
Don’t “Hire by Keyword” - SeanDav
http://www.michaelrwolfe.com/2012/01/16/dont-hire-by-keyword/
======
cgearhart
This is an example of an article that does a great job of identifying the
problem (seriously -- I think it's great), but it has limited impact because
it doesn't offer concrete steps towards a solution. It _is_ hard to interview
for intangible keywords -- how does the choice of keyword change that? Is the
advice here just to take risk in hiring? That's not going to be received
well...it can be just as damaging to make a bad hire for non-technical factors
as technical ones, and I suspect this is why so many companies rely on
terrible technical interviews.

The broken part of tech interviews isn't that they ask technical questions,
it's that no one on the hiring side looks at their process and asks "what is
it that this part of our process is measuring?" and "does that factor matter
in making a hiring decision?" Asking brain teasers and CS "fundamental"
questions is _fine_ as long as there is a good answer to those two questions,
but instead everyone does cargo-cult interviews because Medium says that's how
Big Tech does hiring.

~~~
peterbonney
_Is the advice here just to take risk in hiring?_

Yes, that's exactly what we should all be doing more of.

Hiring is always a risk, and the "accepted" risk-mitigation strategies (hiring
by keyword, brainteasers, etc.) have been shown to be stubbornly non-
predictive. At best they apply a misleading veneer of certainty on an
inherently uncertain process, and if I'm going to take a risk I'd at least
prefer that I not fool myself about it.

So yes, accept more risk in hiring. You're already taking risk, but by
accepting the _feeling_ of more risk you'll at least be more deliberate about
it.

~~~
Retric
Thresholds seems to be a huge missing component to this stuff. Syntax, obscure
trivia, brainteasers, etc are generally terrible predictors. However, if you
ask someone to find say the average (mean) value in an array and they can't
even get close that's a problem.

IMO, this comes from the mistaken assumption that you want to most technically
competent person possible. Instead basic competence is a minimum barrier and
everything else combined is more important.

~~~
greenleafjacob
Google et al aren't asking to find the average value in an array. They're
asking questions that boil down to "do you know the Boyer-Moore string search
algorithm?" or "Can you correctly identify this problem as a rephrasing of the
boolean satisfiability problem?" which, in the context of an interview,
correlate only weakly with whether you're a good software engineer and instead
correlate most strongly with how frequently you took or refreshed your Data
Structures and Algorithms courses.

~~~
Fargren
>>instead correlate most strongly with how frequently you took or refreshed
your Data Structures and Algorithms courses.

It is well known that this companies test for this knowledge. They even tell
you about it during their process so you will be ready for it. At the very
least, it tests that you can learn this things from study. If you fail at
them, you either did not prepare in the way they told you to, which is a
failure to follow instructions, or you tried to study and it wasn't enough,
which is a failure of ability to learn. There are probelm with this; the
conext on which you are evaluated is vastly different than the environemnt
wher eyou will ahve to apply it. But that doesn't mean the assesment is
completely random. It tests for some qualities that will be important on the
job.

------
noxToken
I think the author's message is spot on, but I disagree with some of the
details. Mainly:

> _Industry experience is often a negative, not a positive_

I can see why someone would say this. If you looking to innovate, you don't
want employees always saying, "This is just the way we've always done it." At
the same time, people with industry experience can avoid novice pitfalls.

Also, I cannot stand all the emphasized keywords. I get why he did it, but
it's so jarring to read.

~~~
quantumhobbit
What the hell is wrong with this industry that experience in the industry is
considered a negative? For every other skill the more you do it the better you
get, yet the logic here is that the more one works with tech the worse one
gets at it.

The only comparable jobs are high impact sports. An older boxer or football
player is assumed to have accumulated injuries that make them a worse value
proposition. Are devs the same? Am I slowly accumulating the equivalent of
career ending sports injuries the longer I am stuck in a job living like a
Dilbert comic?

Probably not. It is really just ageism, and my work history doesn't matter to
these hiring managers as long as I'm over 30.

~~~
noxToken
I think you're missing the point. From the article:

> _We ran circles around competitors who had teams of B and C players with
> security expertise but little else going for them._

He feels experience is negative (I'm guessing) because the experienced
candidates _only_ have experience. It is implied that they have no other team
skills - just their knowledge of the area. It doesn't matter if you hire the
world's foremost expert; if they don't mesh with your team, everyone is going
to have a bad time.

~~~
quantumhobbit
Then experience isn't a negative. It is merely insufficient without other
requirements like team compatability.

But all other things being equal are you still suggesting that experience is a
negative?

~~~
noxToken
No. I never said experience is a negative, but I can see how it was implied. I
understand where he's coming from, because there are people who are stuck in
their ways. That's not an experience issue - that's a people issue.

~~~
quantumhobbit
No problem. I reread your first reply and I think we agree. I've met plenty
devs who believe their 10 repeated years of the same experience entitles them
to shout down younger devs.

Problem is, now that I am older I really don't want to be stereotyped as one
of those dinosaurs.

------
dkopi
THIS. After learning a few languages and paradigms, I find that I often have a
2 week ramp up for any given programming language.

If you already know Java and Javascript, you'll get Scala / Kotlin in no time.
If you're experienced in Python and Django, RoR is a few weeks away. If you're
experienced in C++ and Python, it won't take long until you're good to Go.

I get that companies want someone who's productive from Day 1, but they're
missing out on a lot of great candidates that might only be productive from
Day 15, but they'll be a lot more productive over time.

~~~
techiferous
> I find that I often have a 2 week ramp up for any given programming
> language.

I agree that a competent, experienced developer can do this. What's worth
noting, however, is that it takes two weeks to cross the bar of "can
contribute code in this language that produces deliverable results". But two
weeks cannot get you across the bar of "can contribute robust, maintainable
code in this language".

Even though you are not a beginner to programming, you are a beginner to the
language and its ecosystem and so will still make some significant newbie
mistakes. Ruby on Rails is a good example of this: half of being good at RoR
is being a good programmer, the other half is memorized knowledge of the
idioms and patterns of the framework and community.

~~~
0xmohit
> But two weeks cannot get you across the bar of "can contribute robust,
> maintainable code in this language".

Unfortunately, this is so true and yet so difficult for people to realize and
understand.

I've seen in real life wherein somebody hired at a supreme decision-making
authority comes in and says "We'll rewrite everything in language X". Existing
folks in the team quickly start ramping up on the language and simultaneously
writing _production code_. Much of the code thus written tends to be
pathological.

------
spitfire
Tokenadult isn't around to chime in here, so I'll take his place today. Hunter
and Schmit did a meta-study of 85 years of research on hiring criteria. [1]
There are three attributes you need to select for to identify performing
employees in intellectual fields.

    
    
      - General mental ability (Are they generally smart)
        Use WAIS or if there are artifacts of GMA(Complex work they've done themselves) available use them as proxies.
    
      - Work sample test. NOT HAZING! As close as possible to the actual work they'd be doing. Try to make it apples-to-apples comparison across candidates.
    
      - Integrity. The first two won't matter if the candidate is a sociopath.
    

This alone will get you > 65% hit rate. [1]

[1]
[http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...](http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf)

------
iopq
As a PHP programmer, I picked up Node.js really quickly. I mean, sure, I
already knew JavaScript, but Node is a very different ecosystem and has its
own tools. After a week I was already productive and after a month I was
already bored with it.

I bet I could be a perfectly fine RoR developer, given a little bit of time. I
don't know Ruby, but I pick up languages quickly. Or, I mean, you could just
keep the position open for a few months and just screen for keywords. It's
really your choice.

~~~
Spoom
The problem that I see is that employers don't want to spend the time to train
people, or even wait for them to train themselves. They figure, if they can
get someone who can hit the ground running, why would they waste time waiting
for someone like you who needs to learn the language, regardless of how long
it actually takes?

~~~
quantumhobbit
What they don't realize is that they it takes longer to find the perfect
candidate than to train a good enough candidate. It might take a month or so
to train someone on whatever web framework if they have similar experience.
Yet the position could stay unfilled for six months or more waiting for that
perfect candidate.

~~~
vonmoltke
You have identified one reason we have a "talent shortage".

------
kbart
The author is mocking keyword stuffing, but promoting "cultural fit" as "more
impactful keyword". Sorry, but replacing technical keywords with some vague
buzzwords does not improve your ads.

~~~
rejschaap
I think the wording is a bit unfortunate. I'm sure he doesn't mean you scan
resume's for keywords like team player, communication, cultural fit, etc.
Instead you should focus on these skills during the interview process, more
than specific technologies or previous employers.

As others have said, the article identifies a big problem in hiring. However,
it doesn't give you a lot of handles to solve anything.

~~~
kbart
So what is "cultural fit" then? If one didn't wear skinny jeans and don't
enjoy playing foosball, he's out of luck? "Cultural fit" is one of the most
offputting keyword for me, because as far as I've seen, it has one of two
negative meanings: a) there's a monoculture inside company (usually
"hipsters"). b) they creating a bubble around them and do not accept any other
attitude than fanatically following their idea(s) which often leads to another
overhyped bullshit-that-nobody-needs.

~~~
ysavir
Being a "cultural fit" just means that the person will fit in well with the
process and people at a company. Whether the "culture" in question is a
specific type of culture is irrelevant. If you approach it from that
perspective, you're probably taking the term at face value and missing the
point.

The idea being expressed here is that if you bring in a new employee, even one
that has no previous experience with the technologies being used, they will
perform best if they are naturally in tune with the company's ideals and
methodology, and can quickly develop camaraderie with the existing crew.

On the other hand, if you hire someone that knows all the necessary tech, but
is constantly at odds with how things are done, alienates their coworkers, or
manages to clog up the process in other ways--in those scenarios, everyone
loses.

It has nothing to do with a cultural hive mind; it's just a matter of keeping
a team synchronized and efficient.

~~~
scott_s
Looking for people who will work well with the existing team is understandable
and probably a good thing. The problem is that you have to be vigilant to not
allow this to become looking for people who are _similar_ to your current
people. It's quite possible for a reasonable goal (finding candidates who will
work well with existing employees) to have negative consequences (finding
candidates who only fit a certain racial, cultural or gender expectation).

See some related HN submissions and threads: Inside the Mirrortocracy
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7930430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7930430)
; Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9789928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9789928)

~~~
r_smart
Just a heads up that your first link doesn't seem to exist anymore.

~~~
scott_s
The semicolon used to be a part of the URL; issue with HN's URL parsing. I
fixed it a bit ago, it works for me now. Does it still not work for you?

~~~
r_smart
Looks like it's fixed now, thanks.

*Edit: Okay, I read both of the articles, and they were fairly interesting, so thanks. I do have a pet peeve / complaint though: Both of the articles purported to link to research, but neither actually did. the first article linked to a list of slide decks and the second article linked to a summary of research. I've read enough bad summaries now that I am working on becoming a primary sources junky. Do you know of any research on this issue that's been done?

------
diafygi
What about hire by questionnaire? We used to ask for resumes only, but we ran
into the same issue as OP where qualified candidates wouldn't have key items
in their resume, and unqualified candidates would have lots of things but end
up failing during the coding interview. So we just started asking people up
front what we wanted to know.

For example:
[http://goo.gl/forms/YICrUuz7XNjiTcId2](http://goo.gl/forms/YICrUuz7XNjiTcId2)

Here's one of our software engineering forms. It's worked extremely well at
filtering for technically qualified candidates. But we worry that we're still
missing people because [https://imgur.com/RIamYIZ](https://imgur.com/RIamYIZ)

~~~
dpark
> _But we worry that we 're still missing people because
> [https://imgur.com/RIamYIZ](https://imgur.com/RIamYIZ) _

Eh, that's a pretty reasonable questionnaire. If it was pages and pages, it'd
be too much, but there's only 12 questions here (including the citizenship and
email address questions) and I'm assuming you don't expect an essay for each
of these. Someone who's indignant at the idea of filling this out is probably
not worth working with.

I have to say, I find the SSH question at the bottom odd. Who is this
screening for? Are there people who hit all your other requirements but don't
know how to use SSH? Would you actually eliminate someone for this, as opposed
to spending 5 minutes introducing them to SSH (or 30 seconds sending them a
link)?

------
wassuup
In my opinion, the many emphasized words make this post difficult to read.

~~~
imron
Yep. I was going to make the same comment.

------
Zigurd
This is mostly right, but using "cultural fit" as a criterion is the road to
"hire people like us," which is as unproductive and keyword-based hiring just
in a different way. In fact all the criteria cited in the article as good have
significant weaknesses. Even "expertise" need some explanation, since one
would hope that's not the keywords listed under "Expertise." Having an
applicant write some code and defend they way they did it, and/or bring some
code they wrote, would be a much better gauge of expertise.

------
designium
Finally, someone who also thinks in a sensible way on hiring.

In Toronto, I keep seeing all these job posting of companies that need people
with 10 years in social media experience, or 10 years in mobile app
development and it's quite laughable how they are able to hire those people.

I'm curious how those people can actually perform.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Fake resumes. Indian tech shops specialize in this (I'm Indian btw). Fake
resumes are extremely common among Indian tech workers. I was asked by one IT
body shop to write 7 years of Java experience even though I had none. I
routinely run into resumes where people sometimes write more years of
experience with a package than the number of years the package has existed.

~~~
dasboth
I'm interested in how that kind of thing prevails. Is it because the purpose
of the lie is just to get past HR screening, and after that competent people
just learn the language they lied about on their CV? I can't imagine that
would work though, I mean how does someone get past a technical interview with
a fake CV?

~~~
logfromblammo
That will get you a job in the short term, but isn't great for a career that
will last until retirement.

But as far as I can tell, the candidate crams for the tech screen, learns the
basics between offer letter and start date, and picks up the rest as they
work. The dirty little secret is that nobody actually _needs_ any specific
experience to do the job. You just need a decent brain and an Internet
connection, and just enough people skills to fake it until you make it.

But it probably works better in larger organizations, where none of the people
who would be able to detect the deception are involved in the interview
process. You don't need to fool your peers if you can fool your boss.

It never would have worked in any of the smaller companies that I have
interviewed with, as they have all (perhaps coincidentally) been ultra-
paranoid about resume frauds, for some reason.

~~~
dasboth
_The dirty little secret is that nobody actually needs any specific experience
to do the job. You just need a decent brain and an Internet connection, and
just enough people skills to fake it until you make it._

Very true, and this is why these keyword searches are so absurd. It wouldn't
be difficult to setup the entire hiring process (applications as well as
interviews) around that dirty little secret.

------
kalleboo
Just in case anyone else had trouble concentrating on the article:

javascript:document.styleSheets[0].insertRule("strong%20{%20font-
weight:%20normal%20}")

------
rickcusick
Excellent article. Especially love the call outs on "must have 5 years
experience using {technology ABC}" when it's only been around for 5 years.

~~~
softawre
Sometimes you want to hire the creator of such technology. ;)

------
segmondy
The reality is that resume must be filtered out, either by tech keywords such
as "clojure or ruby on rails" or social keywords such as "culture fit or team
player".

No one hires by keywords, they filter resumes by keywords. If you're smart
enough, you will load up your resume with keywords if that's how your target
company is filtering resume by. You just want to get to the next base which is
getting an interview.

How do you get hired after an interview? Some companies will give you tests,
puzzle, white board coding, all conversation/culture fit, etc. You likewise
have to be a fool not to adjust accordingly. If you want to join Acme corp so
bad and they require you wear a suit, wear a freaking suit. If they are laid
back and cargo pants and t-shirt will do, you have to be an idiot to go in
with a suit. If they are big on whiteboard coding, then practice so and do
load's of exercises prior to your interview.

game theory 101, people will always look for ways to maximize their outcome.

------
avip
Altogether nice article, excluding the sad appearance of "cultural fit" as
hiring criteria. Cultural fit, begone.

------
ccozan
Exactly my train of thoughts.

I cringe when a recruiter wants to know which language I program in and he/she
does not get it immediatelly when I reply "any that you like" or "what ever
the customer wants".

Keyword based job match is however the only automatic solution, all other are
to work intensive so that it makes economically sense.

~~~
coldcode
Even worse is keyword technology and version. "I need someone with X version
5.12" kinds of job ads. Really, you intend to avoid upgrading for the rest of
time?

~~~
DanielDent
There exist job ads which have the explicit purpose of not finding a qualified
candidate. It tends to be a result of things like H1-B visas, union contracts,
and other frameworks which provide 'first dibs' on an opportunity to a subset
of the global labour pool.

------
pyb
Everybody knows one shouldn't Hire by Keyword, but they still do it. Why ? I
think this is the CYA principle in play. "I hired a $keyword specialist, it
clearly says so in his resume. I am limiting any blame I get if they don't
work out !"

~~~
hbosch
I've worked at a company where this philosophy was compounded on during the
"down" days, where the company I was at was in a sharp decline.

When the VPs and execs panicked, they started at the hiring level... They made
a plan to "stop hiring junior level" employees, and our team became full of
Senior level people. Then they said we need more PhDs... because a PhD is
prestigious and we need prestige. There was even a brief mandate to high an
industry celebrity type, basically just for show. It all started with a
"hiring by keyword" mentality and pretty much led to a massive decay of
passion across the entire team.

------
gedrap
The key takeaway, for me, is:

* outsiders can bring some fresh thoughts and challenge ideas that everyone inside keep as status quo and unchallenged;

* people who define themselves as e.g. 'Ruby on Rails dev' (or JavaScript dev or whatever) might have hard time adapting if the landscape changes, or they need to do something outside their comfort zone;

* specific technical skills (programming language, etc) are usually easier to develop than soft skills such as leadership, teamwork, communication.

Of course, it's not unconditional. Sometimes you _really_ need someone who has
deep knowledge of some niche, or is really a master at some technology. It's
just probably not as common as one might believe.

------
chrisp_dc
Devil's advocate: I like it when ads have the technologies as keywords.
Preferably listed explicitly & directly. I have arbitrary preferences like
Apache Camel v Spring Integration & Ansible v Puppet. I'm not on the market
looking, but I do occasionally peak to see if there are dream jobs available
on Craigslist/StackOverflow.

Even if I can quickly grok the equivalent, I'd get frustrated after a
months/years of solving problems using my less preferred stack. The stack can
also tell you a lot about the philosophy of the shop: flexibility vs.
convention/readability, stability vs. cutting-edge.

------
GoToRO
The truth is that those kind of companies have very little money and so they
want to hire people that can be productive from day one. Of course this is
utopia but that will not stop them.

------
notyourloops
Do they actually end up hiring based on the criteria in their postings? I
often find that the typical listing is unreasonable. Who actually gets the
job? Is it worth applying to anyway?

~~~
ssharp
In my experience, I've seen direct hiring tends to focus less on "x years of
experience" but recruiters, especially larger firms with junior staff doing
screening, is absolutely terrible with obsessing over it.

~~~
johnward
Some postings go way overboard on skillset. You must be a master at
everything. I've heard that this is done sometimes so that they can't find the
talent locally and then can outsource for that specific role.

Some recruiters, not all, are basically no better than a robot. I don't have a
B.S. but I have an A.S. plus 10 years of experience now. Give a recruiter a
req of "B.S. or equivalent experience" and they will turn me away without a
phone call because I don't have the degree. When 10 minutes on the phone is
all I would need to convince them I have the experience they need. I've
basically given up on interviews for awhile. It drains so much energy just to
get canned responses back.

------
tormeh
I think it's weird that the IT industry hires based on technologies you know.
It seems much more relevant to hire based on whether you've completed similar
kinds of projects to those that will be done at your new workplace.

It's like aiming to hire someone to build a high-rise out of wood and going
"We need someone who can use a hammer and nail". Not really wrong, but it's
kind of an odd emphasis.

------
lstamour
We should probably add (2012) to the title, I was confused by the comment on
social media being "barely 5 years old" until I saw that.

------
ed_blackburn
A few years ago I built some .NET components to service a node front end. I
used to get so many people contact me about Angular and node contracts. I
tweaked my CV to say Microservices instead of components and replaced node
with java script SPA and now I get far more relevant enquires from agents.

------
alexeiz
Bullcrap. Just look at the examples of hires he has in mind: co-founder of a
startup, VP of marketing, CEO, "Could Hollywood execs have started Netflix?".
This guy is a fly-high investor. Unless you're in a similar position, his
advice is useless.

------
vthallam
I agree to the article in general. But most of the keywords in job description
are put up to set some expectations or if you have a project that needs people
who already know things.

------
namelezz
I don't think companies are hiring by keyword. It's the clueless tech
recruiters filtering out candidates by keyword.

~~~
vonmoltke
Perhaps the companies you deal with aren't but non-software companies are
pretty bad about it, with non-tech companies being the worst.

