
Hiring Great People (and rules for how we do it) - borski
http://blog.tinfoilsecurity.com/hiring-great-people
======
tptacek
_I’m not sure who originally told us about the Sunday test and the Caller ID
test, but if they remind me I would certainly like to thank them. These two
very simple ideas have kept us from making some very bad hires, and have
convinced us to make others that were great. The Sunday test is as follows: if
the candidate is in at the office alone on a Sunday afternoon, would you be
more likely to come in and work with them? That answer has to be yes. We want
to be excited by our colleagues, and not feel like we’re holding them up or
they’re dragging us down. The Caller ID test is equally important, and is as
follows: if the candidate calls you on a Friday night and wants to spend time
hanging out or working, are you more likely to pick up or let it ring to
voicemail? If you wouldn't pick up the phone, that candidate is the wrong
hire._

Argh. These rules are toxic. You are unlikely to predict your best hires. A
lot of evidence suggests that engineers are uniformly bad at making subjective
judgements about future performance. The "Sunday" and "Caller ID" rules
basically put a deceptive veneer on the most subjective of all criteria: the
"gut check".

That's bad enough, but both rules also have a pernicious culture effect. In
companies full of 20-something Red Bull drinking 11a-9p gamer nerds, the rule
gets you more gamer nerds. In companies full of 30-somethings with kids, you
get more people with kids. This is exactly what you don't want to have happen;
a real culture adapts to any positive competent person you find. Good cultures
figure out down the road how to get people to hang out outside of work. They
also accept people who just don't want to spend their out-of-work time with
their officemates. Why would you want to filter those people out? That
property has no known correlation to ability or performance.

Finally: do you really want to be the hiring manager who says out loud that
you have a rule built into your hiring process that involves people working on
Sunday? _Don't make people work on Sunday_.

The sooner we kill the "Sunday rule", the better.

~~~
ainsleyb
This is an interesting take. For us, it's not about age, but about
personality. We have a financial controller who is 20 years older than
everyone else on the team and we'd bring her on full-time in a heartbeat if we
needed a full-time controller. She has a great personality, is fun to have in-
house, and knows what she's doing.

How I look at the Sunday test is less of a "are they like me" and more of a
"will I get along with them many hours a day"? We work anywhere from 7 hours a
day, up to 18 (especially during major code pushes) - we try to avoid this as
much as we can, but sometimes (for us at our stage), it's inevitable.

I do have to enjoy working with my colleagues, and someone for whom I won't be
willing to come in on a Sunday has a higher chance of bringing me down on a
regular basis. That doesn't mean we work Sundays (we're typically in the
office M-F), but it's important to be able to get along with people and it's a
good litmus test, imho.

~~~
freework
I'm the opposite. I don't want to work with people who I "get along with". I
want to work with people who will tell me I'm an idiot when I do something
idiotic. I want someone who puts all their effort into creating great
technology, not someone who puts all their effort into being liked. I have
thick skin, so it doesn't bother me to work with an abrasive person.

That, of course, only applies to programmers. On the other hand, if I'm hiring
a salesman, I'd want that person to be the kind of person who puts all their
effort into being a likable person. The same goes for hiring managers. Being a
likable person will get you far in many positions in a business. Programming
is not one of them.

~~~
borski
We all have thick skin at Tinfoil - we don't want to hire someone who is
necessarily liked by everyone, or who won't tell us what is on his/her mind
and be honest. We're incredibly transparent, and whether or not we like
someone is certainly not the /only/ reason we would hire someone. Honesty and
straightforwardness is a trait we value a lot.

~~~
tptacek
For some reason this thread makes me think of this old HN thread:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2030433>

'iamelgringo (who I miss!) is telling me that just because I feel like I get a
good night sleep on 5 hours or whatever it is I get, doesn't mean my sleep
quality isn't horrible due to apnea, and that maybe over the long term the
apnea might kill me.

I think it's the same with hiring. Everyone thinks they do it well; you look
around you, feel like you like everyone you work with, and then write up the
process that got you there. What's dangerous is if your current success is a
fluke, and the process you set up is a recipe to become insular, or a
stepping-stone job for SFBA people, or (worst of all) one of those companies
you can't work for if you're a mom --- and I know you personally don't want to
be any of these things!

You are awesome and I'd love to work with you someday. I just hate the way you
say you hire. :)

------
freework
I'm going to tell a story that describes why I don't like "Sunday tests".

Before I became a professional developer, I was a professional pilot who
programmed as a hobby. Right after graduating college in 2006, I got a job
right out of school working for a flight school. The school specialized in
training Chinese people to fly.

Anyways, this was back before the economy exploded. There was a shortage of
instructors at my school. I was assigned 4 students that I would be teaching
mostly one-on-one. Three of the four students were really cool and very
likable. The fourth I didn't like at all. Lets just say we didn't get along
well. The guy was very difficult, and hard to communicate with. The other
three were a joy to work with.

If I had the luxury of dumping that fourth student onto another instructor, I
would have. But this was back in 2007, and the economy hadn't tanked yet, so
there was an instructor shortage, and I had to grit my teeth and deal with
this guy.

Fast forward to a month later. The tables have turned completely the other
direction. The fourth guy who I hated at first was my favorite student. The
three students I had liked at the beginning now were the ones giving me the
most greif. The extroverted easy to work with likable guys were pleasant to
deal with, but they weren't very smart, and I had a lot of trouble teaching
them stuff. The fourth guy was hard to deal with, but he was extremely smart
and I barely had to teach him anything, he learned everything on his own.

Once the economy got bad, the student/instructor ratio fell. The flight school
hired a bunch more instructors and got less students. Every instructor got 2
students instead of 4. I made it a habit to go around to all the new
instructors and ask them if they have a student they they don't really like
working with. 4 times out of 5 the instructor would tell me "yeah I have this
one guy..." My last 6 months at that job I had 8 students that basically
taught themselves. That was easy money.

I've found the best way to deal with unlikable people is to just let them go
off and do their own thing. The act like that (unconsciously) because they
resent you getting in their way.

~~~
hkmurakami
A friend of mine is like the 4th student you describe: very smart but comes
off as standoffish and cold until he warms up to you. He was actually let go
from a well known (everyone here would know the name) startup in SF/SV wiht a
noted brogammer culture after a few months since he "wasn't a culture fit".
He's now thriving at a place that suits his character much more.

In the end I think both parties "won" by his dismissal, but companies hiring
for culture fit should be aware that they're willingly constraining their
talent pool by doing this. (I don't think it's necessarily wrong either -- I
expect to have some form of latent character filter if I'm in a hiring
position as well. However, I'm much more fond of the introverted, "difficult"
types than the average person).

------
loteck
It seems like this could more accurately be entitled: Hiring Likable People.
The tests they are touting are basically: do I want to be around this person?
That is, indeed, a good criteria to consider when hiring.

They also claim to want to hire people "smarter" than they are. I am not
running a business, but isn't the danger here that "smarter" people take your
projects/clients in a direction that your management is unable to provide
leadership on, and then just bail, taking the project/client with them?

~~~
borski
Interesting point. We hire people that are smarter than ourselves in some
domain. Typically, I'm still better in some ways than the rest of the company,
in certain domains. We just need to be impressed by their intelligence
consistently. Does that make sense?

~~~
loteck
It does make sense, especially for your boutique business. You're looking for
folks that bring something to the table, who are likable. While hardly
revolutionary, I'm glad it's working for Tinfoil.

------
epoxyhockey
Unless working weekends is a business necessity and asked of all applicants,
it is illegal/inappropriate to ask in an interview.

Source:
[http://www.gsworkplace.lbl.gov/DocumentArchive/BrownBagLunch...](http://www.gsworkplace.lbl.gov/DocumentArchive/BrownBagLunches/IllegalorInappropriateInterviewQuestions.pdf)

~~~
borski
Right, and we never ask it. The metaphor is not a literal one.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
IANAL, But just documenting this in a blog post makes it public record and
potentially opens you up to lawsuits to anyone you didn't hire in the past.

------
peacewise
How about leaving your employees alone on Friday nights and weekends.

~~~
borski
We don't force any of our employees to hang out with us (or work) on Friday
nights and weekends. Often, I want to hang out with the team, because they'are
awesome, but none of it is forced. We don't work weekends except in (rare)
major pushes.

~~~
peacewise
In that case, I don't think it is super effective to focus on cases that
rarely happen.

Interesting read:
[http://blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com/blog/2013/02/20/wha...](http://blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com/blog/2013/02/20/what-
your-culture-really-says)

~~~
borski
The metaphor is not meant to be taken literally. It's a way of checking
whether the person excites you and is someone you look forward to working with
/ being around.

------
borski
For the record, this apparently isn't novel. These tests are very similar to
the 'airport test': <http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf>

------
tokenadult
What kind of work-sample test do you look at for hiring the people you want to
be sure are smarter than you are?

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923>

~~~
borski
We typically provide a realistic scenario in which we work with the person to
see if they are impressive. As in, we work with them on a project unrelated to
Tinfoil for a few hours to a day, and see how it goes.

~~~
tptacek
Do you provide the same work-sample test for every candidate, so you can build
a history of how people handle it and then look to see how your best hires
did? We did that (it was Cory's idea, not mine, for what it's worth) and it's
been immensely valuable.

If I could get one new hiring process adopted in tech, it'd be that one: come
up with a graded work-sample test that will generate a history you can mine
for data down the road.

~~~
borski
Indeed we do. And I agree. Honestly, with most of the people we end up
interviewing it doesn't even get to the end. It's a hard challenge, but we
prefer it that way.

------
stephengillie
What are your criteria for hiring people smarter than yourselves?

~~~
borski
They need to have done something impressive. It's honestly not too far from
what pg has described looking for in companies to fund - we're looking for
people that impress us and we can learn from; not necessarily in /everything/,
but at least in /something/. For example, hiring someone who has a /ton/ of
experience with administering databases (something I personally am only 'ok'
at) would be impressive.

------
borski
Just updated the post to clarify:

"[UPDATE] Just to clarify the above, we do not mean that we ask candidates
these questions. These are questions for the existing team when evaluating a
candidate, and it isn't about forcing people to come in on a Sunday, or
convincing ourselves that candidates are just like us. It is simply about
hiring people we would want to work with, be around, and help / be helped by,
no matter what the occasion."

------
SonicSoul
i think i see where you're going with this. in a small company you do want to
work with people you like being around.

the test metaphors can use some work though ;) i don't see how Monday test
would be any different than Sunday test? you're still working with that person
right?

i've been in a situation where i've made recommendation to hire because the
candidate aced the interview, but i knew i had no interest in spending too
much time with them on personal level. it was conflicting to say the least,
but in the end he ended up making some good work contributions. It is almost
impossible to tell how well the person will behave long term (i don't care
what Gladwell says).

~~~
borski
Right, this works for us because we're such a small team. And you're also
right that Monday is no different - we didn't mean for it to be taken
literally, but it's a way of checking whether the person being a part of the
team excites you or not.

~~~
epoxyhockey
I used to work for a small company where most employees enthusiastically spent
time hanging out with the founder on various weekends, going to sporting
events and dinners.

The critical point to be made is that the founder signed our paychecks. Until
after the company dissolved, you couldn't tell who was doing it for _office
politics_ reasons or out of genuine friendship. Today, only 15% of those
employees still speak to the founder.

In my opinion, it's best not to approach hiring in the same manner as dating.
At the end of the day, it's a business arrangement and it's about getting high
quality work done in exchange for money.

~~~
borski
I could see situations in which this would matter, but most of our early
employees feel super-invested in the company such that they don't see me as
'founder' or 'boss' or feel the need to indulge in office politics. We're
pretty good at sniffing out 'politically savvy' folks, especially since many
of us are not the greatest at 'office politics.' We have a 'no bullshit'
attitude, and I get called out a lot, and I call people out a lot. There's not
much hidden at Tinfoil.

------
alan_cx
This is all about "like", what about "respect"?

