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We only hire the trendiest

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Re: We only hire the trendiest

#391

Post by bbarn »

ghurtado wrote: post #303
Grishnakh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I wasted time interviewing some overqualified people too (because of salary/location expectations that should have been communicated up front). Well that's your own fault as the job advertiser, and when I say "you", I mean almost all companies that advertise jobs. You almost never state the salaries to be paid, so tons of peoples' time gets wasted by pointless interviewing which gets followed up with insultingly…

You must be a joy to interview.

Actually, this is exactly the type of person I like to interview. One that's already thought ahead and read the posting and decided if it was even close to a fit lifestyle-wise for them, and technically.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#392

Post by euroclydon »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #306
euroclydon wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a hiring manager at a mature healthcare software company. Productivity is my number one concern. Among regulatory overhead, testing, and legacy compatibility, a developer has to work hard and smart to move the ball forward here. Teams are lean. A single unproductive developer will cause us to miss the scheduled release date of a feature.

There are a number of buzzwords in your comment that cause me to doubt its veracity. Without getting into an extended debate about exactly how you detect this productivity in a candidate (something even the best tech firms openly admit is extremely hard to do), the best thing is just to agree to disagree.

I didn't say I could detect it in the hiring process -- far from it actually. I just said that I care about productivity, as a counter point to your claim that most companies do not care.

I can't agree to disagree about being called a liar. Can you be more specific about which "buzzwords" cause you to doubt which of my claims?

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#393

Post by taurath »

bjt wrote: post #347
steego wrote: post #270

Daniel Kahneman talks about an idea called substitution in his book Thinking Fast and Slow that I think really applies here. Here's the jist: When your brain is faced with doing a task that's going to require a lot of glucose it will look for shortcuts to save you energy. One of those shortcuts is your mind will look for an available heuristic, swap out the energy hungry analysis for the heuristic, and then signal yo…

I think you're right about the mental shortcuts, but the main effect I see at play in the article is about misaligned incentives. It's in the organization's interest to hire the underrated, but it's not in the HR recruiter's interest to do that. If the recruiter refers a candidate who looks good on paper but turns out to be a bad hire, no one's going to blame the recruiter. But every time recruiters have the engineer…

I liken this to a government contract seller - nobody will ever get fired for choosing IBM/Microsoft/BigCo as a vendor if it fails, but you certainly can for choosing that small shop that can usually get stuff done faster.

Cover Your Ass isn't a good incentive pattern when you're trying to hire engineers, which is hard enough already. At the same time, its really difficult to balance the time. My trick (and I think this is common): interview anyone that comes in on a referral within reason.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#394

Post by mcdowall »

stirno wrote: post #225
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an U.S thing where this kind of division has sprung up - so you have contractor ("temp", "paid less") full-time employee consultant ("paid more")

There is a pretty important distinction here -- We have seen in the US consulting market (at large corporations) an influx of 90s style contractor arrangements for staff augmentation. This is basically the counter to failed outsourcing efforts. These contractors almost entirely work for large groups like Robert Half, Tata, Infosys, Tek Systems and others. We also still have a very very strong consultant labor force m…

I'd classify it into three groups for the UK...

Perm - Mid level benefits + Pay (maybe options in a startup)

Contractor - Individual with their own Ltd company, pays less tax and much higher take home pay but without any benefits.

Consultant - On-site via a supplier on a framework of some kind, however, often a permanent employee of the supplier with the supplier cashing in the margin.

At least 50% of the tech workforce in companies I work with or where peers are at in London are made up of contractors, especially in Banking.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#395

Post by hinkley »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #173
phpnode wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think cubano is referring to the mindset that "it's better to skip over 100 good people than to hire one bad apple" which is very silly but a common attitude in certain kinds of organisation.

It really depends on what 1 bad apple is, that it is someone that is not the most productive but is still productive and don't completely harm whatever they work is seems too much but often that is the meaning in use.

I've had this problem when it's time to adjust headcount (smaller, or trying to swap people out to get more done).

I'll keep the Eeyore person that self selects tasks and issues that are of low complexity (say, 2 on a 5 scale) than the self confident idiot who keeps asking for 4/5 stories when they're really only good at 3/5 on a good day.

That jerk is creating 5/5 stories that I have to burn myself out on (they are either notably quiet or loudly in denial when this happens). I don't care how much project management or the marketing guys like him, even an empty desk would be better. At least an empty desk is predictable.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#396

Post by awinder »

munificent wrote: post #378
grandalf wrote: post #345

I've found that the best predictors of a good hire are indications of the following characteristics during the interview/vetting process: - adaptability -- can this person deal with situations that are spontaneous and unplanned without losing his/her cool. - openness -- is this person instinctively scornful of new concepts/ideas or energized by the chance to be exposed to something potentially interesting. - resource…

> - rationality -- can this person admit to being wrong and speak about it authentically... can I imagine this person admitting to being slightly wrong and even very wrong about something and handling it gracefully. I think this is a super important characteristic for a great employee to have, but I don't know how reasonable it is to expect to see much of it in an interview. In an interview setting, the candidate is…

On the rationality point, I've definitely been one to talk openly when asked about times I've failed / would have done something differently. I've looked at it as a no-loss scenario: if I'm talking with a company and they can't accept that no one is perfect, then I'd rather not work for that company anyways.

Interviewing in a sense is kinda like dating, one way to really screw things up is if you're both looking for different things. If you're both trying to get into a fling, then yeah I guess lie your pants off and have unreasonable expectations of each other. If you're looking for long-term match, just lay your cards on the table and if you match, you match.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#397

Post by taurath »

beachstartup wrote: post #364
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got asked "what happens when you hit return in the browser?" After I had traced from the keyboard driver through libraries and runtimes to the browser event system, then back down thru the network layers to sockets, then thru IP events to land a packet on the remote router, they called a halt. Apparently nobody had actually answered the question before. IMO Its a good exercise for problem-solving, and plumbs experi…

well yeah, it's just one question. programming and devops proof is in the pudding. we just ask for code samples and a walkthrough, and go with our gut. maybe a few technical procedure questions. in my experience it's the other things that will make or break an employee, like whether or not they have an actual work ethic, or is a closet drug addict, or gets too drunk and touches women inappropriately at company events…

If you have personal problems with people - check references. People will rarely state that such a person who causes problems is a "joy" to work with.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#398

Post by brown »

jayhuang wrote: post #368
grandalf wrote: post #345

I've found that the best predictors of a good hire are indications of the following characteristics during the interview/vetting process: - adaptability -- can this person deal with situations that are spontaneous and unplanned without losing his/her cool. - openness -- is this person instinctively scornful of new concepts/ideas or energized by the chance to be exposed to something potentially interesting. - resource…

Great points, though out of curiosity, could you expand on the last point? As someone who has always topped performance ratings, gotten along well with colleagues (many of my past co-workers are close friends now), and provided meaningful to significant contributions to all the projects I've worked on AND has a reputation for having a poker face, I'm a bit concerned that it would be as bad as an "instant do not hire"

Not the OP, but I would have used the word "caginess" or "excess self preservation".

You don't want to hire a shark who's going to work against you.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#399

Post by goodplay »

grandalf wrote: post #345

I've found that the best predictors of a good hire are indications of the following characteristics during the interview/vetting process: - adaptability -- can this person deal with situations that are spontaneous and unplanned without losing his/her cool. - openness -- is this person instinctively scornful of new concepts/ideas or energized by the chance to be exposed to something potentially interesting. - resource…

I think mentioning these points upfront is a great way to give potential employees some idea about what kind of environment they should expect and whether they will be a good fit or not.

To me, at least, having this kind of information would immensely help me narrow down my list of possible employers.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#400

Post by mikehollinger »

grandalf wrote: post #345

I've found that the best predictors of a good hire are indications of the following characteristics during the interview/vetting process: - adaptability -- can this person deal with situations that are spontaneous and unplanned without losing his/her cool. - openness -- is this person instinctively scornful of new concepts/ideas or energized by the chance to be exposed to something potentially interesting. - resource…

re: poker face - I would reword this to "communication style" - does this person communicate in a style that I (and my team) can understand?

Being open may depend on cultural norms, more than a "poker face." It's definitely a warning sign that Bad Things might happen in the future.

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