
Honesty is the new game changer - Peroni
https://medium.com/@steviebuckley/honesty-is-the-new-game-changer-5342a32a40b9
======
vinceguidry
My main disconnect with the hiring process these days is the near-ubiquitous
use of code challenges that just keep getting more and more time-consuming.

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted a pointer to a job that wanted me to
spend _six hours_ of my free time greenfielding a toy. I laughed and said no
thanks. Code challenges are sucking all the liquidity out of the job market
and are probably responsible for a good bit of the salary hikes I've been
seeing lately.

One challenge asked me to do everything in Vanilla Javascript.

The other asked me to make a commit to their production codebase. Even if you
offer to pay me, your offer is never going to be truly enough, and I'm not
looking for side work.

Code challenges feel incredibly lazy to me. Your organization sucks at hiring,
so let's throw all the obstacles we can at applicants and see who makes it
through. I wanted the job that asked me to do the production commit bad enough
that I made my best effort. I ran into a snag and raised an issue like I was
asked to. No reply, and the door slammed shut in my face a few days later when
the time frame elapsed.

I now refuse to do a more-than-trivial code challenge while I still have a
job. It's just not worth it.

~~~
saas_co_de
I partially disagree.

In hiring you need some way to assess whether or not applicants can actually
produce useful work. You can't get that from a resume, you can't get that from
education background, and you can't get that from talking to people.

Now, you could just ask applicants for a sample of their work (preferably open
source) and evaluate them on that.

Coding challenges probably get done instead of that because it is easier for
companies to evaluate a single coding challenge than to evaluate a broad range
of unique work from different individuals.

As an engineer the employment process gives you an opportunity to evaluate
companies in the same way that they have an opportunity to evaluate you. If a
company has a sub-par hiring process then you cross them off the list and move
on.

~~~
cptskippy
When looking for a software developer you're not just looking for someone who
can implement a solution to a problem. Daily duties involve discussing issues
and impediments, navigating organizational bureaucracy, managing code bases
via source control repositories, troubleshooting environment issues, playing
nice with other developer's code, updating ticketing systems, providing
systems documentation, and writing maintainable code.

A coding challenge addresses none of that, it just asks the candidate to solve
a problem. Often coding challenges are sent to candidates and there's no
verification that they're even the one completing the work. I've spoken with
many candidates who submitted coding samples or code challenges and were
completely unable to discuss the code. Often times I wondered if their
recruiter supplied the code and not the candidate because of their confusion
surrounding the code.

I've had more luck accessing candidates by asking simple requests like "tell
me about your daily duties at your last/present job" or "oh you've language x,
what's your least favorite part of developing with it?" If the candidate can't
discuss simple things with mild depth or command then they're probably not a
good fit.

~~~
Clubber
>I've had more luck accessing candidates by asking simple requests like "tell
me about your daily duties at your last/present job" or "oh you've language x,
what's your least favorite part of developing with it?" If the candidate can't
discuss simple things with mild depth or command then they're probably not a
good fit.

This is what I do. If an interviewer can be bullshitted doing it this way,
they don't need to be interviewing. Non-technical managers really need to
defer this sort of thing to technical people.

~~~
saas_co_de
> If an interviewer can be bullshitted doing it this way, they don't need to
> be interviewing

There is no magical BS detector. You can't judge a person's skill without
seeing them work.

Everyone I have met who thinks they are smart enough to not get duped by
smooth talkers gets duped all the time.

~~~
Clubber
>There is no magical BS detector. You can't judge a person's skill without
seeing them work.

You are conflating the issues. A tech top can detect BS, but no one can judge
a person's skill without seeing them work _for several months._

Think of it this way. How long do you think it would take an MD to detect a
fraud MD talking shop? Not long. How long does it take a military veteran to
spot a fraud? Seconds. You have to be technical to spot the issues though. If
something pops up that makes you think they are bullshitting, you have to
drill in on it.

~~~
saas_co_de
Those examples are not the same though.

You can have someone who has an extensive education in Computer Science and
can talk about it all day long very articulately but has no implementation
skills.

You might be able to catch someone with no comp-sci background by talking to
them but not someone who has an advanced comp sci education.

The doctor example is relevant though.

Doctors don't get hired based on talking. They have to do residencies, get
certified, and demonstrate ability before even applying for a job. Same
reason. Someone could learn how to repeat everything in the text books without
being able to do the procedures, which require _practice_ to master.

~~~
Clubber
To use our Doctor simile, you wouldn't ask about anatomy (or only briefly),
you ask about diagnosing and treating ailments; that's what you are paying the
person to do.

For technical interviews, you don't ask them about Computer Science things (or
only briefly), you ask them about real-world software development; that's what
you are paying them to do. The stuff they really don't go over in CompSci
classes.

What was the project you were most proud of and why?

What was the hardest project for you and why?

What are some of the ways you've connected to a database / datastore (if
applicable)?

What were some database design decisions you've grappled over? What designs
were you considering?

What's the most impressive code you've seen written by someone else and why?

Tell me about how you organized classes in a particular project and why you
did it that way.

Describe a way you've organized your classes and wish you had done it another
way, and why.

How do you make sure if your software has a problem, you know about it and can
figure it out quickly?

What's the hardest software you've written and why?

How do you handle disagreements with a colleague? Can you site an example of a
disagreement and each person's reasoning?

Notice almost all of those examples asked "why." That's the most important
part. If someone isn't up to par, they will do one of two things:

1\. Answer Briefly. 2\. Babble on to the point it's obvious they don't know
what they are talking about.

#1 of course can be because the person is shy or intimidated or an extreme
introvert, but not likely. Because you're talking about a subject they should
feel extremely comfortable about, even introverts will come out of their
shell.

------
nathanaldensr
I fail to see how yet another job board is going to solve what is essentially
a human monkey-brain problem. Just how is this company going to get all
players to be honest? I just had an interview at what I thought was a good
company where I was--get this--accused of being _long-winded_. Yes, I was
accused of _talking too much_ in an interview. How can a website solve this
type of problem, among all the others?

You're going to discover that companies don't _want_ to be honest during the
interview process. They'll lie to your face and tell you Everything is
Awesome™. You're going to discover that applicants are dishonest as well.
Everyone's lying to signal to the other that it should be a match.

~~~
misthop
Somewhat related - I've always wished that HN allowed comments on the Jobs
posts (not who is hiring, which is a normal thread, but the YC backed company
posts). I think there are a number of people in the community who have had
interactions with these companies and could provide insight to those thinking
about applying to them.

~~~
DoreenMichele
That's an unnecessary and pointless shitshow waiting to happen.

People with insider info and trust cannot share that info. It would involve
cutting their own throat and burning bridges. Any nice things said about the
company would get pissed on as "Well, of course, you would say that because
this is HN/you must be a shill/whatever." Inevitably, someone would feel the
need to say something terrible so as to be edgy/honest/whatever.

There is just absolutely no good that can come of that.

~~~
misthop
I disagree. Looking at the Who Is Hiring threads, most of the (minimal, sure)
comments are either questions about the position or company, with some
commenting poorly on the company.

~~~
DoreenMichele
That seems like a different use case to me.

------
maxxxxx
There is the old saying "Honesty is the key to success. If you can fake that,
you are golden." :)

~~~
tempodox
You put it in a nutshell perfectly.

------
hopeless
Love the domain name!

And some of the screenshots reveal an approach to hiring which is sorely
lacking. At this stage, every single LinkedIn email and cold outreach email
from a recruiter gets marked as spam.

Not a single one seems to understand that hiring should be treating people as…
well, people with lives and desires. Not just a resource to plug into a hole;
not a fool to be tricked into changing jobs so the recruiter can hit their
targets.

Any innovation in this space is welcome and I hope there are enough "decent"
companies to make it a successful business.

fwiw, part of the advantage of going freelance was side-stepping all the
bullshit hiring assumptions.

~~~
cptskippy
Recruiters are part of the trend of outsource everything. Most recruiters are
just salesmen on par with the kid who knocks on your front door wanting to
sell you magazines or AT&T DSL; they'll tell you any lie you want to hear to
get the sale.

The sooner everyone starts refusing to deal with recruiters, the better off
we'll all be.

~~~
michaelt
Well, recruiters do produce /some/ value.

For employers, recruiters will do the dirty business the employers don't want
to know about. For example, ignoring PII legislation to get a larger pool of
contacts. Advertising highly paid nonexistent jobs to harvest CVs. Lying to
candidates and pressuring them if they're wavering.

These convert into more hires.

For employees, recruiters will bypass bullshit job applicant websites that
make you re-type your CV into their agonisingly long forms. They'll free you
from emotionally draining work like customising your CV and writing a
thoughtful cover letter - or even to really know what an employer does before
applying to them. Often they'll also tell you interview questions in advance,
and some will help you cheat on take-home tests.

This converts into less effort needed per job offer.

I'm not saying I like them - clearly, I see big disadvantages - but there are
reasons they've lasted as long as they have, as an industry.

~~~
cptskippy
> These convert into more hires.

And more fires. This is why you see more and more Contract-To-Hire and Temp-
To-Hire positions being posted.

Recruiters provide bad or inappropriate candidates to the employer. When we go
through recruiters we spend a lot of wasted time interviewing candidates that
should have never been sent to us.

------
throwaway2016a
> Some of the excuses that I often come up against are worth sharing though...

I'd like to add one. Salary range is low (pre-revenue startup) so the company
needs to make up for it in non-salary ways. And the company wants a chance to
talk to the candidate and sell the position without having the candidate not
even bother to apply.

With that said, I don't agree with that. I used to, when I was younger, but
now I understand the importance of padding your retirement account and saving
while you are young.

I eventually made my opportunity costs back and then some but it was the long
difficult road and most people aren't so lucky.

~~~
watwut
What exactly is non-salary advantage of typical pre-revenue startup?

~~~
throwaway2016a
Usually:

\- Significant equity

\- Flexible hours

\- Usually less bureaucracy and politics

\- More opportunity to make a critical impact as an individual contributor

\- Usually a higher job title (senior becomes principal, principal becomes
director or VP)

Those last two have been a huge help in my career. Early in my career I got a
huge amount of experience that would take much much longer at a larger
company. And the job title thing adds a bit of a "fake it until you make it"
thing. But it came at the price of a lot more stress and less work-life
balance.

Whether it is worth it is up to you. I used to think it was but I'm not so
sure anymore.

Edit: Added a note on job title.

~~~
dagw
_\- Flexible hours_

Only to the extent that you get do decide exactly which 14 hours you want to
work each day (except when there is a 2am emergency of course)

~~~
throwaway2016a
Some (small) percentage of people would actually prefer to work 14 hours
starting at 11 AM than 8 hours starting at 7:30 AM. But...

I learned something at my first few startups... if you are working 14 hours
consistently:

1\. You will get burnt out quickly

2\. Probably only 6 of those hours are productive.

If you tell employees to work 14 hours they will record 14 hours in their time
sheet but they are probably not actually "working" effectively.

Now as the CTO of a startup I consider it my personal mission to grow and
improve the product by making sure the team workers more efficient not longer
hours. I get the same 6 productive hours out of the team and much happier
employees. In fact, it could be a coincidence, but this go around we ship
features faster and have less bugs then when I was at a company that demanded
12+ hours.

With that said, I also grew a lot as a person and manager during that time.
And learned what is effective and what is ineffective uses of time. If you
aren't able to answer the question of what will have the largest impact and
what is the best use of time than it is easy to end up with people working 80
hour weeks.

------
Peroni
Hi folks. Author and chap behind [https://honest.work/](https://honest.work/)
here. Happy to answer any questions and stuff.

~~~
VyseofArcadia
Hello hello. I gathered through your series of subtle clues that you're based
in the UK. Are you going to be focusing mostly on the British job market at
launch?

~~~
Peroni
At launch, yes. We categorically intend to release a US focused version but we
want to iron out a lot of the early stage kinks first.

------
forgottenpass
>I really hate the phrase “game changer”. It’s right up there in the TechBro
lexicon alongside disrupt, growth hacking, hustle and burn the village

All those dumb Valley buzzwords were secretly the fault of bros all along?

Fantastic! I'd hate to have to do any actual introspection.

