IRC is terrible. It's a bad protocol and the user experience is pathetic for almost all clients.
It's true that we sadly don't have a significantly better alternative, but that doesn't mean one can't have good reasons to avoid it.
IRC as a Hiring Filter
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
" very technical person has never seen it before and has trouble with the irc commands " technical person having trouble with the irc commands - isn't that oxymoron?
No. If you don't use it regularly, there's a lot of commands to learn. It's not hard per se, but I wouldn't want to be judged on it within a few minutes of being introduced to it.
Two. /connect and /join. Maybe /quit afterwards.
Irssi will lift your nickname from the username. It may even come with freenode pre-configured.
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#33I feel like it would easy to rewrite this post with a focus on just about any other arbitrary technical metric; like, say, how you host your blog. I mean, hosting your blog on squarespace? Isn't that like using some kind of basic, user-friendly chat service instead of IRC? What kind of real developer isn't deploying something to AWS or linode these days?
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#34I haven't used IRC since middle school, back when I was 31337. Way back from the days when there was a leading '3.' It's great you mention 'being a prick,' because that's what I said out loud as I read your article. I was tickled by the fact that you mentioned it, so I do respect that you know your strengths. This might work for you, and for the projects you work on, and I think it's not a bad recommendation for posi…
If people judged me based on my IRC behavior, I would be in big trouble. I'm pretty sure staying off IRC when I moved to a 4-year college was a good choice for me (circa 2000).
That said, experience causing net splits by CTCP flooding #quebec on undernet was helpful for understanding a situation where Erlang/OTP pg2 was flooding itself into oblivion. :)
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#35Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#36I know that as recently as about five years ago, Google recruiters were contacting people being helpful in the C++ chatroom on Freenode.
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please provide evidence for your assertion.
If your filter is based on the irc, and the number of people there is declining, basically it means that only the most hard-core users are remaining. And usually that means that they know how to use it.
It means they know how to use IRC, yes. It does not mean they're better at anything else.
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#38This is one of those tests where it's a positive if the applicant passes it, but if they don't, you can't really hold it against them. Good for you if you've found one of the true old-school hackers, but not, it doesn't mean they are a bad candidate. Simply a different kind.
It's a pretty easily pattern to fall into - people who work like I do must be pretty smart because I try to do what works best. It's hard to evaluate someone whose mindset and approaches are different than your own. But when you've been around for a while, you realize there are so many different ways of solving problems and areas of expertise that there's no one right answer.
So ultimately, I don't think these kinds of filters are that useful. It's basically a yes or no question, where a "yes" reinforces your existing biases and a "no" doesn't really gain you any information.
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#39One (of the many) problems with using IRC as a signal is that it's biased towards people with large chunks of predictable free time.
I spend a lot of time communicating with people online, but IRC isn't a channel I use. The problem is that I have a family that naturally consumes a lot of my time. That means I don't control when I'm available to communicate. I get a decent amount of total time, but it's in bits and pieces spread throughout the day (mostly early morning or at night).
That's perfectly fine for asynchronous communication like email, SO, here, etc. But it doesn't work for synchronous things like IRC.
So, using "are they on IRC" as a hiring signal, I believe, effectively punishes people who have families, busy work schedules, or otherwise complex lives. In other words, I think it ends up favoring affluent young people. That's not something I'd personally be keen on biasing for in my hiring process given how much of an advantage that group already has in technical jobs.
Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please provide evidence for your assertion.
If your filter is based on the irc, and the number of people there is declining, basically it means that only the most hard-core users are remaining. And usually that means that they know how to use it.
@munificent as the title of the post states IRC is a filter.. filter used after candidate is selected from a pool of people that have necessary skills, other than using IRC.. The author simply talks about selecting from this pool people that can use simple tools like IRC.
Filter does not mean barrier.