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Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

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Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#501

Post by marktangotango »

vsareto wrote: post #323
corrral wrote: post #21

> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.

>actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors I like how things are confusing enough to need this distinction, but also we still don't know if you're talking about actual seniors and not principal engineers

It's a pitiful state of affairs isn't it?

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#502

Post by jen20 »

lbrito wrote: post #456
jen20 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the single example you yourself have experienced actually confirm that it is false?

If we were talking about math theorems, yes. In real world situations like this though it is customary to equate "extremely rare" with "not existent"

How many interviews have you taken to determine that one is an outlier?

I haven’t had a “formal” interview in some years now, but of the 5 job interviews I’ve had in the last decade, zero had a take home component and one had leetcode style questions.

Since I’m 0 for 5 on take homes, and 1 for 5 on leetcode I can only surmise based on your logic that neither actually exist.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#503

Post by gwbas1c »

s0rce wrote: post #326
jiggawatts wrote: post #314

POST THE SALARY. Senior people are senior because of their work experience, which they gain from steady employment. Almost by definition you are looking to entice busy, employed people away from their current jobs. They don’t have the time or inclination to trawl through job ad after job ad. Where your competition will ask for 15 years of experience and then only after hours of calls and meetings reluctantly make an…

I've tried to advocate for this at my organization and been told that we don't want people primarily motivated by money...

I happily give the "I like the job discount." (I have 20 years professional development experience.)

What's critical is that you still need to be "market rate." You don't have to be the highest compensation on the market, but you need to pay me around the 60th percentile.

Edit: I should add that, in the two times I was below market rate, once I became indispensable, I threatened to leave unless my pay was jacked up. The "I like the job discount" only goes so far.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#504

Post by jlokier »

everfrustrated wrote: post #151

It's taken me 8 months from starting to hire to having our new devops hire start. here in the UK these types of positions are some of the hardest to fill within Engineering. Hiring software engineers is comparatively a walk in the park.

Why was it so hard to fill?

Was it lack of interested candidates, or were your requirements such that you rejected all the candidates until you found an excellent fit?

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#506

Post by gwbas1c »

I got this onto the front page a few years ago: https://andrewrondeau.herokuapp.com/takehome_vs_whiteboard_c...

Honestly, if you want to know why developers like me aren't applying, you you need to post your job description here. It's impossible to give good feedback on something that I can't see.

(And by the way, I very rarely do take-homes, unless I am between jobs and see personal value in doing it.)

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#507

Post by InefficientRed »

The key question is WHERE in the process you lose applicants.

Do you lose candidates at the 4h assignment stage? If so, that is probably the issue. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

1. Title inflation. Many here are making glib comments about "not actually senior". Great! Call it a "Principal" role and see if that helps. You can always promote any existing Principals to Senior Principal or Staff or God or whatever the new better-than-old-senior title is ;-).

2. Actual inflation. What are you offering? Are you sharing that in a job posting? Hard truth: if you're not FAANG or a handful of other companies, everyone assumes you can't afford them. If you CAN afford them, share numbers in your job posts!

Senior at my FAANG is around $500K at the moment. If you can't beat FAANG, the best way to get people is to offer them more autonomy than they can get at FAANG. But at the Senior level that means making them part of leadership (assuming you're small); Senior at FAANG likely already has more technical autonomy than you can offer. So management and strategy autonomy is a great carrot.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#508

Post by throwaway81523 »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #300
the_watcher wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wrapped up a take home project. When I was told about it, I told the HM that I withdraw from processes that include a take home. They told me that they understood, but that this one really did only take an hour or two, and that they’d send it over to me anyway. All they asked was that I take a look, and if I completed it, they’d send me a $150 Amazon gift card. I took a look, and it really did seem straightfor…

I think I share your interpretation, plus it is possible to scope something small that's (gasp!) interesting. The last one I did was use the company's product to create something and then demo it to the team. In addition to a gift card is was (almost) fun. IMO a (very small) take-home assignment is the least-worst of a lot of generally bad options. A pairing exercise focused on teamwork and communication (vs hardcore…

I'm happy with the idea of a pairing exercise. I've felt regretful about every time I've gotten involved with a take-home even when my submission was successful, so maybe that's why I'm reacting badly to it here. You mention scoping, but there really has to be a way to enforce that other candidates don't spend more time on it than you do. Otherwise it is a resource consumption contest.

Re: Ask HN: Having trouble getting senior applicants, wondering what to do about it

#510

Post by throwawayjun21 »

svillar wrote: post #80

Lots of great comments here; My thoughts on this as other Seniors have pointed out (and I am a Senior myself) 1- I have not looked for a job since 2014, every job since came through my network. Then the interviews were basically friendly meet&greets but super informal, not a single coding test or take home assignment - note than I always started as Tech lead/Architect. I put in the hours and took pride in my work, ha…

I was recently accused of googling during the inteview even though i didnt touch computer. it made me feel so sad for days.
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