The Way We Hire Is All Wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#51

Post by avoutthere » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #6

What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it. Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face. What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of…

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default?

The problem with this arrangement is the cost of health insurance. Currently, the insurance market heavily favors employer-paid coverage; it's much more expensive for freelancers to buy their own insurance.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#52

Post by brohee » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:24 PM UTC

auggierose wrote: post #41

I didn't even read the story after this gem: "In 2012, for example, consulting firm Leadership IQ announced it had tracked 20,000 new hires over time and discovered that 46% of them had failed within 18 months. In other words, most recruiting practices are about as effective as a coin toss." Now, what's wrong with this reasoning? :-)

Yeah they fail to understand that should the recruitment be a coin toss, 80% would fail.

This is because the good candidates resume are hidden in a forest of bad resume, from people submitting resume for jobs they are obviously unqualified for.

Pretty well explained in http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDeveloper...

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#53

Post by wink » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

Is it me or is there no author name? I mean, it could be deliberately anonymous but then that's usually noted.

It was a really interesting read but I am probably just being grumpy and not a fan of medium.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#54

Post by barrkel » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

It's not clear what the author of the story did. Mr Programmer did the programming and Ms UX did project management and UI.

She's an "ideas person", isn't she.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#55

Post by nodata » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

uknj wrote: post #38

nodata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except some freelancers don't seem to be very good at the savings part.

If that were the case, one could hardly blame it on that particular hiring process/point of view.

No, but it gives a clue as to why there are more employees than freelancers.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#56

Post by JonnieCache » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #10

One thing I've wondered is why companies hire people one at a time. Barely anyone works alone on anything, yet to decide whether to hire someone, you invite people individually through a funnel process and expect them to be able to work together. The best teams are not necessarily the ones with the most Ivy Leaguers on them. Why don't more companies let the applicants self-organise, and then hire the best teams?

Isn't that what acqui-hiring is about?

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#57

Post by falcolas » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #27

pluma wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability. Static long-term contracts would still be an option because of the reli…

The concept you're looking for is "savings". Contractors and freelancers charge a premium to compensate for the lack of income stability. If that premium is saved up, you get stability.

Relying on savings to compensate for irregular income requires you to have a runway to begin with.

Given the increasing mountain of debt new graduates start with, this is going to be generally untenable for most new employees; and even some older employees will have enough financial obligations that building up the requisite amount of savings to account for income irregularities would be very difficult.

Getting to the point where you can deal with uneven income flow can take quite a bit of time, time you need to spend working for someone.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#58

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

askinakhan wrote: post #43

I strongly believe that hiring should be based on data. Based on the following 5 factors: 1.Intellect 2.Values 3.Motivations 4.Behaviours 5.Experience With these factors you can determine a persons Cultural Fit and predicted future performance. In fact, you could automate this through technology. For example, for predicting future performance we could test the high performers in our company then we have a template fo…

1.Intellect 2.Values 3.Motivations 4.Behaviours 5.Experience

All of those are extremely subjective. And trying to replicate your existing staff will give you an unimaginative company of yes-men.

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#59

Post by ErrantX » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #44

ErrantX wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? I've heard this line a lot. The interesting thing is that there are areas, even inside tech, that this is the default. And it's nto necessarily better. For example, steelworks or the oil industry. A pretty significant portion of the employees in these fields (including IT sectors) are contractors. They have minimal job se…

Agreed. I'm guessing there should be (in the realm of possible solutions) some sort of intermediate arrangement, or a whole spectrum of intermediate arrangements. These may previously have been too complex to manage, but might now be plausible. (Can't help but feel like there's some sort of parallel between this and conventional attitudes towards marriage! Just because marriage is a little bizzare doesn't mean that t…

One pain point that should be solved is this; changing jobs is expensive, or risky. If you don't time your notice period correctly you can end up having to last on a short salary. I know a few people who got into debt in this way.

I recently had to think about this and for me, moving roles is worth probably about ~£2K salary in "life admin" (i.e. if the new role is not offer two grand more then it's not worth moving, from a purely financial motivation)

Re: The Way We Hire Is All Wrong

#60

Post by normloman » Wed, Jan 28, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #6

What a bizarre and compelling story. Glad to have read it. Meanwhile I think the hiring problem/solution is staring us right in the face. What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? Isn't it perhaps weird that there is an assumption companies and employees should bind their fates together, and, if it doesn't work out, one or both parties is pretty screwed because of…

If everyone was a freelance employee, and could be replaced at any time, what motivation would companies have to invest in their employees (training, etc)?