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Hire people who aren’t proven

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Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#141

Post by snowwrestler »

daveslash wrote: post #113
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

I agree with you, but I'd like to add to the "did you treat any diseases in high school". I knew someone in high school who wanted to be a doctor. She didn't cure any diseases or perform surgery, but she did read all that she could and was fascinated by medical-themed tv & movies. She had been inspired by her pediatrician when she was young. She did't treat people before becoming a doctor, but from early on she had t…

Sure, I didn't mean to imply that there aren't people who are passionate from a young age about being doctors--there certainly are!

But, I think it's not taken as a necessary attribute within the medical field. There are a lot of great doctors who didn't decide to pursue medicine until college, or maybe even later, and as a whole the field seems fine with that.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#142

Post by mixmastamyk »

wafflesraccoon wrote: post #106
collyw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cares about what though? Building simple,solid, maintainable software that does what it is supposed to? Or cares about chasing every new fad, has ten frameworks listed on their resume and is currently midway through the machine learning / blockchain hype? I care about the former, but plenty of people would see that as having little "passion". For example, I don't have any experience using NoSQL databases on my CV, be…

After programming professionally for several years now I'm always shocked to hear that people program for fun in their free time. Once I get home from work, the last thing I want to think about is writing software.

True, but am able to get excited about something that "scratches an itch," or will improve longterm productivity. Your commute might also be killing some enthusiasm, I know it did when I went in to the office.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#143

Post by morgante »

snowwrestler wrote: post #29
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

> But in most high-end professional fields, that's not true.

Many of the top people in other fields also have a strong passion for the field, which came early.

Ex. top lawyers usually love the law and many had experience with related areas (ex. debate) from high school. I know plenty of high school students who are very excited about medicine and do things like volunteering at a local hospital or helping a professor with research.

Early passion shouldn't be a requirement, but it's certainly a good indicator. I've never found someone who is only in tech for the money to be particularly good at it.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#144

Post by AlexandrB »

namanyayg wrote: post #94
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art. Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more invest…

> Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more investment. If we lived in a society where access to resources required for practicing those careers would be easily available to teenagers, we would see young high school students do that too.

This is not true at all. I was fascinated by bugs, cells, and other bio stuff as a kid and a decent microscope is not that expensive. The fundamentals of being a doctor - biology, chemistry, observation - are well within reach of teenagers. A lot of medical knowledge is also freely available. Obviously no one expects a teenager to successfully perform surgery, but teenagers also aren't expected architect operating systems used by thousands of people.

> I don't think you're making a fair analogy here, there is basically no way a high schooler could even _attempt_ treating diseases but it's very possible for a high schooler to program 6-8h a day and learn.

Again, not true. Treating a little sibling's cuts and bruises is well within reach of most people. It's really a question of being around people who get hurt more than average - having an energetic, younger family member provides a lot of opportunities for treating small injuries. As does volunteering as a coach/mentor for little league sports.

The more interesting distinction is that doctors generally don't build anything. They diagnose and fix. So, while a teenager into programming can show off a webpage or a game they've been working on, a precocious youngster who knows how to treat wounds, set breaks, inject insulin, and identify a stroke doesn't have a cool portfolio of projects to show off.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#145

Post by calferreira »

I don't think that the hiring process in terms of what you need is that hard.

You just need to hire people that match your company culture, matching the skill set you need for a given salary range.

Hiring someone who blends well in the company culture is half way there.

Now, if there's someone that matches this line of thinking in the pool of talents, is another story.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#146

Post by jarsin »

getaclue wrote: post #56
jarsin wrote: post #45

I think tons of experienced people that love programming moved on because of the "Google Interview". You got all this experience and love making stuff for users, but you don't know the "insert trick of the week" to solve the latest "elite" programming question. Bye Bye. No more jobs for you.

Interesting view point. Haven't thought about it like this before. Anecdotally, I am finding more of these people in indie development. Making their own thing or working with like minded people. I used to look to Google/Facebook for experts and people to follow. Now, I look elsewhere.

Yes that is my experience as well.

Indie = recently unemployed, experienced dev making dream project.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#147

Post by namanyayg »

Xylakant wrote: post #107
namanyayg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art. Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more invest…

> and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos) This is maybe not out of reach for an average teenager, but it is definitely out of reach for quite a substantial portion of the population, the poorest percentile might just not have the time to dabble in programming. They might have to take care of siblings, work for a living or to pay for college later.

I agree, and I was trying to phrase my comment in a way that makes it clear (but failed!). You are right, doing CS in high school requires some amount of privilege.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#148

Post by cbg0 »

Sometimes it feels that even being "proven" isn't enough for a lot of companies that expect you to happen to know the six programming languages they put in their job ad, because if the ones you do know don't match up the recruiters will assume you're not a good fit regardless of your years of experience.

I do agree though that YMMV, and some companies are better than this and accept that you might be capable of picking up new languages and technologies.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#149

Post by lvh »

There's a critical kernel of truth here that I want to point out: work-sample tests. The longer I spend building teams, the more I am convinced: there are people who do WSTs as a way to qualify applicants, and there are people who just aren't serious about hiring.

It's easy to write a WST for simple things, like "can you literally write a computer program that does this trivial straightforward thing". It's hard to write WSTs for things that feel fluffy, like "can you manage a team". But here's the thing: as long as that fluffy thing feels fluffy, what that really means is you haven't bothered to figure out what success looks like for that role, and you couldn't even evaluate that person let alone hire for them.

There's a company in Indy called Woven (http://www.woventeams.com/) that'll do it for you, too. I have no relationship with them other than that they're nice people who are trying to unfuck hiring.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#150

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

namanyayg wrote: post #94
snowwrestler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff. But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. "Did you code for fun in high school?" might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily. But in…

Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art. Doctors, and most other professions, cannot be practiced without a lot more invest…

> Doing software development in high school requires a computer (even a ~$400 that is shared with the family is sufficient), interest, and time (so one can spend hours required reading tutorials/watching videos). Basically, nothing too much out of the reach of your average teenager -- with the exception of interest/dedication to the art.

I grew up in the country, got the internet in grade 9 on a 28.8 connection over a single land line (so my time was very limited), had a computer that couldn't load the QBasic help files (it didn't have enough RAM), and our town library was painfully out of date. I never got past basic "if/else" as there were no resources available to me, so I quickly gave up. It's become much easier to get access to all these things, but my answer to "Did you code in high school" has to be a "no". It's funny to me that we assume that developers are young enough to have had youtube in high school.

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