
The Boss Doesn’t Want Your Resume - graceofs
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boss-doesnt-want-your-resume-1452025908
======
grayfox
A dude from Compose here, I'm currently helping out with hiring.

If you'd like to know more about the process described in the article, we've
recently blogged about it:

[https://www.compose.io/articles/compose-hiring-scaling-
to-10...](https://www.compose.io/articles/compose-hiring-scaling-to-100/)

We have a bunch of postings up right now for those of you who are looking to
give something like this a try (you may have seen us looking in the latest
Who's Hiring):

[https://compose.io/jobs](https://compose.io/jobs)

If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.

~~~
bitL
So you are telling us that if we had a PhD, multiple awards from previous
companies for actual work and not politicking/backstabbing/brownnosing,
Coursera/edX certificates relevant to your area of business with almost 100%
success rate on their most difficult courses, can program in 50+ languages,
you would still ignore our past success and we have to go through your normal
hiring process? I am sure this would bring you plenty proven world-class
talent... /s

~~~
grayfox
I'm glad you brought up the other side of things.

If you were an applicant of such impressive, world renowned stature the answer
would be: yes, (sir), you still need to go through the regular hiring process.

It isn't an arbitrary request, like building a JavaScript calculator. The
samples we ask that you complete closely resemble the type of work you'd do in
the role.

When hiring engineers for example, we take a piece of our application, take a
chunk out, then ask you to complete it.

If you're a major talent, it's maybe 2-3 hours of work.

If you were to circumvent this, or feel you "shouldn't have to do this", what
message does that send to the rest of the team?

We're a remote, self-managing, and loosely structured group - would it be wise
to suggest that you are to be treated differently than the rest of us?

It sends a poor message and reflects on the (entitled) attitude of the
candidate.

Team work makes the dream work.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I think you guys will do great for junior folks (where a resume with little
experience would be a hinderance traditionally) or perhaps people who are
willing to jump through hoops to work from home, but I don't see it catching
on (unfortunately?).

> If you were to circumvent this, or feel you "shouldn't have to do this",
> what message does that send to the rest of the team?

Does everyone on your team get paid the same? If not, does that not send the
same message? Is your HR process willing to let top talent go to a competitor
who doesn't require such a test? (All real questions, not rhetorical)

~~~
grayfox
We've had no issues attracting excellent and talented people. Most of them
would be considered "senior".

You might be interested to hear that Juniors are the group most likely to be
deterred by the sample. The (great) majority of candidates have backgrounds
and capabilities up to or exceeding what we're asking them to do. We actually
get very few under-qualified applicants.

The process appeals to people who appreciate a fair and objective approach to
hiring as it demonstrates how we value those traits. We "set the tone" early
by giving everyone an open and honest shake at proving their abilities,
without the awkwardness of dealing with a biased human filter.

I don't agree with the premise of your salary comparison.

The process is willing to pass on candidates and wish them well if they aren't
willing to take a test -- again, if it would be so "beneath" their skill and
experience, that's a spooky indicator of attitude.

~~~
Bahamut
Or it may be an indicator of the attitude/shortsightedness of the hiring
company.

From the candidate perspective, one way to assess the viability of the hiring
strategy is imagine if most, or a significant number, of companies doing this.
This eats significantly into each candidate's time, and edges the job seeking
dynamic in favor of the companies, and against the candidate since the
candidate is forced to value the cost of opportunity searching versus doing
something else. This also dramatically would increase the stress of a job
search - I experienced it first hand over the course of last year when a good
portion of companies wanted projects done, all which would have totalled maybe
100 hours of extra work on top of everything else normally associated with
interviewing.

This is not a sustainable balance for job seekers - ultimately this acts
against most job seekers' self-interest. I'm fine with doing project-based
tests ability/attitude-wise but this reasoning is why I pass up on them.

~~~
frankjaeger
Anyone who could not only criticize but also resist straight up killing for
the opportunity to work with the only and only grayfox is an anomaly. Either
you are incredibly unaware, or on the next level of talented to not recognize
this. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter, in which
case, stop posting on HN, and start writing books. People need to hear your
wisdom.

~~~
grayfox
Fighting was the only thing... the only thing I was good at.

(That made my day, stranger, thank you).

------
salmonet
Resumes, interviews, and referrals disproportionately favor the BSers,
conversationalists, and the well-connected. No surprise that employers have
buyers remorse. For how much emphasis companies put on hiring, I'm surprised
there aren't better ways to identify diamonds in the rough.

~~~
kylec
Diamonds-in-the-rough are also a tremendous value. It's very cheap to hire
someone that can't (or doesn't think that they can) get a job elsewhere. It
really is surprising that more effort isn't spent trying to identify and hire
them.

~~~
cubano
So isn't that just really a form of exploitation of someone's low self esteem,
background, or career ignorance?

~~~
autotune
Everyone looking to get their start needs to start somewhere.

------
PhasmaFelis
I'm always torn between appreciating guys like this for their good advice, and
wanting to scream because the entire rest of the industry _still_ hasn't
twigged to this gobsmackingly "water-is-wet" obvious fact. How can so many
smart people be so deeply, enduringly stupid?

~~~
mrkurt
This used to wig me out a bit. We have people we turn down thank us for having
a decent hiring process ... and I think what we have is a good philosophy with
an imperfect implementation.

But it's actually really hard to do what we're doing. It's not hard in the
"can I get a rocket to land itself?" sense, it's more of a grind and
commitment problem. It's hard to spend the time developing a new position in a
way that works with our process (2-3 weeks of work, minimum), it's tiring to
keep up with people who apply, it's painful to fight for rigorous hiring
criteria. I can see why places just go with the default.

------
jaytaylor
I can't seem to read it without subscribing or signing in..

~~~
grayfox
Oddly, if you Google the article name, then click the first link, you can
(temporarily) circumvent that pay wall.

~~~
mosquito242
as a note: if you click the web link above, it'll automatically google the
title for you.

