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We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

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Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#131

Post by dominotw »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged.

When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another.

Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews.

This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring some humility and kindness to tech interviews.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#132

Post by logfromblammo »

sotojuan wrote: post #30
draw_down wrote: post #13

My team does take-home project, a small problem to solve that should take at most a couple hours. It's the same problem for every candidate so we're judging them on common work. It's not real work, it's made up. In interviewing discussions in places like HN, there is enough pushback against this idea, which is a bit surprising to me. I thought a few hours work was reasonable when I was interviewing. But my point is t…

I think two hours for a small take-home project is reasonable. Otherwise the applicant would spend two hours in your offices anyway, right? More than two hours, though, and I can see the problem.

It would be acceptable if the results of the project were sufficient to make a hire/no-hire decision.

If I do one two hour project, and either get an offer letter or polite refusal in response, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But no one does that. They would be fools if they did.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#133

Post by cableshaft »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

He did say it was something they could do in their off time, so they could still keep their old job while they worked on it, and they'd get paid for their time too. I think that's why it's 3-8 weeks, because some people have more time to work on it and some people less.

I don't think it's great necessarily, and certainly not great for everyone (some people really have very little free time outside of work, kids, and other responsibilities) but I also don't think that's bad. I actually wouldn't mind the side income from such an endeavor right now.

There is also the potential legal problem of people working under contracts that don't let them do side work, which is also a legitimate argument against this approach.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#134

Post by cableshaft »

dominotw wrote: post #131
maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring…

That's pretty much every job though. You're generally watched and judged more closely when you first start out anywhere, and it relaxes after you've proven yourself. Even if it's not happening overtly, you can bet it's happening. And not just from your boss, but from coworkers as well.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#136

Post by ghaff »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

He does go on to say that it's 10-20 hours per week that they can do on nights and weekends for which they are paid. That said, I don't really disagree with your basic point. Under the appropriate circumstances, some limited paid contract work can make sense. For example, for an industry analyst job, we used to ask for writing samples. In retrospect, asking them to write something on a specific topic (and paying for them to do so), might have been a good approach. But 100+ hours of audition does seem awfully high to me.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#137

Post by Spooky23 »

maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

It's amazing that you'd go through all sorts of hand-wringing to supposedly eliminate (or at least claim to feel bad about) bias, and then put people through a mandatory process to basically go back to square one. You're implicitly excluding mid career employees with actual obligations, single mothers, people with obligations outside of work, and people who work for companies with contracts that assert copyright for work performed outside of work.

If anyone asked me to do an "audition" contract job on nights and weekends, screwing up my family life and my professional job that I'm still obliged to perform, I would laugh heartily before hanging up. Even in a unemployment situation, I'd get stuck with a more complicated tax return, and be faced with a future of similarly douchey behaviors to follow.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#138

Post by atonse »

dominotw wrote: post #131
maxaf wrote: post #127

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or,…

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring…

This is one of those examples where a totally well intentioned move is completely misunderstood.

What is the purpose of an interview? To see if someone's a good fit and works well with you. Interviews don't tell you that. Working with the people fixes that.

At least these are paid contracts. It's one thing if they were unpaid, then sure, yes it sucks. But it's the equivalent of doing a freelance gig for a couple of weeks to see not only if they like you, but if YOU like working at that company.

You can evaluate working at a company, get paid to do it, and find out all the pitfalls BEFORE you leave your existing job. What could possibly be so damn disgusting to you about this?

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#139

Post by OpenDrapery »

jrs235 wrote: post #117
bdavisx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, me too, midwest huge insurance company. From what I've seen, there are very few people in mid to upper management that think developers are anything more than a cog in the machine (and only 1 who's ever stated that 'publicly') - I'm looking to leave after 11 years - I've given up on it changing.

As stated several times over the years, particularly on HN and by patio11 (edit: or was it Joel on Software? Perhaps both?), work for a profit center not a cost center. The internal software to run insurance companies is a cost center. It is in managements interest to reduce and keep costs down... that's detrimental to what you do. Working on a software product or Saas is a profit center. What you are making is to be…

Yeah, hear ya. Anyone know of any opportunities that match this criteria (profit center) in the Columbus, OH area? I've recently moved here for family reasons, and while there seem to be plenty of opportunities, they are all within the banking, healthcare, insurance verticals, or they are shrouded in mystery behind middleman tech agents. I have not found an easy way to do a search on indeed.com to bring the "profit center" jobs to the forefront.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#140

Post by gargs »

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis

I guess that's another, more polite, way of saying that 'we require that you don't need any kind of work permit sponsorship'.

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