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IRC as a Hiring Filter

jasonwhaley.com

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Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#61

Post by vidarh »

raverbashing wrote: post #45
kristoffer wrote: post #9

Pretty ridiculous. Aren't we having problems finding candidates? Why care if they use the most leet irc client or write irc bots? Recruiting people you find on irc in coding related channels I'm all for that. But it doesn't scale obviously.

Yes, today "we can't find candidates" means usually "we can't find someone that fits our biased hiring filter determined by the personal preferences of the senior developer" And yes, make senior people write FizzBuzz on a whiteboard, they find it thrilling.

It's great when people make up these filters - it gives those of us who have no problems finding a job an easy way to identify places not worth working at during the interview process.

I've told potential employees "no" more than once due to sequences of hurdles during the hiring process that were easy to pass, but told me very clearly I didn't want to work there.

The more bullshit, the more likely it also is I'll receive and say yes to another offer while they're busy playing.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#62

Post by Mithaldu »

munificent wrote: post #39

One (of the many) problems with using IRC as a signal is that it's biased towards people with large chunks of predictable free time. I spend a lot of time communicating with people online, but IRC isn't a channel I use. The problem is that I have a family that naturally consumes a lot of my time. That means I don't control when I'm available to communicate. I get a decent amount of total time, but it's in bits and pi…

> synchronous things like IRC

IRC is highly asynchronous. It makes it possible to communicate at near-synchronous speeds, however at the base of the technology, any semi-competent developer i work with, even those with 3 kids, are able use IRC consistently, with the only impact being that answer latencies range between seconds and days. Then again, i have the same freedom, so it benefits both sides.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#63

Post by mariusz79 »

mariusz79 wrote: post #26
aiiane wrote: post #11

Another proposed hiring metric that is likely to favor the stereotypical coding-since-childhood male developer. IRC channels are often just as bad if not worse than mailing lists when it comes to providing a welcoming space for minorities.

I have not seen anything in the RFC 1459,2810, 2811, 2812, 2813 preventing females from using irc protocol. And obviously you never used IRC if you think that it's somehow not a welcoming space to minorities.

Apparently all these downvotes come from people who never used IRC.. and never took a part in a flame war on usenet, or overtook a channel on IRC.. Keep them coming, I still have enough karma left :)

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#64

Post by vidarh »

cbhl wrote: post #49

If the OP finds that knowing how to use IRC correlates well with the kind of people that the OP wants to hire, then I think it is reasonable to OP to test for basic IRC skills in their hiring process. For example, maybe IRC is the preferred communication medium during an emergency at OP's company, because it is more reliable than email or Skype when a data center goes down. But as a general practice, I don't see why…

> presenting a candidate with a rotary telephone and telling them to make a phone call with it.

I felt terribly old the other day, as one of my younger co-workers overhead a conversation where rotary telephones were mentioned and turned around to ask us "what is a rotary telephone?"

Then again, I don't think my 6 year old son has actually seen a wired telephone yet (we do have a land line, but it's wireless too) before, so I'm sure said co-worker will get the pleasure of feeling old soon enough.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#65

Post by SCHiM »

mariusz79 wrote: post #54
SCHiM wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, the breath of technology these days is huge. Knowledge of irc, a chat protocol that's been in decline since 2003 and perhaps used by about 400k people daily, is by no means indicative of technical skill. Can you imagine that it'd be kind of hard to join to join a channel for your interview if you've never been told how or were granted the time to find out? Sure it's popular in opensource/hackers/etc, b…

Irc is easy. It does not require huge knowledge. If you can't login to irc channel, even by simply typing "web irc client" in google and clicking on the first link, you are not a technical person.

You and I know there are web clients.

But what if you're, as the article says, used to skype?

would it occur to you that there might be web based irc? Skype doesn't support that, and certainly the only things you see when you google 'irc' are clients you'd have to install, or worse: compile. Tough freenode does seem to have the webclient high in the list of results...

But then looking at their client is another example of why irc might not be straight-forward enough to use. This is what happened when I tried to use it with a random, but obviously too short, user name:

--- [19:43] Licensed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2.

[19:43] == * (qwebirc) Looking up your hostname...

[19:43] == * (qwebirc) Found your hostname.

[19:43] == Connected to server.

[19:43] -herbert.freenode.net- * Looking up your hostname...

[19:43] -herbert.freenode.net- * Checking Ident

[19:43] -herbert.freenode.net- * No Ident response

[19:43] -herbert.freenode.net- * Couldn't look up your hostname

[19:43] == CGI:IRC host/IP set to gateway/web/freenode/session ...

[19:43] == bob Nick/channel is temporarily unavailable

[19:43] == bob's Erroneous Nickname

[19:44] == ERROR: Closing Link: gateway/web/freenode/session (Connection timed out)

[19:44] == Disconnected from server: Connection to IRC server lost. ---

Riiigiht, very usefull, I can't use the nick bob. What now? How do I change it? where's my change button? etc. etc. I think my point stands, irc might not be 'hard' but for a first time user it's not easy either.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#66

Post by pain »

I feel you may be judged for using their literacy and biteracy as a form of sorting and bitcism.

Finding sensitivities to diversities of technical literacies is troublesome but teachingsome.

That means identity issues are social issues, and language choices, changes, modus, and tools are important to address if we are serious about giving all forms of identity a chance.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#67

Post by vidarh »

MicroBerto wrote: post #55
munificent wrote: post #39

One (of the many) problems with using IRC as a signal is that it's biased towards people with large chunks of predictable free time. I spend a lot of time communicating with people online, but IRC isn't a channel I use. The problem is that I have a family that naturally consumes a lot of my time. That means I don't control when I'm available to communicate. I get a decent amount of total time, but it's in bits and pi…

How do you know that's not an unstated goal of his? From a hiring manager's standpoint, isn't more free time a benefit? The same thing could go for using GitHub code as a signal. People with no free time are less likely to contribute to the community there too.

For me, Github is most interesting as a signal in terms of the actual code available.

Lack of Github means I'll have to find another way of seeing example of the persons code, but that's ok. I wouldn't dismiss anyone as a candidate for that.

But someone with a Github repository or ten might be at an advantage because it serves effectively as lowering the threshold: I don't need to find their CV interesting enough to decide to ask them for an example of their code, just interesting enough to look at what's already there.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#68

Post by mariusz79 »

mariusz79 wrote: post #54
SCHiM wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, the breath of technology these days is huge. Knowledge of irc, a chat protocol that's been in decline since 2003 and perhaps used by about 400k people daily, is by no means indicative of technical skill. Can you imagine that it'd be kind of hard to join to join a channel for your interview if you've never been told how or were granted the time to find out? Sure it's popular in opensource/hackers/etc, b…

Irc is easy. It does not require huge knowledge. If you can't login to irc channel, even by simply typing "web irc client" in google and clicking on the first link, you are not a technical person.

@SCHIM the permise here is that if you are technical person you should be able to find all that information out. If you can't then .. oh well...

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#69

Post by SCHiM »

Mithaldu wrote: post #56
SCHiM wrote: post #20

I'm very technical, I've written hacks for online games, boot loaders, my own micro-operating system, accounting software, http servers. I've written patches for snort (the ids, not public) and a ton of other stuff. Yet I'm not on irc, I'd be a hire you'd miss if you used irc as a screening filter. > "and I have actually decided not to work with specific developers before in a professional setting because they litera…

There's a difference between "not knowing" and "not being able to figure out". Further, he never mentions exactly how long they gave those developers to figure it out. The post is a bit unclear about this, but if you give them the benefit of the doubt, then they're testing exactly for the key ability any IT worker needs: The ability to research a new technology. You make the assumption that they did not give them muc…

Yes, that's exactly right. But then you're not using _irc_ as a screening filter, but your applicants ability to research new things.

Which is not what the article says you should use this screening tactic for, since there is a large group of technical people out there that is irc-literate. Which implies that irc was not chosen, as you suggest to figure-out a persons autodidactic abilities, but rather because the author (kind-of-correctly) assumes that most technical people have at least a passing-relation with irc.

Re: IRC as a Hiring Filter

#70

Post by SCHiM »

mariusz79 wrote: post #68
mariusz79 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irc is easy. It does not require huge knowledge. If you can't login to irc channel, even by simply typing "web irc client" in google and clicking on the first link, you are not a technical person.

@SCHIM the permise here is that if you are technical person you should be able to find all that information out. If you can't then .. oh well...

@mariusz79 (I see what you did there ;-))

That makes little sense to me, if the point was to use the applicants ability lean how to use a new technology as a screening filter then I don't see how using irc fits that requirement.

Although I'm opposed to the idea of using irc as a screen, since I know that there are people who don't use it but are technical, I'm not suggesting that most technical people don't know what irc is. Just that it's kind of useless to use a known technology to test the ability to learn new technology, especially amongst developers.

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