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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

#521

Post by astura »

I'm a senior engineer and lead developer with 16 years experience.

>Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing

Yeah, I'm not doing that. I don't feel like spending four hours doing unpaid work in my free time, nor do I really feel like setting up a dev environment on my personal computer in the first place. It's probably actually more than four hours too and my time is valuable.

I am extremely confident that I have no problem getting a job without doing "homework" and I get bombarded by recruiters as is. So I'll skip you. Plus this is before you even know what the offer even is!

You simply aren't going to get many actual, good senior engineers to jump through your hoops.

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

#522

Post by Apofis »

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...

So, who would still show up for work if they didn't pay money?

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

#523

Post by aledalgrande »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #59
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.

Absolutely agree. People with 10+ years, a good network and decent resume pop their head up above the parapet and get instantly mobbed with offers. They're on the market 2 weeks, tops. No-one good is going to do a takehome just so the hiring team can rub their beards and feel superior while they pick over the code. That approach worked a few years ago, in today's recruitment bear market you don't pick the candidates,…

> One chap joined (for a few days) and left because he had started somewhere else at the same time - they won out.

Wait what???

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

#524

Post by peterkelly »

pnathan wrote: post #231
capableweb wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you get from a whiteboard/take home assignment that you can't get from a conversation where you grill them about their answers?

Conversations allow smooth talkers to run a snow job on you. Having a work sample test provides a best-in-class hiring filter.

Not if you ask the right questions

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

#525

Post by guitarsteve »

lbrito wrote: post #192
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.

>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. Wow. I have 10 years of work experience, the last few being "senior". I have a few friends and many recruiters I could reach out to, but absolutely expecting a full fledged 30-round interview like anyone else. I envy you!

Same! In case others feel bad reading this, I’m in the same boat. Every place I’ve worked has a multi step interview process and as far as I know referrals don’t get to skip it.

Maybe it’s different types of work (consulting?) or companies (earlier stage startups?).

I don’t think I’m particularly good or bad at networking but fully expect to have to do coding interviews and/or take homes. Or maybe I really do need to get a stronger network!

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

#526

Post by brnt »

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.

Hard pass for me too (and I'm not senior). How about they spend 4 hours looking through your Github instead?

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

#527

Post by lazybreather »

user00012-ab wrote: post #179
anon291 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with 4hr technical assignments is that you're saying no to anyone with kids, which I'm going to venture applies to more senior people than juniors. I used to do these assignment. Now I simply don't sorry. My schedule is 6:30 AM wake up with youngest daughter, to let wife sleep in (she takes care of her all night) 9:00 AM hand off youngest daughter to wife, who takes both girls the rest of the day. I go to m…

Seems like a good way to weed out people that are constantly taking time off to deal with kid issues.

I am guessing a lot of folks did not see the sarcasm in this. Either that or I am wrong.

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

#528

Post by brnt »

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...

That's why you should show the salary, to get the money out of the way...

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

#529

Post by pclmulqdq »

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #512
mdavis6890 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public company stock should be valued near it's current market value, minus a bit to account for volatility. I would think 90-95% is about right.

I think this really depends if you want to come up with it's expected value, or you care about e.g. the p50 or p25 or worse scenarios. Worst case is probably too negative most of the time, but occasionally you might choose to join a company that then implodes or has some really nasty problem surface that tanks the stock value. It really just depends on how risk-averse you want to be as to what metric personally makes…

It all depends on when you need the money. If you are expecting to have to spend the money right after the stock vests, it may be worth 50% of cash due to the chance of a bad market. If you are expecting to save the money for 10 years, it's probably worth as much as cash.

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

#530

Post by okaram »

I think you're not giving us enough information. Do you have numbers/percentages for each stage?

Is the problem that you aren't getting enough applications? At what stages are you filtering what percentage of applicants? This can help you debug your process ;)

Sorry, since this may be beating a dead horse, but ... Are you sure your salary/TCO is actually competitive (and wins some of the competitions ;)?

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