup questions, the hiring manager can do a resume deep-dive and behavioral questions (all 4 people must be alert to behavioral cues).

EDIT: For a devops person, you could do one programming interview, one design interview, and another interview of various subject-specific technologies including networking, access control, alerting/monitoring and database management.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#130

Post by toss1 »

My first question would be to look at the steps in your hiring process as a series of filters.

Do any steps that have either a larger drop-off than the others or a larger drop-off than in your past experience? What is the reason for the drop-off, are applicants dropping out/ghosting you, or are you rejecting them?

Do you have any data or insight on firms competing for these applicants? For example, are you putting in place an obstacle such as the 4h take-home assignment that your competitors do not have? Are you not posting compensation when your competitors are? Might these be subtracting more value than they add to the process?

Post reply on HN