
My secret Hobby: Applying for jobs - irrlichthn
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1223
======
maayank
"These companies don't notice that in this way, the good people a driven away,
and only the desperate will apply."

This. One of the reasons I chose my last employer (SAP, or more specifically,
SAP Research) was their no bullshit, yet very thorough, recruitment process.

Compare that with my <A very, very, well known software corp> experience,
where the phone call interview with HR went like that:

HR drone: "So, what's your degree?"

Me: "Mathematics." [didn't you read my resume?]

HR: "Oh... well... Most of the people working here have CS degrees."

Me: "Ah, well, my last job title was 'Computer Science researcher' and before
that I had several years of experience as a programmer, so I think I'll fit"
[apparently not!]

HR: "Yes, but do you know algorithms?"

Me: _bangs head on wall_

Sorry, no matter how reputable your company is, if that's the recruitment
process then I can do better.

~~~
Peroni
Let me shed some prespective.

I can absolutely guarantee you that the actual hiring manager briefed the HR
department on the job spec and had to dumb it down significantly. The summary
would have been something along the lines of 'Ideally the perfect candidate
will have a CS degree from a major University as strong algorithmic knowledge
is a fundamental requirement for the role.'

HR would then interpret this as:

1: Must have CS Degree

2: Must know algorithms.

3: Only CS people study & understand algorithms.

4: Refer to step 1.

~~~
jonnathanson
This.

Ironically, it helps to think of the HR screening process as a really dumb
algorithm. The HR staffer likely has little to no understanding of how to
ferret out "knowledge of algorithms," (or any other job skill, for that
matter). So he defaults to a list of keywords or phrases -- interpreted very
literally -- from a job description received from the hiring manager.

His internal logic is pretty much driven by two directives:

1: If a keyword or phrase is in the job description, a successful applicant
MUST have it on his resume. (Word for word, preferably).

2: Anything on a candidate's resume that is not on the job description is
irrelevant.

In fairness, there is _some_ legitimate value to the HR screening process. It
is a filter. A dumb filter, but a filter that the hiring manager doesn't have
time to run on X hundred (or Y thousand) resumes. Some HR filters are designed
to screen out resumes that don't contain the right keywords. Others are
designed to select for resumes that match all the right keywords. Either way,
the effect is similar. Of course, such a process can (and does) weed out a lot
of very talented, very qualified people.

The trick is learning how to game the filter. The filter penalizes creative or
unusual word choices. The filter flags candidates who reference someone
they've met or spoken to at the company (doubly so if that person is the
actual referrer). The filter rewards fidelity to the letter of the job
description. Tailor your cover letter and resume accordingly.

~~~
Revisor
Do you think the actual work conditions, atmosphere, and team will be better
if already the entry gate is made of mud?

How many more tricks will you have to employ after you get past HR to get
through the job itself? Let alone have some fun and learn something new.

~~~
jonnathanson
True. There's usually a correlation between annoying HR processes and annoying
corporate cultures. But not always. Sometimes there's a really cool company
that just happens to have a bad entry gate here and there. Usually this is the
case at companies that have grown hot more quickly than they can scale up
their initial HR systems.

To that point, oftentimes bad HR is really just a scale issue. A company
starts getting more resumes than its people can deal with, and so it hires HR
drones just to help with the workload. And this continues. Eventually, the
managers are so far removed from the day-to-day HR filter that they don't
really notice how bad it's become.

~~~
jacques_chester
The point of departure is that HR attains life and influence of its own. What
started as Payroll, having only a service role, morphs into an imperial
organisation jamming its long beak into all corners. "It involves humans",
goes the reasoning, "therefore we are in charge!"

------
Peroni
_These companies don't notice that in this way, the good people a driven away,
and only the desperate will apply._

It's a catch-22. Without this process, every man & his dog will apply for the
job causing the company to have to filter through literally hundreds of
applications in order to find appropriate candidates. Those that actually take
the time to tolerate the process obviously consider themselves suitable and do
really want the job.

As a Tech Recruiter, I'm generally the front line for job applications and
I'll give you stats from my most recent role:

Python Dev- London - Circa £45k

Applications: 48

* 36 highly irrelevant and inappropriate candidates that were blatantly just clicking 'apply' on every job they found.

* 6 applications with no CV attached.

* 6 potentially relevant candidates.

* Out of the 6 potentials that I spoke to over the phone and face to face, only 2 were worth submitting directly to the client.

These stats are pretty much the norm for most of the roles I advertise.

~~~
nirvana
Please tell me about the "highly irrelevant and inappropriate candidates" you
were seeing.

Were you seeing people whose previous job experience was: Receptionist,
Typist, Journalist, Janitor, Taxi Driver, etc?

Or were you seeing web developers who never mentioned python on their resume?

The reason I ask is, the majority of the times I've been screened by
recruiters, they clearly were unable to tell what was relevant and what was
not. EG: Thinking you're not qualified because you worked with a different
version of a database the employer uses, even though SQL hasn't changed
between versions and you probably usually shouldn't be writing SQL anyway in
your code.

The inability to screen properly gave me the distinct impressions that those
who were filtering me out were incompetent because they were being arbitrary,
and those who weren't filtering me out just had low standards (they didn't ask
better questions.) In the end, I was the one who filtered me out of
inappropriate jobs because I could tell by their descriptions (if they let me
see the job description rather than rambling on about how they need a "ninja
coder to take their B2B accounting software to the next level").

Do you use any software to screen the applications for appropriateness? I know
that keywords likely would only work to get rid of the 36 (or would they? Did
they all say "python" on their resume?) Would machine learning or bayesian
techniques possibly work better?

~~~
Peroni
I don't use any artificial means of filtering candidates. If I receive 48
applications, I read 48 CV's.

There were a large number of graduates with zero commercial experience and
zero open source contributions as well as a number of foreign candidates with
completely unrelated careers simply looking for a job in London. There were
also a number of underqualified candidates and people with strong careers but
zero commercial or practical experience with Python.

~~~
mironathetin
Well, for a good programmer it is trivial to learn Python, and especially
Python, in a very (!) short time.

~~~
darklajid
Learning a new syntax is not the same as actually learning the idioms
(pythonic?) that are considered good practice. And after that you'll get into
the field of infrastructure around that language. I guess if you've never
heard of Python and the company is looking for a decent programmer to help in
a (making something up as I type) medium sized Django application then you end
up with

\- you don't know Python at all

\- if you learn it (might be very fast to learn to read it, fast to get into
the basics) you're still missing out a lot (Maybe they use IronPython. Or
Pypy. You need to learn the eco system: virtualenv et al?)

\- even if you mastered that, you still don't know the basic technology they
are using (in my sample: Django)

Compare that to a guy that used Python for a couple years. That one only needs
to get into your code base and can start working right away.

~~~
mironathetin
darklajid,

of course you are right: someone who knows Python well may be better than
someone who doesn't.

But if you look at the recruiters experience, who finds only two qualified
applications, then I say: find a good programmer among the applicants who
really wants to get into Python and you will get someone who comes to speed
very quickly.

You might even find someone who is enthusiastic about his new job, instead of
someone who does the same thing since 1996, who is good at what he does, but a
bit bored too.

These recruiters always think in their own minds cage: according to them, you
start something once, and do it for the rest of your life, because nobody will
let you do something different. Most software developers are much too smart
for that cage only.

~~~
bartonfink
_Some_ software developers are much too smart for that cage only.

A large percentage of the population here falls in that category, but we
aren't representative of the industry as a whole. What do you think a Blub
programmer actually is?

------
onan_barbarian
For some reason this story reminds me of one of the Arabian Nights stories,
which, in the translation I read, began:

"Know, my friends, when I was no more than eight years old, I had already
cultivated the remarkable habit of telling one really big lie per year".

I wonder if these hobbies could be combined? Indulging in these kind of pranks
seems almost justifiable given the "can they really be serious" shenanigans
perpetrated upon those of our trade by the interviewers and recruiters.

I am polishing my resume, with special emphasis on my glory days at the
Austrian Naval Academy.

------
peteretep
I'm really happy where I'm contracting at the moment, but like to apply for
challenging-looking roles. Two big benefits here:

a) If somewhere offers you a lot money, you can take that back to your current
employer. I've had a 30% payrise from that before on my day rate.

b) Slightly bigger companies with big pockets are often hiring 'unofficially'.
That means if they know you and like you, they're often willing to employ you.
If you've applied for a job, but turned it down while being very very positive
about the company, you've got a set of contacts there to email when you
current contract doesn't get renewed...

------
mathattack
Interesting observations. As someone who has been in hiring positions over
several years, the signal to noise ratio in recruiting consistently goes down.
On-line recruiting used to be the domain of the talented. Now that everyone is
on-line, the professional job-searchers have more time on their hands.

Let's say the unqualified outnumber the qualified by 5 to 1. They're also job-
searching on company time, so they send out 5 times as many resumes as the
qualified. Their resumes then outnumber the qualified by 25 to 1. This gives
you the ratios that Peroni sees.

What's hard - very hard - is that good engineers aren't great at writing job
descriptions that are useful to HR recruiters. Conversely, many good HR
recruiters still don't understand technical job descriptions.

In the end, this is why the best recruiting method still seems to be, "Ask
your best person who their most capable friend is."

------
martincmartin
I actually look for jobs with a thorough interview process, and having to
spend a few hours solving a puzzle, on my own time, before an in-person
interview, is a plus. It means the other people I'll be working with have been
through the same thing, and there'll be a higher percentage of good
programmers among them.

~~~
StavrosK
Is your reasoning that other good programmers have nothing better to do than
solve puzzles for a few hours?

I have so little time to myself that I can't spend hours solving each little
puzzle a HR department comes up with...

~~~
healsdata
I honestly don't know what the masses expect companies that hire programmers
to do. We're told that we're not as good of a company if programmers don't
program in the interview. But then the next thing we're told is that nobody
programs on a whiteboard and/or with someone watching. To help, we come up
with take home exercises that are custom to us so we know the answers are
real. Now this article and the parent are saying we're wasting time with these
"puzzles".

When I hire, I do a phone screen before asking the candidates to complete the
code exercise. If it isn't going to be a fit from either of our perspectives,
then they didn't spend time doing it.

~~~
michaelchisari
It would be nice if companies simply asked for a code sample, and then asked
the programmer to explain what it does, their reasoning for doing so, etc.

I have a major open source project under my belt, but I've never had an
interviewer simply ask me about my code. Instead, they ask me to sort an
array.

~~~
healsdata
As an interviewer, I didn't see the value in asking candidates to complete
FizzBuzz until one of them was unable to do it. Since then, I've had a half
dozen or so candidates make it through the resume and phone screen process and
still not be able to complete FizzBuzz.

In regards to discussing existing code, I'd be more than happy to do so, but
my experience has been that about one person per stack of resumes has quality
existing code available to share.

------
neebz
I applied to a London based digital agency. In return they sent me a 10-page
document (!) asking me stuff like what were my previous three addresses ?

It was like filling up a visa application.

~~~
yuvipanda
Was the position good enough for you to fill out that form?

~~~
mdaniel
There are _no_ positions which are good enough to complete such a form.

Like a poster mentioned elsewhere: the interview process is also a strong
indicator of the internal atmosphere, too. I don't want to work for any
company which believes such a form is a good idea.

~~~
yuvipanda
Some part of me wants to believe that it is a weed out on the other side - 'if
you value your time so low as to fill out these forms, we know we can pay you
jackshit and get away with it'.

------
TamDenholm
I have the same hobby, i'm a php contractor but sometimes go to job interviews
for permanent positions even though its extremely unlikely i'll ever accept a
permanent position, but i do it for the experience of interviewing and to
become aware of the companies in my area. Also, its always nice to get an
offer of a job sometimes.

~~~
rickmb
Funny, as a company we sometimes invite contractors to interview for much the
same reasons. It's good to know the freelancers that are around, and
especially if they'll be able to fit into our existing teams, even though we
rarely make use of that option. And it helps with long-term recruiting, since
contractors regularly give up being self-employed for a variety of reasons.

We are always completely upfront about it though.

------
petercooper
I used to do this back in the late 90s! I was also self employed and happy
with it, but the added ingredient was overenthusiastic recruitment agencies
who _wanted_ me to go. I had one particularly eager guy who wouldn't leave me
alone and got me to take an interview at the BBC for Director of Online Media
or some similar high flying title (the role was not as significant then as it
is now).. I was wildly inexperienced and only 18 but I ended up spending a few
hours in BBC Television Centre and it was quite the day out ;-) The recruiter
never contacted me again after that.

------
matan_a
I've been through this as well for a very senior role:

Interviewer: "Do you know X?"

Me: "Yes"

Interviewer: "Great, do you know Y?"

Me: "Sure" (starting to get suspicious)

Interviewer: "Nice, how about Z?"

Me: "Aha" (not believing this)

Interviewer: "When can you start?"

....

This is the opposite side of the coin. This quick-fire hiring is scary and
detrimental. What would that tell you about the company? :)

------
int3rnaut
While I think it's great to stay in the rhythm of things and really get your
interview skills down pat, to me the idea of applying for a job when you don't
need one is a bit arrogant and selfish. In the grand scheme of things you took
a potential interview and maybe a job away from someone else who might have
really needed it. It's great that people want to help themselves but doing the
right thing and being nice can go a long way--if you really want to brush up
on your interviewing or just not lose touch of the corporate game there are a
lot of career centers out there just itching to give you tips and
encouragement. I'm not taking away from your message about companies and their
hiring practices in general but don't forget about what really matters.

------
BornInTheUSSR
From the comments:

I am a human resources manager, and I like to call people in for interview.

We do not have any openings but I just like to call them, give them 1-2 tests,
make them sweat, then never call them again.

It is more fun than going at the interview, you should give it a shot. :)
Daniel - 10 08 11 - 13:10

~~~
megamark16
I'm pretty sure that the commenter was being facetious, but I have worked at a
company where they actually did this. They always had job openings posted on
their website, and they would bring people in for interviews, even though they
weren't hiring and had no positions to place those individuals in. I remember
the CEO said "that way we'll have a pool of candidates to pull from if we
decide to hire someone".

Needless to say, I never referred any of my friends.

~~~
eavc
This is also commonly done when the law stipulates that a search must be done
broadly and fairly.

They know they are going to promote the guy already at their company, but they
are bound to do a full search anyway.

------
rch
Going through the motions of applying for jobs also helped me keep my resume
up to date and polished. Now that I've been in the same place for a few years
I've let that slide - time to get back in the habit maybe?

------
Triumvark
> So about once in a year I [apply to] an advertised programmers job...

This doesn't sound frequent enough to really extrapolate anything about
trends. Maybe he meant once a month?

~~~
mtogo
If he didn't apply for any jobs he would be mostly completely out of the loop
as far as the world of working for someone else goes. If he had or wanted to
get a job at some point, the knowledge of current practices would help a lot
compared to never having interviewed in years.

------
maeon3
It seems to be some bizarre tradition in this country (US) to kick applicants
in the nuts every time they apply, call or inquire about a employment position
at a company.

My theory is that if every company does this, then the current body of
employees will work harder to stay out of that prison of unemployment, where
everyone kicks you when you are down. I am in support of all the good
programmers everywhere applying to jobs without intending to take them, and
generally treating the system that hires you like crap. So next time you are
unemployed and you are treated badly, you'll at least know why they are doing
so.

