Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business • Hacker News Board

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#31

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:00 PM UTC

auctiontheory wrote: post #17

Here's the thing: for the typical job listing, there are dozens, or hundreds, of applicants. Maybe more. You do not have the time to do a full-fledged investigation of every one of them, or bring them all in for a lengthy interview. You just don't. You need some filter to reduce the number to something more manageable, and degree/school is a straightforward way to do it. Also recognize that 99% of jobs, even technica…

Filters should be created and maintained based on their efficacy, not on how easily they can be applied.

Yes, it's impossible to interview every applicant, but a company focused on minimizing time spent and resources used instead of maximizing recruitment of employees who can create the most value is doing it wrong.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#32

Post by mindcrime » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #15

mindcrime wrote: post #7

Interesting stuff. Personally I'm from the camp of people who don't put a lot of stock in credentials. I wouldn't go so far as to say they carry no weight, but I certainly don't weight them particularly heavily, especially if I have anything else whatsoever to go on. And to the extent that I do care about, say, a college degree, I definitely am not of the mindset that "You have to have gone to an Ivy League school, o…

As for the Bay Area, I've consistently been impressed by Cal Poly SLO guys I've met. Their education is so much more practical and real-world-ready than my Ivy League engineering education (which was largely theoretical in nature).

I mean, I have nothing against Ivy League schools, or their graduates. And I won't even say that I think they are overrated so much as I think other schools, and their graduates are underrated. I also think there are a lot of other factors that affect the extent to which someone is a valuable employee, beyond sheer academic ability. Attitude, work ethic, personality, ambition, perserverance, cultural fit, etc. Net-net, my personal belief is that a firm can hire recruiting largely from schools that are not the famous, elite "top tier" schools, and still hire plenty of smart, talented, successful people.

Maybe time will prove me wrong, but we'll see...

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#33

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:11 PM UTC

auctiontheory wrote: post #17

Here's the thing: for the typical job listing, there are dozens, or hundreds, of applicants. Maybe more. You do not have the time to do a full-fledged investigation of every one of them, or bring them all in for a lengthy interview. You just don't. You need some filter to reduce the number to something more manageable, and degree/school is a straightforward way to do it. Also recognize that 99% of jobs, even technica…

At the same time, positions go unfilled and those managers complain they can't find anyone qualified enough...

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#34

Post by columbo » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:15 PM UTC

One thing I absolutely do not agree with is Bryan Caplan’s laughably narrow-minded view on people that do not attend college.

Not everyone turns 18 and suddenly has everything they need but simply decides not go to because, like, non-conformity, man!

It is just as likely that happened. Is someone who decided to raise an unexpected child a non-conformist? The oldest child staying home to work because the breadwinner in the family died... clearly that person is a non-conformist.

Are you serious?

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#35

Post by tkahn6 » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:23 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #12

Worked pretty well for Google, no? While reading "In the Plex", one fact stood out: nearly all of their early hires were well-respected CS figures from 1st grade universities. Not only you had to be smart, but you had to have good grades from a good school to get hired by Google early. The only exception I could find was Salar Kamangar. At least that was my impression from reading the book.

Also in "In the Plex" they talk about how Google kept a record of everyone's SAT scores and GPA and alma mater and found no correlation between those things and skill/quality/productivity/effectiveness.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#36

Post by itcmcgrath » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

sscalia wrote: post #3

HR departments are largely the problem. Even if you have a savvy, dynamic, progressive team in a large company - looking for coding/sales/marketing savants - HR will typically not even pass candidates resumes if they don't have a BA/BS etc.

We're not a large company at only 1100 people, but our HR department is excellent. Not only do they help filter for us (I received about 100 applications for a Product Manager position recently), but they also allow us to see all the applications if I want to go spelunking and ignore the system designated ranking.

In short; not sure I agree with your generalized statement. I'm sure there are cases where it is true.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#37

Post by epochwolf » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

columbo wrote: post #34

One thing I absolutely do not agree with is Bryan Caplan’s laughably narrow-minded view on people that do not attend college. Not everyone turns 18 and suddenly has everything they need but simply decides not go to because, like, non-conformity, man! It is just as likely that happened. Is someone who decided to raise an unexpected child a non-conformist? The oldest child staying home to work because the breadwinner i…

I think it's an honest view into his mindset and the mindset of a lot of other people. They view these people as non-conformists and don't see a difference between choosing not to attend college and not being able to afford[1] attending college

[1]: Afford in time, energy, money or other resource, not strictly money.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#38

Post by kenko » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

columbo wrote: post #34

One thing I absolutely do not agree with is Bryan Caplan’s laughably narrow-minded view on people that do not attend college. Not everyone turns 18 and suddenly has everything they need but simply decides not go to because, like, non-conformity, man! It is just as likely that happened. Is someone who decided to raise an unexpected child a non-conformist? The oldest child staying home to work because the breadwinner i…

For that matter, is someone who went to trade school or got an apprenticeship or went into a manufacturing job a nonconformist?

Equally laughable is the idea that "going to college signals conformity to organizations that want you to be a conformist in order to work there".

Right, that's exactly what going to, say, Deep Springs, or St. John's, say, signals. I signalled conformity by going to a school with a rep for weirdos and grinds, and concentrating in something widely agreed not to have much direct relationship to the business world (and which has an observable correlation with disputatiousness and disrespect for ipsedixitry)---of course!

It's true that going to college is the default option for people in the middle class or above (or who wish to join the middle class or above), but it's simply fallacious to conclude that if you don't go to college you don't go out of nonconformity. Your action doesn't conform, but that doesn't in any deep sense make you a nonconformist. (The person who decides to raise an unexpected child might well be very much a conformist.)

Caplan strikes me as one of those people who can't distinguish between the novel or unusual and the praiseworthy.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#39

Post by sscalia » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

itcmcgrath wrote: post #36

sscalia wrote: post #3

HR departments are largely the problem. Even if you have a savvy, dynamic, progressive team in a large company - looking for coding/sales/marketing savants - HR will typically not even pass candidates resumes if they don't have a BA/BS etc.

We're not a large company at only 1100 people, but our HR department is excellent. Not only do they help filter for us (I received about 100 applications for a Product Manager position recently), but they also allow us to see all the applications if I want to go spelunking and ignore the system designated ranking. In short; not sure I agree with your generalized statement. I'm sure there are cases where it is true.

"System designated ranking" - you lost me there bud.

I'm sure your HR department, and therefor - you - are ignoring some outstanding candidates.

It's cool though, we'll hire them.

Re: Defaulting to hire on credentials will put you out of business

#40

Post by ismarc » Thu, Apr 11, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

The one piece of data that having a college degree communicates is that the person with it did something they didn't have to do, it took longer than a few months, and it involved a wide variety of tasks. As such its a useful way to prove you can do something that takes a long time to do. I agree however that there are people who haven't chosen to do that who have shown that ability in other ways. And there are people…

Things I use that signal the same thing that a college degree (in any subject) does: Military service, long-term contributions to an open source project (even if it's their own and no one uses it), long-term personal projects (such as restoring a car, being in a band, participating in a gaming group) and being employed at a single company for 3+ years. None of these things are easy and rosy the whole time, there's conflict, potential disillusionment, the luster wears off of them and they require real work to accomplish (you can't just kinda half-ass them). For younger developers (sub-25), a college degree (even an associates) of some sort is the most clear on paper before you've had a talk with them. However, you can easily find out if there's anything like that by asking them what they do for fun and leading into things not directly related to their potential position (I typically lead with an example of how I like to work on cars, so I buy a classic car in bad shape and fix it up over 3-4 years, sell it off, then repeat).