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We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

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Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#371

Post by CaptSpify »

orf wrote: post #3

> We like to think that we’re different from all those industries that judge people based on appearance, but we do the same thing, only instead of saying that people are a bad fit because they don’t wear ties, we say they’re a bad fit because they do, and instead of saying people aren’t smart enough because they don’t have the right pedigree… wait, that’s exactly the same. This is a great quote and an interesting poi…

Additionally: I find it hard to judge a place's definition of "casual" if they aren't fairly explicit. I've worked at places where "casual" meant "hooray, you don't have to wear a tie!" and other places where casual meant "it's a good day if you can't see your co-workers underwear".

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#372

Post by nostrademons »

oculusthrift wrote: post #334
psadri wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think google did a good job of this in the early days. They got the word out on the street that their interviews were notoriously difficult. That probably dissuaded a lot of the random applicants. I also read somewhere that some big bank (Goldman) just has a very circuitous, lengthy application process and the main point of it is to weed out the spray and pray applicants.

i’m pretty certain google is the most applied to company in the world so not sure if that holds up

I think that really started around 2005 when they made a concerted effort to ramp up college hiring (and by extension, started advertising among the general public).

I knew someone who worked there in 2002. (Well, now having worked there, I know lots of people who worked there in 2002, but in 2002 I knew someone who worked there.) At the time, they were a small startup with a reputation for hiring only the best, the way you might think of Medallion or D.E Shaw now. There wasn't a perception that you could just walk in off the street and get a job like in The Internship movie.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#373

Post by flamedoge »

jacurtis wrote: post #340
Blazespinnaker wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, your filtering mechanism is irresponsible. I'd recommend relying less on resumes and more on referrals from a trusted network.

The downside of hiring only from "trusted networks" is that you are building an echo chamber. If you care about diversity (as most companies like TrendCo claim to) then hiring only referrals from your trusted network is likely to lead to entire teams of people that ARE JUST LIKE EACHOTHER. When I talk about diversity I refer more to diversity in viewpoints and experiences, than I do to race, gender orientation, sex,…

Also, vetting process needs to be immune from incumbents helping candidates pass..

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#374

Post by tlogan »

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

I 100% understand and I was doing the same.

Your approach is ctually the problem. Hiring should be very very important - maybe even the top priority. The two most important things in the company should be: hiring and sales.

In that respect, you need to invest into hiring in same was as you invest into sales. For example, sales have much much better heuristics algorithms while hiring is all about weird and random rules.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#375

Post by markshead »

alskdfji wrote: post #232

This was the most depressing part to me: "Another person I know is in a similar situation because his group won’t talk to people who aren’t already employed." It's a long story, but both my wife and I have most recently been at places, in a small-medium city, that have had huge turnover in the last several years due to mismanagement (her entire unit, except for her, left twice while she was working with them; we've l…

Typically if you have an organization that only talks to people with current jobs, that rule is for people sending in cold resumes. On the other hand, if they know who you are, you probably won't have the same filters applied.

Let's say you go ahead and move and take time off to watch your child. Two years down the road you want to start looking for work. What you've done with those two years is going to really matter. If you've invested time in activities like writing about your field, speaking about your field at conferences/meetups, creating an online course about your field, contributing to related open source projects, teaching a class at a university, etc. you are going to be in a very different place than someone who just checked out for 24 months.

Being currently employed sends certain signals to a prospective employer, but there are other things that can send much stronger signals. The unknown is still going to be scary and I don't know your field, but your Ph.D. can probably open a lot of doors to make yourself visible to market.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#376

Post by daniel_reetz »

jacurtis wrote: post #344
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trusted network is even worse for bias; at least from my experience with shops that have tried both. It's how you kill diversity, arrest your growth, and let fallow the connections to recruiting pipelines that might help you escape once you realize how deep you've gotten.

Exactly, i argue that trusted networks are the easiest way to build bias in a company, kill diversity, and establish an echo chamber.

You also tend to reconstruct failed teams. I've worked at places where people hired all their old friends who (collectively) failed to deliver on the last big promise, or executed poorly. You end up spending your referral bonus money on rebuilding cliques and their biases toward failure.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#377

Post by watwut »

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

If you are so flooded by resumes, you really should be more specific in your job ad. By that, I mean you should describe the position you look to fill I details, including uncomfortable parts.

People will self select way more. As is now, many job ads work as something attempting to sell position - but you are flooded by people you don't want (else you would just pick 5 random to interview).

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#378

Post by zentiggr »

beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

Honest question - how does this relate to some of the anecdotes in the OP - where someone referred to recruiter/HR as a desirable hire by a current employee gets denied because ?

That's the real kicker in the whole article... when "We want this person!" doesn't work because crustimoney proseedcake.

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#379

Post by jgust »

einarfd wrote: post #367
beat wrote: post #275

So here's the thing... hiring at larger, growing companies often means weeding through a stack of a hundred resumes, for one or two or five roles. Most of those resumes need to go away. The interview process, for competent candidates, is going to cost you at bare minimum a half hour of one person's time for initial screening. A quality interview is going to take a couple of hours each for a few important people - man…

> I consider it evidence of carelessness - I don't care if you can't spell, but I do care if you don't bother to run it past someone else who can for editing. Getting someone to look over your stuff and looking for spelling errors sounds like a simple and easy fix doesn’t it? But in my experience that doesn't work as well as one would think, prof reading is a lot harder than it looks. After all it's isn't enough to c…

Did you misspell prof(sic) to make a point, or was that a happy accident?

Re: We only hire the best means we only hire the trendiest (2016)

#380

Post by jstewartmobile »

humanrebar wrote: post #353
jstewartmobile wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Service requirements. Even employers who are vets are terrified of this one. Hire a guy, he gets deployed just a week after he starts, you have to keep his seat warm, then when he's back several months later he's taken a job somewhere else...

Is there insurance for this sort of thing? Seems like an external risk that needs to be mitigated somehow.

There are alternative risk markets where you can get insured for just about anything, but it's still a cost that gets disproportionately shouldered by employers of young men.
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