
Software Raises Bar for Hiring - imjk
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rmATinnovafy
I'd like to see software engineers who are part of the hiring process in their
company apply for their own position anonymously. Go through the whole
enchilada: the phone interview, the code tests, the puzzles, the questions
regarding optimization and performance, etc. Let's see if they can pass all
the hurdles.

I have $100 here that says most won't (if any).

 __* If we can't hire people due to a broken system, how do we expect to
succeed?

~~~
crusso
I've been on the hiring manager's side and the employee's side, more the
former than the latter.

I don't get your beef.

The phone interviews are there to screen the 80% of the applicants who don't
merit the time of my team to interview them. The puzzles are there to watch
people think on their feet. The detailed questions are to see if you're
looking at someone superficial or someone with deep knowledge of the subject
matter. The programming challenges are to see if the applicant wants the job
badly enough to spend a couple of hours working on a programming problem that
can then be used as a showcase for how they write some software.

Earlier in my career, I didn't have all those interview techniques in place.
When I started, hiring people was a complete crap shoot and I ended up with
some total lemons. Like the warning labels on products you buy, each interview
technique I added to the process was the result of a lame hire that in
hindsight, I could have avoided had I used that technique.

The last job I had to interview for used all the techniques above. I found the
interview process to be thorough and challenging. I appreciated the rigor of
the interview process since it meant that the people hiring really gave a shit
about the quality of the people joining their small team. I got the job. In
point of fact, if they hadn't had a thorough interview process, I probably
would have passed on the job offer since that would have been an indication to
me that they were naive and didn't have their crap together.

Do you want to send me your $100 via Paypal?

~~~
rmATinnovafy
I don't have a beef with it. I also think that of you apply to the jobs posted
on HN, you will get my point.

Sadly, I don't use Paypal. You can make a donation to your local hackerspace
with the $100 that you will soon lose.

Good luck.

PS. Have you ever asked the people you have interviewed what they think about
the process?

~~~
mgkimsal
"Have you ever asked the people you have interviewed what they think about the
process?", especially, perhaps, the people you didn't hire?

Almost without exception, people who don't get hired never hear back from a
company as to why. Yes, I know all about "everyone's afraid to get sued for
saying something wrong". So... develop a neutral feedback form to candidates
as to why they were passed over, skills the interviewer(s) thought were
lacking, etc. This will mean that people can get better, perhaps get another
job (yes, maybe at a competitor, but also maybe somewhere else entirely), and
continue to earn income, pay taxes, and contribute to society in a productive
way. Some people can contribute without a job, sure, but right now most people
need jobs.

Telling someone "we're sorry - we had 8 candidates apply for this position,
and we ended up taking on someone with more experience in X, Y and Z compared
to your experience level. We wish you the best of luck in your job search".
This would be courteous, professional and helpful all at the same time.
Between my own experience and that of several colleagues, fewer than 5% of
employers ever provide something even remotely useful in terms of feedback.

How do we expect the job seeking population to get better without providing
feedback mechanisms for them to learn from?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Telling someone "we're sorry - we had 8 candidates apply for this position,
and we ended up taking on someone with more experience in X, Y and Z compared
to your experience level._

And what about the cases where your reasons are not "more experience in X, Y,
Z"? Cultural fit is a biggie - one might turn down a candidate who is more
qualified because his banking attitudes would go over badly at a startup, for
example.

~~~
mgkimsal
That's true, and in those cases, a more generic "we had other qualified
candidates" letter/email would be fine. but all too often corporate america
just ignores people altogether - won't return emails/phone calls, and
basically leaves the person out to dry. Working via a recruiter, you at least
have a person at the agency who might be sympathetic.

Companies don't seem to realize that treating applicants bad is just as
detrimental in many cases as poor customer service. I've had bad experiences
with job application processes, and I've told many people chapter and verse
about the companies involved. If they can't even treat people well who _want_
to work there, how will they treat customers after the money is received?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_That's true, and in those cases, a more generic "we had other qualified
candidates" letter/email would be fine._

If unskilled candidate X gets "other candidates had more specific skillz"
while uncultured candidate Y gets "sorry, you suck for unspecified reasons",
it sounds like a lawsuit risk.

------
nhangen
This is spot on. I've been on both sides of the fence, and in multiple
disciplines. The strange thing I found is that finding a job as a developer
has been just as difficult, if not more so, than finding a non-technical job.

On the non-technical side, the basic requirements are exactly that - basic.
Have some experience, a certification or two, and a specialized degree. That
doesn't make it easy, but it makes the path somewhat concrete.

And on the technical side, there are very few companies willing to hire entry
level developers. They all seem to want code ninjas, which is fine, but here's
the thing...if I'm a code ninja, why would I work for someone else when I
could build something of my own without the requirement of commuting to an
office and clocking in/out.

On the employer side, I've found far less people applying for technical jobs
than non-technical jobs. It has taken much longer to fill mid-level technical
positions than entry-mid level non-technical positions.

Building a team is difficult. Joining a team is difficult.

It's a very strange time indeed.

~~~
crusso
> The strange thing I found is that finding a job as a developer has been just
> as difficult, if not more so, than finding a non-technical job.

It's easier to bullshit when interviewing for non-technical jobs. Technical
jobs have mostly-objective tests you can give to candidates where they have to
program stuff, solve equations, etc. Non-technical jobs have squishy mostly-
subjective tests that aren't very reliable at gauging anything.

------
nostromo
The US should find ways to make employers less risk-averse. There are lots of
ways worth exploring. For example: maybe if you fire someone in the first 6
months you are immune from wrongful termination lawsuits and don't have to pay
higher unemployment insurance. A lot of resistance to firing is also caused by
moral concerns -- we could fix that by making sure these fired workers are
still eligible for unemployment.

This would be extra beneficial for young people, who really just need to get a
foot in the door to prove themselves -- they need someone to take a risk.
Well, maybe we should reduce the risk.

~~~
Locke1689
Most US states are at-will states, meaning they're already immune from
wrongful termination, except for discriminatory reasons. No matter how long
the employee has been there.

~~~
mikeryan
While "At-Will" in theory means that they're immune from wrongful termination,
there's some major exceptions in most of those states.

See "Covenant of good faith and fair dealing" (which in some states mean you
have to be fired for 'just cause') and "Implied contract exceptions".

I say these not to indicate you're wrong, mostly to make sure the
entrepreneurs around here understand that even in a lot of "At-Will" states
they might not be able fire completely with impunity.

w/r/t the GP as long as the rules around a trial period are set via an
employee handbook or in the contract, generally in the US we're fairly free to
try people out and let them go, the US is actually more liberal in this then a
lot of European countries.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment>

------
alister
There's a failure of logic in this article that no one is pointing out.

If employers are so picky that they can't find anyone to hire, then they will
have to lower their standards if they want to hire anyone.

There might be a delay--like the guy that waits for the supermodel to come
along, but eventually settling for the pretty girl next door. Ultimately the
problem is self-correcting.

~~~
kfk
And employers are not that picky either. Most of the things they ask, at least
in Europe, are pretty basic. For a finance is usually a bachelor, English
skills, some prove you are not a lazy ass. Of course, requirements go up with
better positions, but this article deceives into thinking that employers are
looking for stars even in entry level jobs, it doesn't look like that to me.

I am still convinced the problem is on the employee side...

------
ilaksh
He makes good points about the software filtering out qualified applicants,
but I don't think that is the underlying problem.

The underlying problem is that there is a lot of unemployment and therefore
too many people applying for too few jobs.

We just don't need that many people to order around anymore now that we have
so much hardware and software automation. The public education system is
designed to create wage slaves, and is effectively doing that, but we don't
need that many anymore.

Another part of it of course is just that we are in an 'economic' down period
and therefore have to be extremely selective when hiring since no one can
afford any dead weight or even to do much training.

The entire 'economic' model has been invalidated by technology.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_The public education system is designed to create wage slaves, and is
effectively doing that, but we don't need that many anymore._

The other half of the problem is that our economy creates very few sources of
income for the supposed "creative class", the newest Class of the New. If we
say that our economy has evolved beyond the need for factory workers and we
now need artists, writers, and hackers, we need to actually work on creating
jobs for artists, writers and hackers (as distinct from mediocre programmers).

~~~
ilaksh
Well.. I actually think that anything that qualifies as a job is more or less
going in the category of wage slave.

I just think that the extreme hierarchies and subservience are unnecessary and
detrimental. I think we need to examine our basic assumptions and have a
realistic perspective about the actual level of suffering that is currently
going on in the world.

We need to see the extreme inequality as being unacceptable and move away from
the Social Darwinian rationalizations.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I agree with you, but then we have to overthrow capitalism completely.
Unfortunately, socialism is considered impolite on HN.

~~~
ilaksh
Well, just to clarify further, whenever I talk like this, people think I mean
to completely do away with money and/or move towards a traditional socialist
or techno-communist model.

I don't want to do that. I think that almost all anti-capitalists are missing
a very important lesson that we can take as a major success of capitalism:
diversity and distribution is very important for robustness and ease of system
evolution. Technocrats, techno-communists, social democrats, almost all seem
to be aiming for centralization which has been proven to be extremely
inadequate.

So I think the way forward is to create a system that while encouraging a
great diversity of distributed, localized solutions to problems, at the same
time the local solutions are developed and evaluated holistically over a
comprehensive common global scientific information schema and database.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
You'd be surprised at the variability and diversity of the approaches that
fall under the term "socialism".

------
greghinch
"His son, now 25 years old, graduated in 2010 with a degree in classics from
St. John's College and couldn't find a job."

This is the problem right here. Gee I wonder why you couldn't find a job in
"Classics"? Because there aren't any, at least with an undergraduate degree.
People pay you to work because you can perform a given task with a level of
quality and consistency. We tell kids that they should study whatever makes
them happy in college, but then when they graduate and can't find a job it's
not their fault. Fine you study your BS degree, but don't expect to be handed
a job when you graduate. Expect to work some menial job, or do what this kid
did, go back to school and learn a trade. You'll have to prove to someone that
you have some employable skill if you want to earn money. Having a job isn't a
right.

------
tokenadult
The underlying problem is that most companies rely on hiring procedures that
are empirically demonstrated to be suboptimal. Companies rely on industry
tradition or the gut feelings of the boss rather than on research to decide
hiring practices. The review article "The Validity and Utility of Selection
Models in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85
Years of Research Findings"

[http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...](http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf)

sums up, current to 1998, much of the HUGE peer-reviewed professional
literature on the industrial and organizational psychology devoted to business
hiring practices. There are many kinds of hiring screens, such as resume
reviews for job experience, telephone interviews, in-person interviews, checks
for academic credentials, and so on. Most of the most commonly used means for
screening job applicants, such as those mentioned in the submitted (like
matching job titles in previous positions) are basically useless. There is
much published study research on how job applicants perform after they are
hired in a wide variety of occupations.

The overall summary of the industrial psychology research in reliable
secondary sources is that two kinds of job screening procedures work
reasonably well (but only about at the 0.5 level, standing alone). One is a
general cognitive ability test (an IQ-like test, such as the Wonderlic
personnel screening test). Another is a work-sample test, where the applicant
does an actual task or group of tasks like what the applicant will do on the
job if hired. Each of these kinds of tests has about the same validity in
screening applicants for jobs, with the general cognitive ability test better
predicting success for applicants who will be trained into a new job. Neither
is perfect (both miss some good performers on the job, and select some bad
performers on the job), but both are better than anything else that has been
tested in rigorous research, across a wide variety of occupations. So if you
are hiring for your company, it's a good idea to think about how to build a
work-sample test into all of your hiring processes.

For legal reasons in the United States (the same consideration does not apply
in other countries), it is difficult to give job applicants a straight-up IQ
test (as was commonplace in my parents' generation) as a routine part of a
hiring process. The Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971) case in the
United States Supreme Court

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196978&q=Griggs+Duke+Power&hl=en&as_sdt=2,24)

held that cognitive ability tests used in hiring that could have a "disparate
impact" on applicants of some protected classes must "bear a demonstrable
relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used." In
other words, a company that wants to use a test like the Wonderlic, or like
the SAT, or like the current WAIS or Stanford-Binet IQ tests, in a hiring
process had best conduct a specific validation study of the test related to
performance on the job in question. Some companies do the validation study,
and use IQ-like tests in hiring. Other companies use IQ-like tests in hiring
and hope that no one sues (which is not what I would advise any company). Note
that a brain-teaser-type test used in a hiring process might be illegal if it
can be shown to have disparate impact on some job applicants and is not
supported by a validation study demonstrating that the test is related to
successful performance on the job. Companies outside the United States are
regulated by different laws. So don't set up stupid HR procedures like those
described in the submitted article, even if those stupid procedures can be
automated. Instead, figure out how to give applicants a work sample test, or
figure out how to validate a general cognitive ability test for the applicants
you desire to hire. Automating USEFUL processes can be helpful. There is no
reason to automate a process that is not worth doing.

~~~
learc83
>like the SAT

I would love it if companies hired people like colleges select students.

I'm very good at interviews, but I still _hate_ doing them. If would love it
if I could write an essay and send them my SAT scores without going through
that awful process.

It would probably also weed out people who are just inordinately good at
interviews.

I don't overtly try to exaggerate, but a few times I've been offered a job
where I thought in the back of the mind that I might not really be qualified.
To wit, I thought my interview skills, not my coding skills got me the offer.

~~~
MaxGabriel
I get what you mean, but colleges are probably the worst analogue for
successful hiring practices given selection based on legacy status, wealth,
minority status, athletic ability, etc

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chuckp
Most companies will put a litany of skill sets on the requirements list,
however what they are really looking for is what crusso pointed out, someone
with critical thinking skills.

Be it a customer service rep, or a software engineer, when the employer says
"Do X" if you don't know how to do it, figure it out. So many people will just
sit there and stare into their screen or at a wall. That is the type of person
these tests are designed to weed out.

As others pointed out, if you are not willing to put in the effort and jump
through the hoops, why bother, either you feel your too good for the job and
won't apply yourself, or you lack the basic understanding of problem solving
and troubleshooting.

~~~
randomdata
Maybe in theory, but I read a couple of posts on HN in just the last few days
of people complaining that potential hires they were interviewing couldn't
even rhyme off things like basic data structures.

If critical thinking was the skill being sought, rote memorization seems like
it shouldn't have any emphasis at all. You can always look up data structures,
or whatever, but that is often not good enough.

------
tristan_juricek
This just smacks of big dumb companies trying to "automate away" HR and not
really paying attention to the consequences. And, candidates not figuring out
HR systems.

What I fear, however, is that this isn't really a problem for the executives
for a public company. Their real compensation these days is all tied to stock
prices; I don't see the incentive to really care about HR. How does adding
people change the stock price? (Usually I only hear about it from the other
way; cutting jobs to cut costs.)

Have you ever heard of investor pressure to hire candidates?

~~~
TDL
It becomes an issue when there are too many vacancies and revenues begin to
fall. Most c-level executives don't have their comp tied to stock prices, but
to revenue growth (which is as bad as having it tied stock prices.) That being
said, this definitely a heavy case of big & dumb.

~~~
sokoloff
Every C-level exec with share-based (RSU or option) compensation quite clearly
has their comp tied to share prices. I doubt very many C-level execs at public
companies have no share-based comp.

------
yumraj
While I agree that this indeed sounds like a problem, and a genuine one at
that, for the HN community this should also sound like an opportunity, to
create a resume sorting systems that is much much better than the ones out
there.

Are there startups already looking at this problem? If not, why not? And,
who's up for a challenge?

~~~
rmATinnovafy
The problem is not the software. The problem are the employers. Everyone wants
the perfect candidate. But no candidate is perfect. Everyone has good skills
and bad baggage to carry from job to job. The aim should be to find people who
will add to the team rather than building a perfect team. You can't do that
with software (yet).

~~~
yumraj
Well you're agreeing with me when you say "yet", and hence my comment about
opportunity.

The problem is the software and the software is not going to go away. The
opportunity is to make the software more intelligent so that the output is
more in line with what would work.

~~~
rhizome
Why haven't DICE or Indeed.com or whoever seem to have done any work on that
front? I'm thinking the ROI isn't there.

~~~
tomjen3
Considering that it costs 20% for a match by a recruitment company, there is
enourmous ROI for a program like that. It would almost be as good as the
ability to print money.

Not to mention the cost you could get for the unemployed to sign up ("It costs
you on average 2k/month not to use our service").

~~~
rhizome
Enormous ROI for the company, not so much the recruiter, who enjoys the moral
hazard of getting paid either way, whether their filtering sucks or not.

~~~
tomjen3
Sure, if the company hires the applicant.

~~~
rhizome
Which leaves the question of why no work appears to be done in this direction.

------
jmorton
I think it is strange to rely on HR and recruiters as a filter. I would prefer
someone to introduce themselves to the entire company: tell me what you can do
and what you want to do, send me a reference to any relevant portfolio, and
I'll take it from there. Hopefully this approach will discourage overly
tailored cover letters, who knows. The article talks about this specifically,
"the trick is parroting all the words in the job description but not just
copying and pasting the text"

This is pretty much why I started building They Meet You (theymeetyou.com)
during my spare time. The way the site works right now is pretty simple. You
can write a message that is meant for anyone at a company (@customink.com),
anyone that proves they have an email address there can read it and exchange
their contact info.

~~~
TDL
While I think the problems discussed in the article need some resolution there
is another issue that they do not discuss and which you allude to. Too many
people are leading with their resumes and, more or less, blindly applying to
jobs. Getting to know people in the industry you want to work in and the
companies you would like to work at is a significantly better approach.

------
pnathan
One thing I hope to be able to do in my career is, as I come into points where
I am hiring, I can look at everything in my resume queue without having some
software or some unqualified individual tell me who is qualified and who
isn't.

I hope to be able to spread a wide net to find the best... not a fine net to
find a unicorn.

------
abalone
Software that discards applicants based on simple keyword mismatch doesn't
"raise the bar."

