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We only hire the trendiest

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Re: We only hire the trendiest

#441

Post by mikerichards »

jasode wrote: post #32
pingec wrote: post #9

Is the anti windows/.NET bias really that common? I have been a .NET dev for 6 years because that was my job. But I don`t believe that makes me useless on any other stack. In fact lately I desire to work on something that feels exciting and fresh again but sometimes I feel like .NET devs are looked down upon and it`s not so easy to land a job or contract outside .Net land.

>Is the anti windows/.NET bias really that common? ... I feel like .NET devs are looked down upon I don't have evidence of a wide random sampling of "trendy" employers but based on anecdotes[1][2], I think it is. Many trendy companies (a.k.a. "hot startups") overwhelmingly favor a Linux + open source stack. If the hiring managers at these companies see a resume with just ".NET/Winforms/WPF/ASP.NET", they perceive a n…

Many trendy companies (a.k.a. "hot startups") overwhelmingly favor a Linux + open source stack

Actually, it's Mac on the desktop, Linux on the server.

If the hiring managers at these companies see a resume with just ".NET/Winforms/WPF/ASP.NET", they perceive a negative signal.

Run, don't walk, from doomed companies like that.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#442

Post by ChuckMcM »

I have seen this effect in action and it is why I don't have trouble hiring quality engineers in the Bay area. Of the last 15 or so people I've hired I only had one not work out and that was due to their extended family situation making actually working really really hard for them.

That said, it can be ridiculously hard for a lot of recruiters to figure this out. I have worked with good ones (who seem to be formerly technical), bad ones (who seem to be "people persons"), overworked ones (who seem to operate much like a random decimation of the input stream would work). Another comment here on HN identified jobs as a 'matching market' which is a thing I had not heard of before. I've started hunting down good references on how folks analyze such markets.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#443

Post by olavgg »

UK-AL wrote: post #154
stegosaurus wrote: post #120

I tend to agree with most of this (university, GPA, subject, blah blah blah). Bits of paper that are signals of arbitrary things (family standing, ability to take on debt, country of birth). Anti-Windows bias doesn't really feel like an example of 'pedigree' to me, though. I can't imagine programming on Windows. I can't even imagine using the OS. I moved away from Windows ~a decade ago and haven't looked back - it se…

Speed of setup, and a standard stack everyone knows. You don't argue over which email server you use, you just setup Exchange. You don't argue over nginx, apache, etc just use IIS. It's also configured quite well out of the box, where as Linux you spend several days getting it all configured to perfection. When you just want to focus on the business problem at hand, I find it brilliant. Where as in other stacks you g…

> It's also configured quite well out of the box, where as Linux you spend several days getting it all configured to perfection.

Uhm, no. Most distros comes with sane defaults, perfection is something you work hard with to achieve on both Windows and Linux. Counter-Example: how to run get max performance out of 10Gbps Ethernet on Windows.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#444

Post by elipsey »

grandalf wrote: post #418
elipsey wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> - poker face -- does this person seem to be playing it close to the vest in the interview or otherwise have very low levels of openness? By nature I am pretty open, and not especially competitive. While my credentials are not great, I have been praised by certain mentors for other desirable attributes in this list: open mindedness, humility, pragmatism, adaptability, willingness to collaborate, and “growth mindset…

The scenario you describe has happened to me as well, and it's one reason I've come to value the attributes I listed. It is very common for non-technical people to be impressed by that kind of bravado. It's usually a sign of a corporate culture where some of the wrong characteristics are valued across the board. Do you really want to "win" in that culture? I know I don't.

>> Do you really want to "win" in that culture?

Nope. OP has a good reminder about not seeming evasive in interviews, and maybe this is more of a problem if you're in the wrong place anyway.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#445

Post by grandalf »

awinder wrote: post #396
munificent wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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…

> If you're looking for long-term match, just lay your cards on the table and if you match, you match

This is an excellent point. If someone does this I view it as a signal that they are intelligent, rational, and honest.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#446

Post by rntz »

grandalf wrote: post #438
munificent wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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…

Just to clarify, I do not suggest asking about mistakes a person has made. That is both a hint that I'm looking for a flattering narrative and not quite true. I'm looking for someone who can think back and identify the things he/she was wrong about. What were the false assumptions, how did those come to light, how would you solve a similar problem differently after that experience, etc. In other words, is the candida…

> I think my choice of the term "poker face" was a bad way of describing a certain kind of evasiveness which can indicate bad motives or bad people skills, either of which can make the person a bad hire.

As a practical matter, how do you detect this kind of "evasiveness", and differentiate it from (say) plain old introversion or nervousness?

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#448

Post by grandalf »

aprdm wrote: post #428
munificent wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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…

As you said, interviewing itself is a very stressful environment. I've been asked a time I've failed by one of the HR person and I talked about it. Was basically sending emails to real people from my test environment... I talked about it openly but he kept pushing. In the end my feedback was that my "time I've made an error" was not very impressive. Like... wtf? I find these questions very weird. I never know what th…

Imagine you start a job painting houses. You would not paint them the same way on your first day as you would after a year of experience or 5 years of experience. What have you learned? How do you work smarter/better now than in the past.

What experiences triggered that learning process, or did you just take orders from someone else with a more problem-solving oriented worldview.

The same applies to technical work. We're not perfect robots, we are given the freedom to figure things out, so the goal is a refinement of the "program" in our minds. The more effective/sophisticated that program is, the more rational we are.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#449

Post by ap22213 »

rtpg wrote: post #116
lagadu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost nobody does this. Maybe this is an US thing. I changed jobs last year and nearly every single recruitment process involved exactly that, after a remote interview them giving me a small project worth 2-5 hours of work and then going over what I produced one week later. This was for companies in central and northern Europe.

Were you paid for your time when doing that? Kind of curious (I guess 2 hours isn't a lot of time but there's the principle)

I'd so much rather do a project with my own tools and from the comfort of own home than commute several hours across the city for a several hour interview.

If all it required was an hour phone call and a small project, I'd totally do it for the right company.

I'm too well-paid and busy to do interviews.

Re: We only hire the trendiest

#450

Post by braythwayt »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #249
braythwayt wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cynicism is noted. But my cynicism says that managers often hire people who will be productive because a huge part of their political game is producing software that appears to be “strategic” or will generate the revenues that make their group more valued and garner more budget and power for said managers. So yes, it’s cynicism all the way down, but no, that doesn’t mean that managers aren’t trying to hire produ…

> appears to be “strategic” The key word is appears which is just a game of status and certification.

Somehow, I don't think we're going to find any agreement here, when your comments consistently dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as having an invalid perspective.
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