How to hire low experience, high potential people • Hacker News Board

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#41

Post by smeeth » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:57 PM UTC

People's intuitions around hiring aren't Bayesian enough. I think a good process reduces down to something like:

- Are they smart? (understands quickly + communicates effectively)

- Are they cool? (won't put poison in the keurig + pleasant to be around)

- Are they high energy? (initiative + action bias)

- Do they have the experience needed to be successful in the role?

Those are pretty strong priors for success. If you find someone with all the above, you've got an ~80% chance of a hit. No need to over-complicate.

In my experience, adding more boxes tends to index towards box-checkers who grew up wealthy. That's how you miss the hyper-smart/diligent state school kids who happened to spend their summers working instead of doing model UN.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#42

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

"dance monkey dance!!"

was hoping for something insightful...

we are truly in the worst timeline.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#43

Post by the_mar » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

notpachet wrote: post #18

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when the…

"working on ambiguous organizational problems" is pretty much what I do. What's that gotta do with my childhood?

I hate personal interview questions with passion, because I had an unusual upbringing, and I don't want to make it my entire personality. So with questions that personal you are either going to be forcing me to lie (and yes, I have had to make up a version of my life story that's not traumatizing to the listener) or you are coming out of that interview with an opinion about me that has very little to do with how I operate professionally.

You can absolutely get a read on one's potential to do a job xyz without asking personal questions.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#44

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

apwell23 wrote: post #26

Hiring low experience doesn't make any sense because most places the salary difference is not worth the risk. Its just not a good deal for an employer.

Low experience correlates with young people, who are more likely to be healthy and less likely to have a family. The benefits cost saving can be large.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#45

Post by captainbland » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:58 PM UTC

You wouldn't need to hunt so hard for someone who was "hungry" if what you were hiring for was meaningful work. As it goes this diseased process is the result of abstract BS profit hacking being a huge part of what people are hiring for.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#46

Post by siva7 » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

I'd quit such an interview. Those questions are going over the boundaries of a strictly professional relationship. The thing with low-experience, high-potentials is that they may be bit more insecure than seniors and therefore might think that such questions are normal which they are not.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#47

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

flerchin wrote: post #11

Aka interviewing for culture fit.

Aka veiled/implicit discrimination.

Edit: why disagree? If you're ensuring cultural fit, that is discrimination. There are arguments to that discrimination being beneficial to the organization. The individuals may not see it that way.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#48

Post by Xelbair » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

notpachet wrote: post #18

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when the…

>It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when they absolutely can't be.

That's not really the core issue. Those are possible things they could use to manipulate me. I won't be giving them ammo for free. I wouldn't share those things easily on a first date, why would i share them with potential employer?

Especially as a "unconventional" hire, because finding job is hard in such state, so they will have me metaphorically by the balls.

My perspective might be warped by working in post soviet country.

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#49

Post by throwaway98797 » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

finnthehuman wrote: post #27

notpachet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the role you're hiring for. I suspect a lot of comments in this thread, echoing your sentiment, will be written from the perspective of sharp-end-of-the-stick engineers for whom the idea of working on ambiguous organizational problems is an abstract concept, far from their day to day. Not saying that's you per se, but this is HN after all. This crowd loves for things to be clear-cut, especially when the…

I don’t think “oh haha aren’t engineers robotic personalities” applies here. Fucking nobody I know gives too much of their real personality at work, let alone when interviewing. But “haha aren’t all engineers only friends with other nerds and barely live in the real word” so what do I know?

i’m weird as hell at work

i slowly show more and more of my personality

not right for everyone but i prefer being me even if it costs $$$

Re: How to hire low experience, high potential people

#50

Post by danielvaughn » Wed, Feb 07, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #7

> “Tell me about you. If your life was a book, give me the chapter titles from your birth till now.” Once you’ve gotten the overview, dive into each “chapter” and plumb the depths for their real stories. Go back to their childhood! I learn a lot about their grit and commitment to excellence from their basketball obsession or maybe their experience caring for a dying parent. I don't think I'd be comfortable sharing th…

I've noticed a trend where the lower the position, the more invasive the questions become. I think it's a power dynamic - they can ask the questions because they know the applicants are more desperate.

For example, before I was an engineer, I was scraping by on odd jobs after the 2008 crash. Around that time I applied for a job at Red Robin (basically a fast food restaurant for those who don't know).

One of the questions was a huge list of various types of people - a priest, a school teacher, a police officer, etc. There were like 50 of them. I had to rank them by how "moral" I considered them to be. Aside from that, there were a bunch of other pseudo-psychological questions that tried to gauge my personality.

All for a job paying $8/hr at a fucking fast food restaurant.