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

We Only Hire the Best

m.signalvnoise.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 209 posts

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#131

Post by tomjen3 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #85
jazzyk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public service pay cuts? Not really. This is for CA, but other states are not too far off. http://publicpay.ca.gov/ And don't forget life-long pensions at 80% salary. How many distinguished engineers make anywhere close to these amounts (whether public or private)? Close to zero.

Gazing over the top thousand salaries, the great majority seen to be medical workers in prisons. Which is pretty firmly in 'Nazi doctor' territory, so far as I'm concerned.

I am almost falling out of my chair reading that comment. The only way a US prison doctor enters nazi territory is if they are doing a live donor liver transplant between twins.

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#133

Post by anotherhacker »

asb wrote: post #11

Corp: "We only hire the very best" Programmer: "What's the salary?" Corp: "Market average. Also, we're looking for people who aren't just motivated by money"

Yep.

I called BS on Chris Dixon on this on Twitter and he blocked me. It was when he and Paul Graham were arguing that "not enough (good)engineers exist for startups, so we need to import more". I was arguing that plenty of great engineers exist, you just have to pay for it.

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#134

Post by fu9ar »

LargeWu wrote: post #21
leroy_masochist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want people who are motivated by the mission .

If the mission is feeding starving children, or curing cancer, or public service, then yes, I want people who are motivated by the mission. But usually the mission, the real mission, is to make the founders exceptionally wealthy, and forgive me if that doesn't get me out of bed in the morning.

Human service workers, biomedical researchers, and etc. still need to make a living too. The problem is that a small sector of the people in the world are being ridiculously greedy.

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#135

Post by tomjen3 »

Yhippa wrote: post #69
johngalt wrote: post #37

Experience tells me that hiring posts that demand this level of excellence are often covering for weaknesses in their process. "We only hire the best!" The best at what? "The best at everything of course. We want a full stack wish fulfillment genie." Either you have no idea what skills are missing from your current team, or they are all missing, and you want to fill that gap with one person rather than a team. Job po…

Here are some of my favorite lazy hiring manager practices: * asking for "everything but the kitchen sink" skills * confusing Java with Javascript * even mentioning J2EE in the requisiton (who on Earth wants to do that in this day and age?) * copy-pasting of the requisition leading to truncation of the posting

j2ee makes sense if you need somebody to mentain your existing code.

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#136

Post by [deleted] »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #51
stillworks wrote: post #19

The best line I heard "we don't hire a$$$holes". That's a check-mate statement. I think to myself what if I don't get selected :-( . I did get selected only to realise they hired people down the line whom I'd consider rectal orifices. Can't catch a break really...

"We don't hire assholes!" ... "Our company is founded on an engineering mindset in which the best ideas always win and people are encouraged to candidly speak their minds!"

[deleted]

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#137

Post by jamisteven »

briandear wrote: post #67
dmh2000 wrote: post #28

Joel wrote this same post about 10 years ago. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

Ecclesiastes 1:9 -- The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

wtf does this have to do with anything

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#138

Post by bthallplz »

LargeWu wrote: post #121
bthallplz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that I am a cash-strapped philosopher king with a grand vision for my business, how might I sway people to take the vision seriously and work towards the fulfillment of the vision?

I'm assuming the vision you're trying to sell is to make the philosopher king wealthy. (Your stated vision is probably irrelevant.) You need to make your employees' incentives align with that proposition.

Oh OK. What if we assumed that the vision is not concerned with making me, the philosopher king, wealthy?

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#139

Post by JOnAgain »

anotherhacker wrote: post #133
asb wrote: post #11

Corp: "We only hire the very best" Programmer: "What's the salary?" Corp: "Market average. Also, we're looking for people who aren't just motivated by money"

Yep. I called BS on Chris Dixon on this on Twitter and he blocked me. It was when he and Paul Graham were arguing that "not enough (good)engineers exist for startups, so we need to import more". I was arguing that plenty of great engineers exist, you just have to pay for it.

You mean Google will pay me 3x in total comp and I (mostly) get my evenings and weekends off? I also get job security beyond the next funding round?

Re: We Only Hire the Best

#140

Post by ArkyBeagle »

whatever_dude wrote: post #22
stillworks wrote: post #19

The best line I heard "we don't hire a$$$holes". That's a check-mate statement. I think to myself what if I don't get selected :-( . I did get selected only to realise they hired people down the line whom I'd consider rectal orifices. Can't catch a break really...

The "No assholes" rule should really be the #1 rule when hiring. I've heard a lot of complaints from friends and family in the tech industry over the years, as I've had my own issues. While details vary, it always comes down to the acting up of one obvious asshole or another. It infects the whole team/company/project. In the long run, a team of average but positively motivated people more often than not beats a team…

So there's no interest at all in lighting up the assholes?

Pity; its great sport. What, you think you'll be fired?

Post reply on HN