Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#31

Post by mooism2 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 10:41 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #26

nailer wrote: post #25

Last year I was interviewed by a company that frequently proclaims they hire the top 1% of candidates. The role was working on infrastructure apps using Python, as a Site Reliability Engineer... The interviewer proclaimed he knew Python. Later, during a programming question, after he didn't quite understand the code presented as an answer, I reconfirmed this. His response, quoting: 'I do know Python, but I'm not fami…

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

I'm not sure how true this is.

Paying high wages to knowledge workers causes them in general to be less productive. The top 1% might rather go for the money anyway. But the top 1% also care about working conditions (more screen space, faster computers, fewer interruptions, etc). Perhaps more than money, after they're being paid enough not to have to worry about money.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#32

Post by scottkduncan » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:02 AM UTC

azanar wrote: post #22

patio11 wrote: post #2

This is one of my favorite Joel articles. The conclusion is relevant to us both as business owners and job seekers: any publicly available job will get spammed to death with offal, accordingly, the best jobs and the best candidates for jobs will both be placed privately. I literally have not had a resume since I read this, with the exception of a pro-forma one to give my ex-job so that they could pretend I was hired…

The best jobs and the best candidates for jobs will both be placed privately. I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, and that you aren't arguing the contrapositive. But I have a couple of data-points from the last few years that make me believe both directions are not necessarily tautological. In the direction of placed privately -> best candidate: a company I worked for some time ago had a developer who…

Great comment, and from my perspective a view that is perfectly complementary to Joel's post. It could very well be that the same people who are firing off hundreds of resumes are also hitting up dozens of their connections to try to find work. As you mention, hiring even one of these people into a role for which they are not qualified, whether through resumes or private placement, could really damage a small company.

When people make a statement like "xx% of all hires are made through private placement," my first thought isn't "wow, networks are such an effective hiring mechanism!" Rather, it's that our other alternatives are frequently so lacking that we rely on "known-unknowns" in the absence of a better method.

Networks are both a strength and a limitation. When you rely on them for hiring you might be able to attract the best candidate from within your set of connections, but if there are 100 people outside your network who are objectively better then you will have missed out. Unfortunately, limitations in our current tools make it very difficult to determine whether those 100 other people are actually out there and, if they are, how to find them.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#33

Post by swombat » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:23 AM UTC

mooism2 wrote: post #31

potatolicious wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

I'm not sure how true this is. Paying high wages to knowledge workers causes them in general to be less productive. The top 1% might rather go for the money anyway. But the top 1% also care about working conditions (more screen space, faster computers, fewer interruptions, etc). Perhaps more than money, after they're being paid enough not to have to worry about money.

Nah, that's not how it works. You're misunderstanding the research in question.

What they found was that paying larger performance-related bonuses caused bad performance. I don't think the finding applies to base pay.

That said, you're probably right that working conditions will be more important past a certain salary level.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#34

Post by psykotic » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:28 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #2

This is one of my favorite Joel articles. The conclusion is relevant to us both as business owners and job seekers: any publicly available job will get spammed to death with offal, accordingly, the best jobs and the best candidates for jobs will both be placed privately. I literally have not had a resume since I read this, with the exception of a pro-forma one to give my ex-job so that they could pretend I was hired…

> I literally have not had a resume since I read this

Every job I've had has been through personal connections and recommendations. That doesn't mean a resume isn't useful. You will likely be interviewed by at least some people who don't know much about you. A one-page summary of your experience and background is a good way for them to prepare. It means you can spend your interview time with each person more effectively, and you don't have to keep repeating the same ten-minute spiel over and over.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#35

Post by nailer » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:29 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #26

nailer wrote: post #25

Last year I was interviewed by a company that frequently proclaims they hire the top 1% of candidates. The role was working on infrastructure apps using Python, as a Site Reliability Engineer... The interviewer proclaimed he knew Python. Later, during a programming question, after he didn't quite understand the code presented as an answer, I reconfirmed this. His response, quoting: 'I do know Python, but I'm not fami…

If you think you're hiring the top 1%, but you're not paying at top-1% levels, you're probably not actually hiring the top 1%. That's my main takeaway anyhow. Extraordinary people command extraordinary compensation - if you can't cough up the cash you're not going to get to play.

I find that people who are truly good actually love what they do. I don't know if I fit in that category, but I remember walking to work a few weeks ago thinking about one particular project: 'if I wasn't here I'd be doing this for free'. That said, I'm paid above average for the industry.

The best combination of passion and reward I've ever seen has been small hedge funds and quant shops. They're smart, love what they do, and have equity and fat bonuses. I've been lucky enough to be both work with and be rejected by these guys and it's one of the few cases where I truly believed the 'one percent' angle.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#36

Post by notahacker » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 11:40 AM UTC

kaerast wrote: post #20

If you're hiring then this may hold true, but it doesn't fit with my experience of contracting. Whilst the best organisations are looking to contract out to the best people, there are many companies looking for the cheapest subcontractor for short-term gains.

Companies hiring for many roles will discard most or all candidates that fall into the top >20% bracket at the earliest possible stage because they're obviously going to be more expensive, likely to move on to another role earlier and/or likely to prove a "poor cultural fit" if they start debating decisions made by a less capable and experienced lead or manager. Some people are looking for session musicians rather than rockstars.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#37

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Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#38

Post by billybob » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 12:18 PM UTC

mduerksen wrote: post #19

For similar reasons, every programmer thinks he is the top 1% - including me ;)

I sure don't. Personally, my outlook swings between "I'm so awesome, look at what I made" to "I am an idiot - why am I in this field?" The latter comes when I'm 2 hours into a debugging session and still stumped, or when I'm looking at code written by somebody famous, or when I get an explanation of some concept or piece of code and I still don't understand. (Rebuttals: debugging is actually hard sometimes, and that coder is famous for a reason, and maybe the explainer isn't doing a god job.)

In my rational moments, I figure that 1) I'm smart enough, but not the smartest, 2) I can always improve, and 3) I should focus more on doing my best and less on comparing myself to others.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#39

Post by wisty » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 12:45 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #33

mooism2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how true this is. Paying high wages to knowledge workers causes them in general to be less productive. The top 1% might rather go for the money anyway. But the top 1% also care about working conditions (more screen space, faster computers, fewer interruptions, etc). Perhaps more than money, after they're being paid enough not to have to worry about money.

Nah, that's not how it works. You're misunderstanding the research in question. What they found was that paying larger performance-related bonuses caused bad performance. I don't think the finding applies to base pay. That said, you're probably right that working conditions will be more important past a certain salary level.

I think older workers are less likely to be fooled by "cool toys", but all geeks want a system that they can be productive on.

As a Python programmer, I care more about hard drive speed and a nice monitor, but if I had to compile C++ I would kill for a faster CPU, and more RAM.

Some things boost moral and make workers more productive, so the employer benefits twice.

Re: Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1% (2005)

#40

Post by edw519 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 1:06 PM UTC

In fact, one thing I have noticed is that the people who I consider to be good software developers barely ever apply for jobs at all.

Good point. The best developers I ever hired were (a) already working, (b) not looking, (c) referred, and (d) without a current resume.

Therefore, the people who I consider to be good software developers probably don't have a current resume.

Therefore, the top 1% of good software developers probably don't have a current resume.

Therefore, if you have a pile of current resumes, it probably includes none of the top 1% of good software developers.

Therefore, if you're hiring from current resumes, your probably not hiring the top 1%.

[The only thing worse than sloppy probability and statistics is sloppy logic. But that's OK, because I'm not in the top 1% of either.]