Why I Won't Hire You • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#31

Post by andreadallera » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #22

andreadallera wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

csomar's response is, IMHO, the right reaction to the blog post author's rambling. What I've found out by experience is that usually recruiters with such restricting requirements aren't ready to back up said requests with the appropriate money. He wants top notch, highly motivated talent. How much is he willing to pay? That's definitely a part of the equation but he's not even mentioning it. If he offers 200-300% the…

A couple of points: - I don't get that he's asking for the moon. He just wants competent people who have a reason to work beyond money and aren't going to be a PITA to him and his team. That seems pretty fundamental to me. Why should it command double or triple an average salary? I don't get it. - The market will decide. If what he's looking for is rare, he'll have to pay more to get it. If it's not, he'll pay the go…

More often than not programmers, even the very good ones, have never learn how to sell themselves. So, they end up working for a fraction of their real value. If this guy ever found someone good via this method, it's almost certainly one of that kind.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#32

Post by asolove » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

zalew wrote: post #11

csomar wrote: post #6

Why I Won't Work For You: Because you are a dick. Now who are you? What are you going to give me in return? Why should I tell you that I love my job and my career. Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that. The hiring should be a lot simpler: - You have a problem. You need someone with the right skills, and hire him. - I have a problem (need money). I pick a job that I h…

Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that. These 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' questions sound like straight from a 'HR for dummies' book. I would really appreciate if an interviewer reading this post explained me what such cliches are trying to test, other than BS skills. Cliche question => cliche response.

(This post is not defending the original article, just discussing this specific comment.)

Having never read an HR for Dummies book, and as a pure technical interviewer, I still frequently ask this question. The point is to not think of it as an adversarial question, like I'm going to mark you off for a bad answer.

It's simply to know how you want your career to proceed. Do you want to be an expert at some specific part of the programming world, an experienced generalist (consultant?), an architect, a manager or product lead, start your own startup, ... ?

This is a very important question for you and your manager to be on the same page about. It helps your manager know how to motivate you and what kinds of work will excite you to move your career forward. And it helps you evaluate via small experiences whether your vision matches up with your skills and what you actually enjoy.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#33

Post by mjwalshe » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #22

andreadallera wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

csomar's response is, IMHO, the right reaction to the blog post author's rambling. What I've found out by experience is that usually recruiters with such restricting requirements aren't ready to back up said requests with the appropriate money. He wants top notch, highly motivated talent. How much is he willing to pay? That's definitely a part of the equation but he's not even mentioning it. If he offers 200-300% the…

A couple of points: - I don't get that he's asking for the moon. He just wants competent people who have a reason to work beyond money and aren't going to be a PITA to him and his team. That seems pretty fundamental to me. Why should it command double or triple an average salary? I don't get it. - The market will decide. If what he's looking for is rare, he'll have to pay more to get it. If it's not, he'll pay the go…

well if he wants people who "aren't going to be a PITA to him and his team" He (and I bet its a he) is going to have to stop presenting as such a PITA to work for.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#34

Post by talmand » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:47 PM UTC

Interesting.

-He expects he won't hire me in the first five minutes? If in the first five minutes I get that vibe I no longer wish to have the job.

-Tailor-made resume for his job? As if people are supposed to create new resumes for every job that they apply for? Get serious. Plus different companies expect different style of resumes since there is no standard and what amounts to close to standard changes every couple of years. What he wants is people to magically read his mind to craft a resume just for him to meet his expectations.

- He won't hire if I can't say why I love my current job? If I love my current job then there's not much reason to leave it, now is there? Plus, he claims to have a BS detector but he seems to be asking for BS from the applicant.

- No career plans or vision? For most people laying out five year plans is BS, which means he won't hire you. What good does such a question do for anyone anyway? Looking back over my career I've only had one job that I actually planned for. The rest are from changes in things I can't control with changes in what interests me.

- I agree with the no skills part. As someone who's been on the hiring side of the table there's nothing more annoying when someone can't back up what's on their resume.

- "Don’t sit there and tell me what you would do in the future. I didn’t ask what you would do, I asked what you did." Um, yes you did, it was two bullet points ago.

- He apparently requires the perfect candidate. I wonder how many people he actually manages to hire and how many of them stay for their "career"?

- He talks of bad advice out there discussing the topic of his post and he seems to assume his will not get lumped into that list. I would say it's the same as any other post on the topic, some good and some bad.

He sounds a lot like the kind of guy that has a high turnover rate of first-year hires who leave for more money and he can't figure out why.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#35

Post by astral303 » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:47 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #24

zalew wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that. These 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' questions sound like straight from a 'HR for dummies' book. I would really appreciate if an interviewer reading this post explained me what such cliches are trying to test, other than BS skills. Cliche question => cliche response.

I'm not from HR, but my guess is that a question like that is for learning whether the candidate is goal-oriented or just goes by living day-to-day. I agree that it's a cliche question, and could be phrased more originally and/or specifically in most cases, but it is not _totallt_ useless.

It's a great question and I ask that question all the time. However, unlike the blog writer, I am looking to weed out those that are looking to become managers soon. If you are looking to get a development job as a stepping stone to a management position in 3 years, then you're probably not a software engineer I am looking for. (One of many factors, of course...)

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#36

Post by minsight » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:48 PM UTC

"If I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding out what you have accomplished, forget it."

Not to worry. I will only work for someone who can manage to conquer problems of scale such as skimming a resume and finding pertinent points. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, we'll eventually have a problem and I'll be better off elsewhere.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#37

Post by ntkachov » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:48 PM UTC

gk1 wrote: post #24

zalew wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that. These 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' questions sound like straight from a 'HR for dummies' book. I would really appreciate if an interviewer reading this post explained me what such cliches are trying to test, other than BS skills. Cliche question => cliche response.

I'm not from HR, but my guess is that a question like that is for learning whether the candidate is goal-oriented or just goes by living day-to-day. I agree that it's a cliche question, and could be phrased more originally and/or specifically in most cases, but it is not _totallt_ useless.

Well, I think it's a bit of loaded question.

What do I say? If I reach to high I endanger my own prospects at being hired. A buddy of mine answered the "see yourself in 5 years" question with "Probably working at Google". Needless to say he wasn't hired.

If I reach too low I sound like a deadbeat. If I answer with something like "Working at the position you are hiring me for" I sound like I have no vision and no drive.

There isn't a right answer to this question. Because the only right answer is "cliche".

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#38

Post by talmand » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:49 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #25

csomar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then talk to me about the advantages of working for you. If I'm to work for you for the money, then state that you are offering $200K/year. If I'm interested in health care, then you should have some health insurance package. A good one probably. I'm skilled, you can see that from the projects I did, worked on, my blog, Github and source code. Then hire me for a couple of months and see how I fit in the team. Certain…

Hiring someone for a couple of months just to see how they fit in the team seems the very definition of "wasting lots of time". Nice for you, you get a few months work. Totally sucks for everyone around you if it doesn't work out.

And yet that very thing is done all the time.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#39

Post by gk1 » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:50 PM UTC

leftnode wrote: post #12

What a completely horrible way to interview and speak to people. No career plans or vision Why would this matter to the interviewer? I just can't get over how ridiculous of an answer he provides. Why would he care what my career plans and vision (whatever that is) are? Who can honestly plot out the next 10 years of their life? Very few, and I'd be wary of anyone who claims they could. I'm not surprised this person is…

I'm not surprised this person is not finding the right candidates for his company, but I think he has no clue why.

Where does he say that he is having trouble finding people?

While I agree that the example he provides is a rare case, it's not entirely a stupid question. (However, as I said elsewhere about other interview questions, it definitely could use a more original approach.) I think many interviewers are worried about hiring someone who is just going to use the company as a year-long hopping stone, and therefore won't be committed.

Re: Why I Won't Hire You

#40

Post by csomar » Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 2:50 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #22

andreadallera wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

csomar's response is, IMHO, the right reaction to the blog post author's rambling. What I've found out by experience is that usually recruiters with such restricting requirements aren't ready to back up said requests with the appropriate money. He wants top notch, highly motivated talent. How much is he willing to pay? That's definitely a part of the equation but he's not even mentioning it. If he offers 200-300% the…

A couple of points: - I don't get that he's asking for the moon. He just wants competent people who have a reason to work beyond money and aren't going to be a PITA to him and his team. That seems pretty fundamental to me. Why should it command double or triple an average salary? I don't get it. - The market will decide. If what he's looking for is rare, he'll have to pay more to get it. If it's not, he'll pay the go…

No. He is being an ass in the way he is stating it.

- You send me a stupidly long resume

- forget it. You have annoyed me

- More likely, I will ignore the whole thing

- If you can’t nail it in one sentence, do I really want to look forward to your rambling emails every day?

WOW. Okay Sir. Something else? Now there is nothing wrong with what he is asking for. Can you tell that politely

- Please send me a short and concise resume. Include x, y, and z. That's what matter for me.

- Long emails won't be read fully, because I'm short on time. I might not answer your email because I get lot of them, and I just can't answer them all.

- This doesn't mean your email is not important. It is. Please send it. We'll be in touch.