

Anne Learns To Recruit - ColinWright
http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/AnneLearnsToRecruit.html?HN0

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dkarapetyan
Forget HR at big corporations. Just forget it. Fill out whatever boilerplate
you have to and get them out of the way as quickly as possible.

At one point I tried to get into the hiring pipeline to both streamline the
process and to get better candidates in the door because the job adverts we
were putting out were horrendous. Instead of seeking general problem solvers
that were familiar with X, Y, Z technologies the adverts were specifying
things like specific versions of Tomcat and JBoss. Long story short I just
gave up. I couldn't get the recruiters out of the pipeline and they were the
ones going to campuses and job fairs and gumming up the works. I couldn't get
it across to them that we just wanted smart people and didn't really care if
the person fell in front-end, back-end, or QA bucket.

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softbuilder
This doesn't just happen in large companies. I've experienced this kind of
useless gatekeeping with 50-100 person "startups".

I'm sometimes asked about tech hiring and I keep telling people that technical
teams need to be responsible for technical recruiting. No one wants to hear
that though.

~~~
wyclif
Apparently, nobody on teams has time to invest in recruiting. Because
meetings. Or something.

Here's the reality: these companies can't hire. I know it and they know it.

They can't hire because they're invested in cancerous HR bureaucracy. Think
_The Crimson Permanent Assurance_ , the opening scene in Monty Python's "The
Meaning of Life." Turns out there's a reason why The Very Big Corporation of
America can't move fast and hire the people they need. And a lot of smaller
companies trying in vain to hire like this don't have any excuse to act like
VBCA because they aren't big now and never will be.

They can't hire because they won't pay market salaries, don't offer enough
equity, and try to make up for it with a combination of pizza, Red Bull,
foosball, and nerf guns.

They can't hire because their office is a place that makes Initech (the
company in _Office Space_ ) look appealing.

They can't hire because they skimp on benefits.

All this has been covered before, but VBCA refuses to learn anything new
because they don't want to change the way they do things.

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html)

~~~
Aloha
I got a job at a start up once - it lasted 3 days - I still dont understand
what happened. I had been laid off from my job, decided to take a stab at
relocating to the bay area, took me a couple weeks, landed a job at a storage
startup - I was a contractor, but it was contract to hire - the interview was
kinda odd - normal technical questions, then a very strange interview with the
manager which mostly consisted of "when can you start?"

I'd like to point out - this was not some fly-by-night sort of deal - they
we're clearly not on a shoestring budget, well funded by major industry
players, offering a unique solution, and it was the true startup environment -
replete with: engineers who looked as if they rolled out of bed, and into work
- friday night beer, free lunch, well stocked soda, nap and gaming rooms, and
of course the obligatory fooseball table.

My title was to be "Senior Technical Support Engineer" \- on my first day I
was handed an HP laptop - with nothing but Windows on it, and a manual for
their product, which I read in about 2 hours (I read fast, and it was only
about an inch/inch and a half thick) - my training consisted mostly of
watching the guy next to me do calls - most of which have to do with license
entitlement issues and anything beyond that or simple config issues, required
come cli-fu to fix.

The next day, was really just a repeat of the first - I still don't have an ID
badge or a phone at my desk - so I keep watching and listening to these calls,
I also took a note on hoe the majority of the office was dressed - pretty
casual - Asking my peers about Putty and other apps, I asked, and was told I
have local admin on the box, for office, go thru IT - anything else, just
install yourself - so I then installed putty and winscp, and went thru the
rigmarole to get office installed.

The next day I showed up in toe shoes, jeans and a button up shirt - as I
don't really have much in the way of dressy working clothes (plus they
advertise not having a dress code on their website) - but my toe shoes are
brown leather - so I figure it cant be that bad, I get a sneery look from the
manager and an aside comment - later that day, I was called in - and told that
this would be my last day - she said I spent the whole day on Facebook (at
that time I didnt even have one), dressed unprofessionally and installed
"advanced software" on my laptop - I of course protested, and indicated what I
saw for dress - and then told her what I was told about tools - she told me I
didn't need putty, that was too advanced.

That was that - and of course the consulting house that sent me in basically
looked at me as mud - I got fired on the third day; who gets fired on the
third day? - eventually 2 other people had a similar experience and I was in
good graces again.

The moral of this is - its not enough to worry about HR - HR is one problem,
you also need to make sure you have a sane way of onboarding people, no matter
if your giant or not.

~~~
lazylizard
i don't quite get the 'advanced software' part..how can it be criticism? and
what an odd example..like, what other ssh client should one use if one were on
winodws...

~~~
Aloha
it was that I'd installed an SSH client at all. She told me I didn't need
'advanced tools like that' to do my job.

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andrewstuart
This is a known issue in recruiting.

From the perspective of the agency recruiter, what seems to happen at some
companies is that the development team just find the person they want through
the agency recruiters and unless HR can find a better person, they tell HR to
hire them and pay the recruiting agency. It's an approach that is hard for HR
to argue against if they can't find a good person.

------
msandford
Depressingly accurate portrayal of hiring in a large company. Also hilarious.

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doktrin
Interesting. What I occasionally see from recruiters is almost a bit of the
opposite.

e.g.

    
    
        "Seeking Junior Ruby on Rails developer with 8+ years in C++, JavaScript, 
        Delphi, AnyLisp, MongoDB, NoSQL, API, Agile, MooseTalk, Apache, GoLang
    
        Experience contributing to the Linux Kernel preferred"

------
subrat_rout
This does not only happen in software field but also in biomedical sciences.
If the recruiter can't find exact keyword matches on your CV or resume then
you are out of luck how much skillful or experienced you are in your field
does not matter. In fact big Pharma companies have algorithm developed for
their job sites where if it cant find exact keywords on your resume then tough
luck. Almost all time it will go to trash(virtual one).

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rwallace
Anne needs to stop talking to the personnel department and start talking to
the CEO: tell him she needs authority to hire programmers without interference
from the personnel department, and that said interference is the reason his
favorite projects are behind schedule.

If he refuses, then she needs to either get on with her job with the people
she has and accept that the schedule delays are not her fault and not her
problem, or start looking for a job in a less dysfunctional company.

------
maugzoide
Very funny. It happens a lot in Brazil. What about other countries?

~~~
eterpstra
American here. Had coffee a while ago with a manager complaining about this
exact thing. Can't get talent on his team because of the "HR Firewall"
blocking recruits for arbitrary reasons (not the right college degree, not
enough 'years' of experience in the correct area, etc...)

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withdavidli
Recruited for a lot of big companies. I'm lucky that my current one is really
good with hiring. Everyone super open with what they want and why.

There is a main concern about the interview process in this story. Anne's team
should've been the one interviewing. Then they would know who would have the
skills required.

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dustingetz
Big defense contractors, horrifying beaurocracy and all, don't even recruit
like this anymore. Source: I worked for one a few years ago and have friends
who still work there.

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zenbowman
I honestly haven't seen a lot of this kind of job posting of late. Ten years
ago this was the norm, but I just don't see it any more.

~~~
softbuilder
I was curious, because I do agree that some of the flavor of job ads has
changed, although I'd say more in the last few years. This was the second ad I
opened on the SF CL:
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/sof/4419917236.html](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/sof/4419917236.html)

~~~
wyclif
_Extensive hands-on experience in MPP DB 's like Teradata, Greenplum, Netezza,
etc and related utilities_

 _Excellent hands-on experience building ETL jobs using ETL tools like
Informatica, Talend, Ab Initio etc._

Bloody hell, that's a disaster. How do they ever hire anybody that way?

------
danielweber
Find the people you want to hire outside of HR, and then craft an HR job
posting that they can ace.

