
Uncertain About Hiring, Some Companies Try ‘Test Drives’ - soundsop
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/business/smallbusiness/uncertain-about-hiring-some-companies-try-test-drives.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-above-moth-fixed-region&region=c-column-above-moth-fixed-region&WT.nav=c-column-above-moth-fixed-region&_r=0
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exceptione
I don't quite get it. Normally, both the applicant and the employer take a
risk when the latter decides to hire. You could argue that an employer takes
the biggest risk.

In this system al the burden and risk is shifted solely on the applicant. So
what does he or she gets in return? It's not clear from the article. I would
expect that in order to attract applicants they must

\- either be desperate,

\- or have a salary offer in sight more than 2.5 times the market's average.

~~~
donw
Provided that the "solid consulting rate" isn't pure bullshit, then I don't
see the problem here.

In a traditional hiring process, you'd be hired, not work out in the first
month, and then get fired. No unemployment or ongoing insurance for the
employee, and a lot of paperwork and the possibility of a wrongful termination
lawsuit for the employer.

By starting things off on a contract, both the employer and the employee have
a chance to evaluate one another. It's really exactly the same as the
traditional hire-fire process, but with less paperwork, and clear expectations
on both sides.

~~~
kourt
_Automattic, the creator of WordPress, the blog and website tool. Still, every
hire, without exception, goes through a two- to six-week contract period, and
is paid the standard rate of $25 an hour._

$25/hour: seriously?

~~~
jurassic
That seems ridiculously low for any software job. I've known design interns
making almost double that in SF.

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hawkice
I would be extremely skeptical if someone asked me to do 3 weeks of work in
one week with no guidance during my vacation. Add to that, I cannot imagine
they'd pay my weekly rate, because that would of course raise the question of
why I'd take such a huge pay cut to do the same thing full time.

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philsnow
> noting that candidates are generally eager to test the waters before
> committing to a job and that they are treated legally as employees even
> during the trial period

I'm not seeing any upside for candidates here ? What does it even mean to
"commit" to a job in this context ?

~~~
dismal2
remain funemployed, I imagine...

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dismal2
I imagine that without realizing it, they are getting some bottom of the
barrel talent using this process. Not sure which qualified person would look
at this hiring practice and go through with it.

~~~
pbiggar
The upside of this for the employee is that they know they are going to be
working with "rockstars" (the word is from the article). If I applied to a
company which had a hiring process that could let through idiots, I wouldn't
take the job.

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fndrplayer13
I don't really think I'd accept this unless I had no other job prospects or I
_really_ wanted to work at the place I was interviewing/'testing' at.

------
moonka
>Meanwhile, she said, much of the emotion and uncertainty has been taken out
of the interview process.

At least it has for the company. Seems like it puts more of the risk on the
employee.

~~~
x0x0
Yup, this seems very directly like a transfer of risk from the employer to
potential employees.

But remember -- there's an engineering shortage! We can't hire good people! We
need ten times as many h1b visas! (Pay more? Take a slight risk? Hire someone
without five years of experience (in a four year old tech) doing _exactly_
what we think we want them to do? Now why would we do something like that?)

Edit: and nonsense like this is going around. I recently talked to a very
early stage startup that just raised either a very large angel round or a
smallish round A. The phone screen went well, and my experience and skills
were a great match. But then the ceo wanted to do a reference check to proceed
not to an offer but to an in-office meeting with the other founders! I said
that, well, my references are ceos and chief scientists and they're very busy;
I can't impose on them just to see if maybe there's a fit. But again, I'll bet
good money he's complaining to his peers about how hard it is to hire.

edit2: I'm gonna channel michaelochurch: this is beyond fucking amazing.

    
    
       Not all positions lend themselves to candidate auditions. At Entelo, Joor 
       and Weebly, candidates for senior executive positions rarely go through a 
       trial process.
    

So yeah, all that shit about how execs are treated better? That's it right
fucking there. At Entelo, Joor, and Weebly, if you're a regular asshole and
dumb enough to want to work there, you gotta suck it up and audition. But an
executive? Come on -- we're all equal, but some of us are more equal than
others. All that writing Michael does about high-status and low-status jobs,
this is how execs want to treat the low status employees. You should all read
this [1]

[1] [https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-
othe...](https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-other-half-
works-an-adventure-in-the-low-status-of-software-engineers/)

~~~
ultrasaurus
Maybe we are somehow insanely good at interviewing engineers, but after a
standardized 1 day interview I can't think of a single bad engineering hire
we've made in the last year.

But, it may be much harder if you're only looking in the pool of people who
are willing to work temporary contracts for $25/hour or "who are in jobs where
they are unhappy".

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mmaunder
Our lead investor suggested we do this and it's been working very very well.
The one time we didn't do it, it was a major screw-up.

Lots of negative comments about this from people looking at it from the
employees side. Have you considered the impact on the employee if you just
hire them full-time and it doesn't work out? They've quit their other full-
time job (yes, we hire part timers who are at other companies while they're
working there), potentially moved house, made other irrevocable decisions
related to their new job with you. It's a disaster if you have to let them go
in 3 to 6 months and it's very hard to get re-hired once you've gone through
that - not only does it look bad on your resume but your self confidence is
shot.

So a 30 day try-out IMO works extremely well for both employer and employee.
Remember, you're trying out the company too during those 30 days.

~~~
zippergz
I've never had a job that would be ok with me working part time for someone
else. So I'd have to quit my job to do a trial run with you. At that point,
I'm not sure it's better to be let go after 30 days instead of 90 or 180. I
still have to look for a new job after having failed at one, and I still end
up with a short stint on my resume (though I suppose it's short enough that I
could reasonably leave it off). Also I don't understand how this addresses the
relocation issue. If your company is in a different place than I currently
live, aren't I going to be required to relocate regardless of how long my
tenure is? Are people supposed to shell out for a hotel (potentially away from
their families) for a month?

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frankus
My last job began with an out-of-the-blue phone call, a couple of phone
interviews, and then a ~8-hour (paid) contract project (adding a couple of
features to the codebase I would be working on). I didn't actually meet any of
my coworkers in person until about six months in.

It was basically a paid audition. I'm not sure how I would've felt had it not
worked out, but it seemed like a fair process for all involved.

One big possible failure mode would be a totally incompetent auditioner, but
paying a few hundred bucks for some unusable work is probably cheaper than
bringing someone in for an interview with a few engineers, let alone hiring
them.

------
jurassic
I have no problem "showing what I've got", so to speak. But I fear this
practice is really just a tactic to strip software employees of leverage at
the negotiating table. After going through weeks or months of trial by fire,
making some friends in the trenches, and stopping the machinery of their
larger job search, who is still willing to walk away from a lowish offer and
begin that whole process again? It's the rational thing because there is
plenty of opportunity out there, but emotionally it is a tough pill to
swallow.

I'm in the middle of a three month contract to hire right now at a smallish
startup. I go back and forth on whether I think it's a good idea (weeds out
would be coworkers who don't perform) or bad for reasons laid out above. I was
seeing a ton of interest when actively interviewing at companies and probably
would not have agreed to this except that my current employer has long been on
my dream job list. Emotionally it's tough to deal with being a temp, even as
other (cheaper, non developer) employees are hired full time without a trial
period. So far I'm sticking it out and doing well, but when I have doubts I
feel like maybe starting down this path was a sucker's move.

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nether
> People fail either because they do not get the work done or because they
> have abrasive personalities, he said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy on
> that.”

We've sure gone soft. Here's to the sane, socially normalized ones.

------
Untit1ed
While I don't think it's a great solution (give up my vacation time to do more
work?!?) I'm surprised so many people think this only plays to the employer's
advantage. I've been in a number of interviews where the potential employer
has lied through their teeth about what they do and how they do it and even
stupidly accepted an offer as a result of one. Going through this process
there would've saved me the miserable few months before I had to resign.

~~~
MrDom
What's the difference? You spend a miserable few months as a contract employee
vs a miserable few months as a salaried employee?

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dismal2
Just had a realization, I wonder if you get health insurance during your
trial?

