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Hire people who aren’t proven

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Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#251

Post by AlexandrB »

mirko22 wrote: post #135
parthdesai wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about when companies these days exploit the term "caring"? I like programming as much as the next person here but i'm not going to code 80 hours a day. I also like going to gym and working out, riding my bike, playing soccer and hanging out with friends. Companies these days expect you to have side projects or contribution to popular open source libraries while having a job. Oh and did i mention asking you q…

On the other hand imagine how much you would learn if you could spend all you gym and bike time learning computer science and other things (not saying you should but the more time you out into something usually you know more about that thing). Also I think knowing data structures is essential cos you are using them ALL the time you just don’t know it cos you never bothered to learn them. But they are corner stone of…

> On the other hand imagine how much you would learn if you could spend all you gym and bike time learning computer science and other things...

Probably a lot less. Exercise is associated with better mental acuity and reduced risk of mental deterioration with age[1].

Edit: Oh, and if you instead trade sleep for learning you're shooting yourself in the foot as well[2].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951958/

[2] http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits...

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#252

Post by chrisseaton »

sharemywin wrote: post #66
chrisseaton wrote: post #13

I don't see how 'hire people who aren't proven' can be compatible with 'can this candidate do the job'. You want to know if they can do the job, but you aren't interested in any proof for that?

30-50%(used to be 90%) of any programming job is doing crap you didn't know how to do before. If they have a proven track record of figuring things out experience is minimally valuable.

> If they have a proven track record of figuring things out experience is minimally valuable.

I can't understand this point of view at all.

When Google wanted to build the world's best JS JIT they didn't hire anyone who was generally able to figure things out - they hired the person with the most experience in building dynamic language JITs in the world. Experience is everything! Experience is knowing which rabbit holes to not go down, knowing who to speak to when you need help, what ideas haven't been tried yet, etc.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#253

Post by arkades »

luckydata wrote: post #207
arkades wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, med schools are taking the opposite tack. Because reading books and watching TV shows about medicine are so wildly divorced from the real thing, and because so many kids are really launched towards medicine by their parents, "I always wanted to be a doctor" is considered a (mild) red flag: it's an indicator that someone is pursuing the field based on childish fantasies rather than a rational, adult decisi…

You can absolutely become a doctor for the love of taking care of people that are sick and help them overcome a bad situation. Many of my friends displayed a caring side very early on (middle school).

> become a doctor for the love of taking care of people that are sick and help them overcome a bad situation

That’s the fantasy. And, hey, when it pops up, awesome - it’s a very energizing moment. However, most medicine has absolutely nothing to do with that day to day. The day to day is subject to Pareto’s Law. A surgeon may occasionally get to “take care of the sick,” but 80% of the time they get to do a five minute chart review of an obvious gallbladder passed along from the ED, a cookie cutter GB removal, and an uneventful recovery that involves a daily stomach poke and the same handful of questions they ask every other post-op pt on the floor. Medicine is a technical profession.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#254

Post by titanomachy »

EnderMB wrote: post #102
alfredmuffin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the market is saturated Unrelated to your point and this thread, but can someone share some data/evidence on this? (not that I am denying it)

I'd be interested in hard data too, mostly because it seems absolutely true across multiple stacks. In my own experience, junior development salaries have dropped in the last decade and the number of people that apply for roles has increased significantly, to the point where at my last employer we had hundreds of people apply for a .NET role, and not just local people either - people were willing to move for what was…

This might indeed be true in your slice of the market, but in top firms in USA I think new grad compensation has never been higher. Top students with good summer internship experience can easily bag 150k in their first year, even more for those who manage to time competing offers.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#255

Post by throwaway8879 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #240
dev_dull wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody looks for someone passionate for the job. Why would CS be any different?

Personally I am not a big fan of the word "passionate" as the number 1 attribute for employees. I think there are better words like competence, commitment, empathy, independence, maturity, etc. There was a time some while ago (as I blow mental dust off my college literature studies) when "passion" was not a word that carried wholly positive connotations. It came with implications of things like irrationality, moodine…

What exactly does empathy have to do with CS?

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#256

Post by rpedela »

ConcernedCoder wrote: post #238
rpedela wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you tell the difference?

How can you tell the difference between products/services made by someone who makes said things out of the sheer love of making them vs. someone who only makes said things when compensated properly? -- one word: QUALITY

How do you tell the difference in an interview or a medical consultation? We aren't talking about products.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#257

Post by throwawaymath »

lvh wrote: post #149

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 wr…

It would be great if you could convince large tech companies to use work sample tests, but I just don't see that happening. So in that sense maybe work sample tests can be a differentiator attracting candidates that don't want to spend a few weeks doing Leetcode prep every time they look for a new job.

On the other hand work sample tests also have drawbacks. I don't know if they're actually that much better than regular interviewing methods; I think they just contribute an orthogonal signal instead of a stronger one. I don't feel I can cheerlead them as much as you do in your first paragraph.

I think in an ideal world companies would allow candidates the option of choosing either their work sample or their resume-blind, standardized interview gauntlet. People with a lot of interviewing anxiety could self-elect a work sample option. But if you impose a work sample on every candidate I think you'll reduce your pool of available hires.

I was offered a work sample test recently and was told to spend about a week on it. I started working on it a little bit the first day and really enjoyed the exercise. But I was also interviewing with at least five other companies at the same time; I simply didn't have the time between work and traveling for onsites to really commit to the work sample.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#258

Post by arkades »

plurgid wrote: post #232
arkades wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, med schools are taking the opposite tack. Because reading books and watching TV shows about medicine are so wildly divorced from the real thing, and because so many kids are really launched towards medicine by their parents, "I always wanted to be a doctor" is considered a (mild) red flag: it's an indicator that someone is pursuing the field based on childish fantasies rather than a rational, adult decisi…

> you can't become a doc for love of the profession, because it's a profession you can't test drive oh, I don't know about that. It's like a 6 week community college course to become an EMT. There's a test drive for you. There are 2 year programs that will get you a nursing license. You can get a taste of the medical career path without going the full MD route. Maybe not as accessible as coding, but it is accessible.…

> It's like a 6 week community college course to become an EMT. There's a test drive for you. There are 2 year programs that will get you a nursing license.

EMT and nurse aren’t “mini doctors,” any more than doing video game QA is “mini programming.” It gets you near the profession, it doesn’t put you into the shoes.

I don’t know how to articulate this. The job that requires about eight years of post-grad training, including four of them as heavily supervised on-the-job training with slowly increasing responsibilities for 80-100 hrs/week, is wildly different than the job that you can start doing in six weeks. Working in the same setting as a physician is no more “test driving” what it’s like to be a doc than being a secretary at a hedge fund is test driving what it’s like to be a hedge fund manager.

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#259

Post by 666lumberjack »

bvm wrote: post #249
ravenstine wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tends to be lacking in potential candidates? Dunno if you can know this if you're using a recruiter, but I'd be curious.

YMMV but numbers of them! we offer good salary/benefits etc, but on the whole senior and mid-level devs seem to be contracting for our tech stack (React/Node) and that's a path I'm not particularly keen on going down. edit: if anyone reads this and wants a job, I've put my email in my profile.

Are you open to Juniors?

Re: Hire people who aren’t proven

#260

Post by user5994461 »

bvm wrote: post #179
SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies these days don't really come to a hault if they're in need of a few developers My small company has had to put our biggest contract on hold since July after having 2 senior developers leave in quick succession. We're burning through cash and have only just this week managed to find a replacement for one of them. I've almost gone down the agency route (again) but the fees are pretty hefty for a team our si…

I feel your pain. Trying to hire perm in London at the moment is a real challenge, even with a recruiter. Contractor rates are obscene (5-8x perm). Recruiting and retaining is what keeps me awake at night over and above any tech issues that I'm working on.

How little are you paying your dev that it can be 1/8th of a contractor?

Even the cheapest dev I have ever met in London wasn't as low as 1/5th of the most expensive contractor I have met.

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