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

Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

polyfill.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 233 posts

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#141

Post by yupper32 »

jenscow wrote: post #116
harshalizee wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about if the take homes are fun or not. Far too many companies have varied take home tests that can take an hour or a 40-hour work week only to be ghosted after submission. I don't partake in any asymmetric interview processes, and many places are happy to let me skip it. I'm happy to sit on a zoom call with one of your engineers for a couple of hours and do whatever they want me code in that time. I'm just…

So if I asked you to do to a 1-2 hour coding task, you'd only do it if I were on a zoom call with you while you did it?

Yes. Put in the time with me to show you're serious. Otherwise you could mass spam candidates, most of which you don't actually care about.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#142

Post by yupper32 »

gsibble wrote: post #120
pjmlp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be sorry, I wouldn't apply to your company, and you would be lucky to even get a reply from me if contacting me on the typical social networks for developers. Sorry.

No worries. Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic.

> Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic.

Ouch. I knew I saw red flags in your original post. This seals the deal.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#143

Post by ipaddr »

gsibble wrote: post #117
WkndTriathlete wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to the candidate. If you (and the candidate) cannot communicate well enough in 30 minutes to discover that then either (a) you don't know enough to work well with a really good developer or (b) the developer doesn't know enough to work with you or (c) both are true. I have never been let down by this rule, either as a candidate or an interviewer. In my experience coding exercises as part of an interview process…

Trust me when I say I've talked to plenty of candidates who I thought were great only to learn they couldn't actually code fizzbuzz. Talking to candidates doesn't work.

You might not be good at judging candidates. A good cto uses their gut and experience. An inexperienced or someone who doesn't have the gut uses tricks. Where do you fit?

Have you taken any courses or worked with professionals to help you with this?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#144

Post by Ensorceled »

JJMcJ wrote: post #82
Ensorceled wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> threat of getting fired if I don't immediately live up to expectations I also try to fire fast and every single time the issue is that they do not actually have the skills they listed on their resume. That's why the coding test and that's why you need to fire fast. I have all kinds of patience for good people that need ramp up time.

You need to have a very very clear idea of what the new hire will be doing when they start. Plenty of companies assign people badly and then act all surprised that they don't have a Plug Compatible Interchangeable Engineer. https://kidneybone.com/c2/wiki/PlugCompatibleInterchangeable...

> You need to have a very very clear idea of what the new hire will be doing when they start.

Yep. My latest hire started a few weeks ago and I had a back log of pretty simple tasks that were well within their wheelhouse and a dedicated mentor to help bring them up to speed.

I've been on the receiving end of gruelling "sink or swim" initiations that were called "onboarding"

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#145

Post by sys_64738 »

gsibble wrote: post #137
sys_64738 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want programmers to do tricks and silly initiation dances which is your whole problem. If you actually asked real questions about their experience then you’d get a good grounding. I might do silly problems for a high profile employer but that’s likely not you. In which case if I tell you to stop wasting my time and walk out of your attempted initiation ritual then you won’t like it.

No worries.

Your tone speaks dividends about how you view programmers. Often when you ask why something is hard then you’re the problem, not them.

Edit: FYI. The OP changed their initial reply from the condescending combative response to that below.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#146

Post by zac23or »

It is not so difficult. People make it difficult.

I have been working in the development area since 1999. Starting with Delphi, today I work with Ruby and Python. I've worked with Java and Lisp. And many other areas like security and DevOps. I worked in large companies and startups.

And after 22 years, I can say... the recruitment process is a shit show at ALL companies. It gets humiliating. Some examples:

1. A company offered me an offer after just one interview, ... 1/3 of my current salary. WTF?

2. In another case, in the technical test I emailed, in Rails, the reviewer said "You didn't create a validator and you didn't test 100% of the code" Of course I did the validator... I was offered a new test, but I thought it was a bad sign, so I stopped the process and thanked for the opportunity.

3. In another company, I did "a lot of unit tests" 4. My boss doesn't hire a very good candidate because he uses Visual Studio for the online interview, and it was a sin for him to use an MS IDE.

5. For a specific job, my boss only hired women with deformities (no hand or foot, limp, etc.), as this type of woman does not suffer sexual harassment (of course it is not true).

6. I already took a graphology test for a job!

7. "You called Model.find_by_name, we don't use it here, you need to call Model.find_by name: value"

Some people say "it's normal" about these crazy processes and defend it. They suffer from Stockholm syndrome.

Every time I get an offer on Linkedin, I don't politely accept it as I don't want to go through any crazy process again. And I didn't even mention the work environments...

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#147

Post by Ensorceled »

bpicolo wrote: post #87
Ensorceled wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people with side/brochure projects, my "take home" tests are always "add these simple features to your git hub project xxx". Often it gets done the same day. Otherwise, I'll do something simple, on a shared screen in the language of their choice. It shouldn't be hours and hours and, ideally, it's a win/win.

Not being facetious here - if they have notable github projects, why do you want a new feature versus viewing or talking through something they've already developed in one of them? Why is the novelty important? The shared coding screen is definitely the most common method. And the one I've found most folk prefer. There won't ever be a one size fits all solution, but ideally your interview methods are equitable across…

> if they have notable github projects, why do you want a new feature

It might not actually be their project.

> but ideally your interview methods are equitable across all candidates

My candidates are not competing with each other, the tests do not need to be "equitable" between candidates, just fair for that candidate.

One problem, for instance, with github projects is that it's a fairly privileged position to be able to have significant side projects. So it's not fair to expect a candidate to have a github presence and you would be eliminating people without a lot spare time (single parents is the go to example).

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#148

Post by ipaddr »

gsibble wrote: post #120
pjmlp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be sorry, I wouldn't apply to your company, and you would be lucky to even get a reply from me if contacting me on the typical social networks for developers. Sorry.

No worries. Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic.

Care to list your company so others can avoid a place that calls someone out for work ethic when the cto doesn't get his way?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#149

Post by radicaldreamer »

glouwbug wrote: post #139
nawgz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I can live out the rest of my days with ... $200K-$500k annual salary” Sorry, but this isn’t “living out the rest of my days with” money, this is a top 5-1% pay range you’ve just suggested. I don’t necessarily disagree with your point but anyone who needs a $500K salary clearly is not financially independent

I'm from Canada. I make ~$100k/yr at the moment. It's considered a top 10% salary. I am content. Top 1% here is ~$200k/yr. It's a lot of money, but not a lot of money is needed frankly for the average Canadian. I don't think I'll ever reach $200k/yr+, so the $100k/yr I'm at I'm thankful for. Mind you, I'm not including housing. Housing in Vancouver in Toronto require I make more than $200k/yr which further solidifies…

The problem with housing in Toronto and Vancouver is that like many other commonwealth countries, Canada isn't particularly strict about shady foreign money entering the country and driving up asset prices (in fact, it seems they welcome it).

This is similar to why London real estate is off the charts expensive for the people who live there... this still happens in the US, but it seems like a smaller deal relative to the size of the economy and banking regulations around things like proving source of income are a tad stricter.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#150

Post by radicaldreamer »

nawgz wrote: post #130
gsibble wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bay area, a $500k annual salary is really not that much in the grand scheme of thngs.

It's literally an elite salary. It makes no sense to imply you're living a frugal, simple life if you need an elite salary to do it.

It's all relative to cost of living (including taxes) and asset prices... even in relative terms though, it is possible to save a lot in the Bay Area if you're not consuming at the high end or have your eyes set on real estate.
Post reply on HN