

Ask HN: How do I find and recruit the talented, ambitious, bright and young? - stevejobs

I am an HR manager for a large west coast firm.  I'd like to find a way to effectively recruit those who are talented, ambitious, bright and young and place them in to our executive/manager career tracks.  However, even though we post on job boards and our own website, the quality of the candidates is underwhelming.<p>Moreover, just looking at a resume doesn't tell me the mindset and motivation of the person.  While I can usually grasp what kind of skills a person may bring to the job, I have a hard time deducing the soft skills like attitude, communication, and teamwork one has.<p>Therefore, it is tough to know beforehand whether the person will work out as hoped and if we should invest our time and effort into bringing on a person who we know so little about.<p>The problem is that the interview process is a highly artificial and IMHO flawed way to assess a candidate from both the POV of the employer and candidate.<p>Do you know of any better way to find and employ the best candidates out there?
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mindcrime

      Young?
    

So you're saying you intend to practice age discrimination? Well, as a
Libertarian I think you have the right to do so if you want, but I think you
should ask yourself if it's really a good idea or not.

Maybe just going for "talented, ambitious and bright" would be good enough?
Actually, Donny Deutsch said something in his book (
[http://www.amazon.com/Often-Wrong-Never-Doubt-
Business/dp/00...](http://www.amazon.com/Often-Wrong-Never-Doubt-
Business/dp/006056718X) ) about how the thing to do is hire older (30+) folks
who "haven't done anything yet" and are hungry to prove themselves, given an
opportunity. I personally think there's a lot to be said for that approach...
but what would I know, I'm an old fart (37 in a week). :-)

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AmberShah
Honestly, the answer is to recruit FOR a company that is interesting and
engaging that those people are clamoring to come work for you. Look at Google
and 37Signals. The best and brightest aren't interested in working for some no
name company that is doing boring things. Yes, you will still have to cut
through the lame people, which is a skill in itself, but you have zero chance
of getting the best and brightest if you're not interesting to them.

~~~
famousactress
Yes. Yes. Yes. You can't expect great people to work for you unless you're a
great place to work.

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famousactress
If you're looking for really great minds, you ought to expect the quality of
_most_ of the candidates you run into to be underwhelming. The trick is
getting past that.

I kind of agree with your comment on resumes, but I'd twist it... If a resume
doesn't tell me the mindset and motivation of the person, it's a 'No'. In
specific, I tend to look for two things on a resume for someone early in their
career:

1\. Passion & Personality, _somewhere_. The last great resume I got had the
following objective: "I want to work with smart people on a great team making
awesome software." Perfect. Any resume that uses the words great, awesome,
love, or even hate gets my attention. I need someone who cares.

2\. Demonstrated interest. It's unbelievable how many people will tell me they
love writing software, but they've never written any that wasn't for an
assignment or a work project. Especially when it comes to young people, they
better have written something. I don't care what it was, or how well it went..
I want to see that they're interested enough to have materialized passion and
enthusiasm as a project. If you're not hiring in the software field, I'm sure
there are other facets.. evidence of attempts at entrepreneurship,
demonstrated leadership in community activities, etc.

Suuuper fast litmus tests that can be done at the resume, or 10-minute-phone-
screen level.. and they'll weed out a depressingly large number of candidates.

Beyond that, I'd suggest that interview processes vary wildly and it's
possible (no offense) that yours is highly artificial.. doesn't mean they all
are. Change your process. Specifically, find ways to get candidates to
demonstrate Doing The Job in their interview. It's hard, but it sounds like
it's your full time job, so sweet! You ought to have the time :)

For the record, the resume I mentioned was someone that we hope to hire.. and
we found him via one of the HN: Who's Hiring threads -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1438505>

Cheers.

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rada
Sorry but I have to call you out. In a recent post, you said:

 _I've been browsing job boards and I come across time and again a requirement
for a college degree to land the position. Yet when I read the description of
what the employer wants of its employee it is not clear that one (the degree)
has anything to do with the other (the job)._

Yet as an HR manager yourself, you essentially say, anyone over 30 need not
apply. I just don't get it - how do you reconcile criticizing others for
asking for a college degree ( _possibly_ irrelevant) all the while placing a
requirement on youth (unethical, and downright illegal)?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488213>

I am not ranting by the way, I really just can't get my mind around the two
posts being made by the same person. Can you explain?

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LeBlanc
How about instead of using the resume / cover letter combination you ask a
series of interesting questions similar to the YCombinator application?

This will 1) weed out all of the people who spend minimal effort on a job app
and just spam their resume / cover letter everywhere, and 2) will give you
answers to questions you actually care about. The more unique/interesting the
questions the more unique/interesting candidates it will attract. UChicago
used this method in their "uncommon application" to attract a class of really
smart, unusual people who were passionate about learning.

I haven't had a chance to use this method though ( I just thought of it
recently), so I make no guarantees. Good luck!

~~~
GrowWebs
Yeah, I was going to say something like this as well. Make it challenging to
apply.

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pjy04
I'm on the west coast and I see a wide range of talent at events that I go to.
I primarily go to events in tech and entrepreneurial related topics like
docstoc events, marketing/seo talks, lean startup, etc. I'm looking to network
and meet people I can possible partner up with for future projects. I usually
get to know the person and get some references after i've met them but it
beats having to read a resume and read through the BS. I've met some great
companies and people so far and references are always rock solid when I ask
for help through these people.

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ysh4u
Look at what they've done. A portfolio, a (completed) project, a (completed)
website can say a lot about their attitude and approach to things.

I'd say for someone to really fit your bill (talented/ambitious), they would
have to have some tangible deliverable accomplishments somewhere. Not just
talk, grades, etc.

Look for what they've done in their community. If they're young (i.e. from
college) those that excel at communication are usually pretty engaged in the
community and have held some leadership positions. Resident Life? Coaching?
TA?

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wilhelm
Be where they are. Discuss with them. Exchange code with them. When you find
the best, the ones you're interested in hiring, ask them to come work for you.
I've hired a dozen excellent people to my department in the past couple of
years. Only half of them have applied on their own without any prior
interaction.

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HeyLaughingBoy
Internship!

