
Hiring as It Should Be - chipatama2
https://overseeapp.io/
======
AchieveLife
What makes this different from the other solutions out there?

I'm very concerned about the "test." Coding tests are unprofessional IMO. They
demand one sided value and reduce the candidate pool diversity to only those
who are willing to tolerate unfair exchanges/relationships.

What I am gathering from this is that hiring as it should be involves removing
the majority of human contact, test for skills, and blast into public digital
channels.

There are so many other competitors out there that are actually innovating
with DISCOVERY tools not TEST tools.

~~~
atomicity
Still think that tests have a role, but there's room to improve them. While
human contact is nice, it's also costly, so improving testing would still be a
great way to innovate.

For example, I received a great coding test from Vertica, a database company.
Their test was a 2-hour timed exercise involving improving a ~200 LoC data
querying program. This is nicer for the following reasons:

\- It doesn't require me to bootcamp with LeetCode because you have a bunch of
people out there who train and "overperform" on such coding Qs.

\- It's specific enough to the domain but still fairly generic. The test
covers techniques covered in a standard intro sequence.

\- It's timed, so it doesn't waste time like most take-home assessments.

\- It's predictive power of t skiechnical ability is better (my opinion).
People like to say that such tests don't test enough for problem solving.
However, if you are missing 6 months-1 year worth of domain knowledge, you
won't be able to contribute for a while no matter how good your problem
solving ability is. An average candidate stays for <<10 years so you want the
person who can start contributing sooner even if they have a lower "peak"
potential. (Also, I believe generic problem solving is kinda BS. I was good at
math and coding contests years ago, but now I would consider myself to be an
average interviewer. Even though I'm an good problem-solver for certain
systems problems, I don't consider myself one for ML ones or people-heavy
problems.)

To summarize, I would love to see better tests than the ones we have now and
think there's clear room to improve.

------
ronilan
_“Any institution (employer, academic, etc) requiring candidates to submit a
video recording as part of the application process, should provide the
applicant with a reciprocal video of anyone watching their submission.”_

~~~
ken
How about at least a video of the company offices, as seen by a typical
employee?

Those recruitment page photos of your ping-pong table and people laughing
while eating salad are not helpful in telling me what the other 98% of my day
will look like.

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detaro
Interviews either by an automated system or by someone who doesn't understand
the company is "how it should be"?

~~~
notus
I think of it kind of like TripleByte which I see as an automated phone screen

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tchaffee
This takes some of things I dislike about the usual hiring process and
amplifies them.

Unless I was desperate for work, I would refuse to participate in this type
"interview" process as a candidate. Nor would I use it to hire people. There
are some things that need a human touch. I want to get to know the people I
will be spending a significant amount of my daily time with. I want to give
them every possible opportunity to succeed at the interview and I actively try
to help them at it.

I just recently finished an interview where the person interviewing me did
just that.

He gave me a big hint at solving a problem he asked me to talk through as I
was coding. Did I ever feel stupid because when he gave me that hint I
realized that anyone at my level should have immediately reached for that
method. But for whatever reason, perhaps nerves, it just didn't occur to me at
the moment. It was good coding together like that and talking through the
code. I got to know a little what it would be like working with him, and he
got to understand a little bit about how I think while writing code. I got the
job.

~~~
petrovicstefan
I think this app is meant to lessen the load on the hiring process in a way
that will help a company get a list of people that have at least the base
required knowledge for the job, before calling them up for traditional
interviews. Imagine a company getting 300+ job applications, someone needs to
go through the CVs and pick people to call on the interviews, and even then a
good chunk of those people simply don't have even the base knowledge (at least
in my experience, the CV can lie a lot), also some of the people that actually
do show promise will be discarded simply because someone didn't want to bother
with their CV (this happens a lot as well). I think this is meant to replace
that "weeding out" process so that companies get people they can call for an
in-person interview (lowering the time and cost for the first stage of the
interview process ) while people that have the base required (required by the
company) knowledge, do get a shot at the job.

~~~
tchaffee
That's not what their offering claims: "You won't waste your resources on
time-consuming interviews, ever again."

Also, you don't need to carefully go through 300+ job applications to find a
suitable candidate for a position. If that's part of your hiring process, fix
that first.

And while this app might be meant to reduce the cost a company spends on the
hiring process, they are doing it at the expense of the person applying for
the job who now has to invest more time. Sorry, but I don't want to work for a
company that sees me only as an expense and / or as a source of profit. Spend
the money to meet me as a human. Want to do an initial phone call for a quick
screening to make sure my CV isn't a lie? No problem. But if you want to
automate that away to an app, some folks are going to take a pass. And I would
suspect the ones taking a pass are the top talent who are in demand and can
pick and choose who they get to work for.

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the_70x
doing coding and technical tasks is a broken hiring method. For instance an
employed person with a family would need to invest an additional time to
perform this technical tasks which is not fair since the stamina at the end of
the day is depleted and the inspiration does not work the same.

~~~
tchaffee
What if the coding task is paid at the job's hourly rate? I'm fine with take
home coding tasks if they are paid.

~~~
the_70x
cannot agree more. But nowadays is someone paying the candidates to do this
technical tasks?

~~~
tchaffee
Yes. I was paid for one in the past year. Unless I got pretty desperate for
work, I would take a pass on any job that asked me to do it unpaid.

