Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories • Hacker News Board

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#81

Post by will_pseudonym » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:19 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #75

It seems to me like that best predictor of whether you'll get the thumbs up is social cues, rather than anything technical. I went to an on-site at a major company, and there was a guy who just wouldn't smile. He also led me down the wrong way on the tech part, which is easy when you make zero facial gestures and talk like a robot. I figured it out eventually, it wasn't hard, but he dinged me. With the other people i…

Yup! Also, would you really want to work with person A? I wouldn't, no matter how talented. Our scarcity mindset as employees has us asking for any job sometimes, no matter how awful the fit...

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#82

Post by will_pseudonym » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:21 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #77

hmate9 wrote: post #68

The reason why there are so many rejections is because companies are trying to minimse the false positives instead of minimising the false negatives.

I am not sure why companies are so paranoid about false positives. Apart from the the lack of evidence that being extra picky is helpful, you can always fire if the candidate does not meet your standards. Be crystal clear about what you expect and cut if it is not met.

Hiring bad people is signaling to your existing, well functioning team, that you care about the bottom line more than their experience & happiness. It drives good people away, because firing bad apples is way harder than it should be...

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#83

Post by 5h » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:23 AM UTC

It happens the other way around also.

In an interview for a CTO type position a while ago, the only technical member of the interview panel was visibly aghast that I had never made a bootstrap theme - which, despite me explaining where that sort of task fits into the webapp ecosystem to the others, had already rubbed off on the rest of the panel. The extensive team/project building portfolio presented was irrelevant.

I thanked them for their time and didn't call back as I've had my fill of toxic work environments out there.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#84

Post by steven2012 » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:25 AM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #5

copperx wrote: post #2

It's interesting how all these top companies insist on JS expertise, I didn't know that it was so important for an interview and that's something I need to work on.

If you have no JavaScript these days then largely you can forget job hunting. If you have awesome, expert, deep, deep JavaScript then firstly you might as well be a unicorn but secondly, you will get a job.

This is nonsense. I recently applied to a bunch of companies and my language of choice for the interviews was C. They never cared about my language that I used.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#85

Post by fffrad » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:30 AM UTC

It's interesting how in our current time, if you work at Twitter, facebook, google, or a famous start up, it is synonymous to "I made it".

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#86

Post by will_pseudonym » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:31 AM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #80

kafkaesq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reject all you want, but at least be classy about it. A vast amount of empirical data suggests that recruiters are very, very bad at this. And many companies, when engaging candidates directly, aren't much better.

Most recruiters are terrible. The other day I was asked to fill a form (skills, work experience, personal details, the whole thing - in great detail) before the recruiter would even tell me the name of the company he is trying to hire for. I knew arguing with him is futile, so I didn't. Job search in general is a depressing experience, even when it is easy. Good recruiters are extremely rare :( My funniest experience…

I'm a great recruiter! My approach is to help both sides understand the other side's needs completely before signing on the dotted line. I'm only happy when everyone else is. I also only work with people I would want to work with in the future, and that goes for both sides :)

Are you looking for something right now? If you are, I'll dig through your HN comment history and try to understand your needs and desires. If you aren't, I'm still going to, because good people are as hard to find as good recruiters! :)

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#87

Post by danieltillett » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:48 AM UTC

will_pseudonym wrote: post #82

danieltillett wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure why companies are so paranoid about false positives. Apart from the the lack of evidence that being extra picky is helpful, you can always fire if the candidate does not meet your standards. Be crystal clear about what you expect and cut if it is not met.

Hiring bad people is signaling to your existing, well functioning team, that you care about the bottom line more than their experience & happiness. It drives good people away, because firing bad apples is way harder than it should be...

I don't disagree with this, but being extra fussy at the interview stage does not mean you can avoid bad hires, or even that you will hire better people on average. Better to be clear about what you expect and serious enough to deal with it if you get it wrong.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#88

Post by smartbit » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 9:50 AM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #80

kafkaesq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reject all you want, but at least be classy about it. A vast amount of empirical data suggests that recruiters are very, very bad at this. And many companies, when engaging candidates directly, aren't much better.

Most recruiters are terrible. The other day I was asked to fill a form (skills, work experience, personal details, the whole thing - in great detail) before the recruiter would even tell me the name of the company he is trying to hire for. I knew arguing with him is futile, so I didn't. Job search in general is a depressing experience, even when it is easy. Good recruiters are extremely rare :( My funniest experience…

> My funniest experience with a recruiter - he called me up and tried to recruit me to the same company I was working for at the time. I had that too once. She apologized and asked not to tell the company :-)

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#89

Post by fenomas » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:13 AM UTC

namelezz wrote: post #52

paulftw wrote: post #29

Twitter - where most of these rejected people ended up?..

or Twitter - where most of these rejected people make awesome comebacks

or even: Twitter - where the guy who made this site works, with some colleagues he presumably asked to contribute stories

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#90

Post by neverminder » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 10:25 AM UTC

napperjabber wrote: post #78

I have to say, after inheriting a code base from Max(@mxcl), its sad that anyone would reject him. Hes pretty much the guy that gave me the first sane introduction to cacoa programming. - That being said, I was rejected from a company because I hadn't used binutil in python. - I find I can pass any interview with a confident low voice more consistently than by showing my technical expertise. - People are interested i…

I agree. I was rejected not too long ago by a startup with a reason that they thought I belonged in a more corporate environment (I never indicated so). In my experience if a company really needs someone they are much more receptive, otherwise they just come up with a BS like that and worse.