
I don't hire unlucky people - arcatan
http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-dont-hire-unlucky-people
======
DarkShikari
This article is superb.

 _We tried placing ads for ninjas, rock stars, and so on, but I discovered
this was the cultural equivalent of advertising for white males who drink dry
martinis. Not that white males who drink dry martinis can’t do the job, but
there’s no real difference between advertising for a Ninja and throwing half
your resumés away because you don’t like unlucky people. Either way, you end
up with fewer resumés.”_

This is so true, so important, and so many startups (and even bigger
companies!) miss this. Job ads provide cues, conscious and subconscious, to
the people reading them. Not everyone reading the ad is identical to the
person writing it, and a badly written job ad can easily send the message
_"this company isn't for you"_ to a large number of skilled potential
applicants. This applies not just to categories like gender or race, but even
to personality types and personal interests. Unless you really want a company
of only extroverts, for example, don't write a job ad that scares off
introverts.

In the canonical example, if you constantly ask for "rock stars", you will
turn off people to whom that doesn't appeal, including tons of good
programmers. But it goes beyond that: don't assume that all your applicants
are any particular kind of person with certain interests. A job ad should
focus on what the job actually is, and things that are important to the job.

The best programmers often have a lot of choice in where they work, and as
many HNers know from experience, if they see a job ad that turns them off in
some fashion, they will probably not even bother reading further: they know
they have better options, so yours probably isn't worth their time. If the
vast majority of skilled programmers skip over your resume, it's no wonder you
only receive resumes from unqualified applicants.

In short, when writing a job ad, you need to _think from the perspective of
people applying_. Use your empathy, put yourself in their shoes, rather than
just writing what you think looks cool.

~~~
zanny
I'm a semi-introvert graduating with my BS in CS and am looking for jobs right
now.

And this is all I ever feel. I read dozens of job ads across the country (I
look through all of them because I really want to get out and move some place
new, see the world - being fresh out of college is the best time for me to do
that and all) and in the process I see only two kinds of jobs for someone like
me.

The ads either come across as wanting rock star geniuses that could develop in
a month the entirety of the next facebook or google in their sleep, or they
come off as grossly incompentant in that they don't know what they want from
an employee.

When an ad lists skill sets from assembly to rails to genetic algorithms I
just sigh because the company obviously doesn't know what they want, and I
want to work some where that I can not only get better at my trade and create
great things but also have confidence in the business not going under in a few
months.

Simultaneously, the other set of job seekers want 5+ years experience for a
startup and they use the rock star vocabulary, and I get turned off on that
because I am not the second coming of John Carmack or Bill Gates, I wish I
was, but I just am not that smart.

Compound that with the reality that I have a passion for software and as a
result I only want to work on things I find interesting and useful myself
(eating my own dog food) and I might consider one ad in a hundred. And I'm not
even location limited!

It just seems to me like there is no middle ground, either you are a genius
rock star or the employer appears clueless about what they are after in a
developer. It really grinds my gears with all this job hunting shenanigans.

~~~
cgag
I feel the same way, when I hear about this talent shortage, I can't help but
assume they mean there are only so many people at the top of stanford/mit's
classes.

~~~
chrisrhoden
This is wrong. I don't know a single Rails developer (with or without a
degree) who doesn't have more work than they can handle available to them.
Sometimes the jobs are more concentrated in certain areas than others, but I
personally get several cold calls from recruiters every week, and I have no
degree, and I am no rockstar.

~~~
cgag
When I do eventually move to SF / a tech hub, applying for everything is my
plan, if I don't find something before moving.

I also don't know rails, and I'm just now getting into web technologies,
trying to decide what to really dig into (between node and rails really) . Is
rails really that hot? Just starting out with rails now I feel like I'm really
late to the party. I'm mostly interested in Clojure, but that's not exactly
the hottest job market.

It's nice to hear that it really is that good though, It's hard to really get
a feel from it living so far from any tech hubs, without many developer
friends.

------
plinkplonk
I agree with every _point_ Reginald makes but (and I am being nitpicky here)
the form of the story - the seeming overtailored parable nature of it, of the
kind you'd find in the Reader's Digest or a religious tract - rubs me ever so
slightly the wrong way.

I could have done without all the fake (or seemingly fake anyway) dialogue
between the Wooster/Oscar etc and would have preferred a straightforward "This
is what I(Reginald) think" mode.

Imagine pg writing his essays in the form of "Paul wrote an ecommerce site in
Lisp while Peter used C++. When Paul met Peter's wife Rosa in a coffee shop he
asked her why Peter was looking so haggard and she said 'he is working through
the night fixing bugs and not getting enough sleep. Would you mind talking to
him? ..' "

Again, this is a _very_ minor nitpick, just consider this feedback from _one_
reader. I am probably considerably outnumbered by the people who like this
"story" form better (and that is perfectly fine). Of course it is completely
Reginald's prerogative to pick any style he wants.

~~~
Timothee
The writing style reminded me a lot of the book "Leadership and self-
deception" ([http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-
out-...](http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-out-
Box/dp/1576759776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333659388&sr=1-1)) in which
a guy shows up at a new job and gets a day-long welcoming from the CEO, during
which they slowly go through the idea of putting people in boxes and what to
do about it.

The ending of raganwald's post especially was similar in tone with "You belong
here. We'll do great things together".

edit: "they slowly go through the idea of putting people in boxes and what to
do about it" Hmm, this sounds kind of odd when you don't know the book I guess
:) To clarify: in the book, you put people "in a box" basically when you have
prejudices about them and look at things through that angle only. Or something
like that.

~~~
roguecoder
It seems very common among books targeted at CEO-types ("Be The Hero" being
the one I read lately). I don't know what it is about managers that means they
like stories more than explication, but it seems to be common perception.

~~~
Spearchucker
Stories can be useful. You could say [arbitrary example] that "I'm
trustworthy", or you could tell a story of the time you were given privileged
information and didn't use it for personal gain.

The story is much more convincing, because it invokes empathy from the
audience. The trick is to tell a _good_ story. That means understanding plot,
characters, tempo, your audience, and so on.

Not saying it's the be-all and end-all, but when done right stories have their
place.

------
emmett
This is the opposite of my experience. When we greatly narrowed the pool of
applicants from "people who want to work on live video" to "people who want to
work on live video for gaming", we saw a huge uptick in how many people were
interested in working for us.

TwitchTV is more attractive for programmers than Justin.tv ever was. There is
something to be said for appealing to a smaller group of people more strongly.

~~~
raganwald
Great comment. May I suggest for discussion the following proposition:

There is a difference between narrowing the pool of applicants by being
specific about things directly relevant for the job and narrowing the pool of
applicants by being specific about things only indirectly related to the job.

“We’re looking for Haskell Programmers” is not the same thing as, “We like to
hire MIT Graduates."

~~~
k00kykelly
This is a HUGE difference. It makes the job ad go from we want "someone good"
to we want "someone with skill X". If the manager of the project isn't
competent enough to know what they are hiring for (skill X) then that is a red
flag.

If you need to filter the applicants more then ask them to answer a question
on their approach to a common problem or provide a code sample whichever makes
more sense for the particular scenario.

------
terryk88a
Heh. My wife was turned down for a product management position because she did
not send a thank you note. She forgot because she was (we were) so excited
about the position.

The hiring manager went back to the recruiter asking for somebody else "just
like" my wife.

(Loved the conversational format. "Bertie Wooster" is an inspired choice for
that style of hiring...)

~~~
pavel_lishin
How did your wife find this out?

------
wglb
Nicely done. Lots of good things here. _“I measure. Premature optimization is
the—Oh, I get it!”_ where the lightbulb comes on.

And lots of fun little bits like Mark Fidrych
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fidrych>.

------
idan
This is exactly what we've been thinking about for the last year while we've
been building <http://skillsapp.com>. Exactly.

Love it when lucid, articulate writers take my mess of a brain and put the
right words to it.

~~~
yajoe
I took a look at skills app -- I like the approach and the clean layout, but a
couple thoughts from this hiring manager:

* Most of the really good devs I know and hire do not bother with easy metrics like number of tweets, followers, or StackOverflow points. They are perfect to paste together on summary reports and look "complete," but their absolute values or essence don't mean anything.

* The high numbers on public sites seem to be for two classes of devs -- celebrities, who you already know are celebrities -- and people with way too much time on their hands (if they don't work for an open source company, which most people don't). Most people have average values. If someone is on LinkedIn, I'm more interested to see if they have X hundred followers per years in industry up to some maximum lifetime value. I generally ignore recommendations.

* See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771286> for the discussion about what the number of points actually measures on SO, for example. It's a great site, but it's struggling to handle both breadth and depth of material well. High numbers does not necessarily correlate with expertise, just dedication. Maybe I want that skillset for a customer service rep, but I haven't yet wanted it for an engineer.

* I have shipped 20M loc in my career in 32 regions, and none of it is available on github or sourceforge. Most engineers are like that -- again, the public numbers are biased to certain individuals. Maybe there is a way for candidates to quantify the projects they have worked on?

* What I would love is a way to automatically assess FizzBuzz on candidates. I know there are some sites like interviewstreet.com that try to do this, but they don't yet have the critical mass like linkedin. And I fear, the moment they get critical mass then they'll become a new SAT or other standardized test that becomes too easy to game.

~~~
idan
Thanks for sharing your brain (and experience) with us!

We don't think number of tweets or followers is a relevant means of assessment
at all—quite the opposite. Ashton Kutcher is not an interesting candidate for
a rails job, and that should be reflected in our report for him (were he ever
to apply for such a position.)

We obviously gather a lot of metrics (hey, storage is cheap) but the ones we
actually use in our scoring mix right now are tied to two simple concepts:
does this person care about their craft, and do they enjoy any amount of
professional respect for what they do.

We aren't offering shoe size; what you need in early-stage hiring decisions is
an indicator: something more fast than perfect. Resumes suck at this because
everybody is trained to write sterile, "professional" resumes stuffed to the
brim with keywords. We can tell a much more interesting story—today!—with the
kinds of data that most developers in our industry are already sharing. SO
reputation isn't a story, it's a data point. What tech people ask questions
about versus what tech they answer questions about reveals something more
interesting. They know Python very well but seem to be exploring JavaScript?
Interesting. Maybe a hybrid in the making.

Skills isn't for everyone and every industry; it's for one industry and a very
specific breed of candidates that has this kind of publicly-visible track
record. We think there are enough companies that are hiring in this space that
there's a business to be built here now, and the Internet trends towards more
public data. Do we really think that we'll still be using resumes in ten years
to assess whether to spend more time on engineering candidate X?

~~~
ericd
A point of feedback - I write a lot of code that gets used by lots of people,
and I don't do any of it in a social fashion because I'm entirely uninterested
in creating a brand for myself as a developer. All of these metrics you're
talking about would screen me out, whereas a simple "created and scaled FOO
with BAR set of technologies, used by 100,000/1,000,000/10,000,000
people/month" on a resume would probably get a good amount of employer
attention, for good reason - that's an indication of a real full stack
engineer who has faced a gamut of real problems. It's not as easy to quantify,
but you should probably take that kind of thing into account, because it's a
lot more meaningful than the number of people signed up to receive my quips
about how much IE6 sucks or how many side projects I've open sourced.

------
dustingetz
i know a guy running a software shop. he's an active participant in the local
meetup community, and he cares about people. it's no surpise that he has all
sorts of talented people trying to work with him, and _not enough funding to
hire them all_. (at least, i think that's why he hasn't hired me ;)

i also know a few other people running software shops, who don't participate
in the local meetup community. none of the best local developers even know who
these other employers are. i'm sort of sick of hearing them complain about how
hard it is to find talent.

the flip side of this, is that if I as an engineer want to have a steady
stream of future opportunities with the best employers, I need to make myself
known to them, by, you guessed it! making myself visible in the meetup
community, and internet community at large.

ez game.

~~~
robterrell
Isn't that just another filter for luck? You're filtering out candidates who
don't know about the meetup, or have kids and can't make the meetup's evening
hours, or prefer another meetup that happens to be at the same time elsewhere,
etc.

~~~
wisty
Yes, and if you get really good candidates (by going to meetups and being a
nice person), then you can afford to do that.

~~~
kharasoft
I don't think he was saying exclusively hire from the meetups...he was saying
to add that to your recruitment portfolio. There are a number of developers
who aren't looking per se but by engaging them in a more social environment
than a job board, you have a chance of catching their attention about the new
job you're hiring for. The biggest thing that Raganwald never touched on is
that many of the best developers won't even apply to your job under normal
circumstances because they're content where they are. Getting involved in the
community helps engage those people.

------
mathetic
The article summarizes the difference between British and American college
entrance system as well.

When you apply for CS in Britain (and I'm talking about Oxbridge), they care
only about your experience with computers and mathematics.

However, in HYPMS [1] the qualification is based on your irrelevant grades and
your extracurriculars. You might be the most active guy and get a place but a
poor programmer.

[1] Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford

~~~
karamazov
In the US, you don't apply to a school for CS - you just apply to the
university as undergraduate. It's quite common for undergraduates to not know
what they want to study as freshmen, and to change their minds over the course
of university.

That being said, HYPMS do want you to have good grades overall and solid
extracurriculars, it's immensely helpful to be world-class in some activity;
the particular activity doesn't matter as much.

~~~
swang
That is not true at all schools in the US. At least not when I applied around
10 years ago. A lot of schools, especially the top tier CS programs told me
that I would not be allowed to go in undeclared and then transfer into their
CS program. I had to declare as a CS or I wouldn't get in. I knew some people
were able to get away with not declaring and transferring in but I didn't want
to risk it.

~~~
msbarnett
10 years exactly, or a bit more than that?

The reason I asked is that CS enrollment changed dramatically after the .com
bubble burst. When I applied to CS a little more than 10 years ago the bubble
was in full swing, and only the top 1/4 of applicants to the program had a
hope of getting in. Transferring in was a no-go.

2 years later enrollment had dropped so low that the quotas were gone and
transferring in was easy. Application numbers, as far as I know, still haven't
recovered to bubble levels.

~~~
_delirium
These days Stanford, at least, has an active program trying to convince non-CS
first-years to switch their major to CS!

~~~
tedunangst
It's been a few years, but when I went freshmen at Stanford weren't even
allowed to have majors. When did this change? Link?

------
cousin_it
So the most efficient interviewing process for the employer is also the nicest
to candidates? What a curious coincidence. Are you sure there was no wishful
thinking involved in writing this post?

~~~
roguecoder
Right now it's a candidate's market (unless you actually suck).

The best chance companies that would like to hire me now had was seven years
ago when my resume was thin and unconventional but my code was solid. Now that
my background conventional (except for the lack of a related degree) they are
falling all over themselves, and I am quite content in a brilliant job making
more than most of them are willing to pay. I'm more skilled now, sure, but I
was a good junior developer then. The fringe company that took a risk and
hired me despite my resume got more than their money's worth.

You are welcome to be less nice to candidates. Let us know how that goes for
you.

~~~
sounds
I totally agree.

If I understood your comment, basically, "treating candidates with respect -
especially inexperienced/unconventional candidates - allows hiring if you
already know how to find great candidates"

I've seen a ton of benefits to treating candidates _and_ employees well.

• Many employees will prefer to stay in a job where they are treated well
(despite taking a hit in lifestyle / pay) [1]

• Establishing a "social contract" with your employees provides some
protection against managers who might drive away high-value candidates /
employees

• During tough pivots (the current economic climate tends to produce this), a
core of effective employees can execute while mediocre employees will flounder

[1] <http://freem.vmth.ucdavis.edu/~saintly/bio/portrait.html>

------
delinka
Aside from the Sesame Street names, a fairly decent read. Many years ago, I
decided to stop writing my résumé to each recipient and just let my List Of
Things speak for itself. I don't want to work for someone caught up on details
that are irrelevant to the jobs I'd be doing.

~~~
aristus
"Bertie Wooster" is a character in the Jeeves books. Ernestine Anderson is a
jazz & blues singer.

~~~
raganwald
“Bert and Ernie” are George Bailey’s best friends in “It’s a Wonderful Life,”
which is where Jim Henson drew his inspiration for names of the Muppet
characters.

~~~
delinka
And all this must have led our author right to Oscar the Grouch for one more
name in the narrative.

------
free
My takeaway from the article was that Ernestine wanted to hire a good
programmer and she focussed on just that. She did not consider the established
conventions on what to do in such a situation.

Interestingly, I have observed this to be true in few other situations as
well, where established conventions and processes are actually an hindrance
rather than help.

------
cpeterso
Slightly off-topic: in Larry Niven's _Ringworld_ novels, an alien race
(Pierson's Puppeteers) secretly influences human genetic selection to optimize
for luck.

~~~
raganwald
With severe unintended consequences for some of the protagonists, as I recall
:-)

------
siavosh
After a couple years trying to hire developers I feel bad heuristics have a
tendency to become institutionalized if for no other reason than: if I admit
this is a crap heuristic, that means I've been doing it wrong for the last 10
years--no way!

As a tangent, I find it astonishing that no one ever mentions that all these
arguments are true for the guy or gal sitting across the table. She is using
heuristics to find an employer based on much less information and in many
cases is wrong in accepting an offer. This too has a real cost: low morale,
productivity, and high turn over. I find this problem rarely discussed.

------
ojosilva
This is how I've been hiring in the last 3 years: I created a business by
myself. As business grows, my goal is 1) to amplify and multiply my skills,
which made this business possible. That way I can delegate work, be in many
places at once and do things faster and better. 2) to patch and overcome my
flaws, which I'm self-conscious enough to know, and fear that they could hurt
business.

So when I look through resumes and interview people, I look for signals that
tell me this person can (or has the potential to) either emulate my most
demanded virtues, or provide wished-for aptitudes onboard. So, if I read a
resume with spelling mistakes, I think "I would never allow me to be this
sloppy" -- I think it sends a message of carelessness that may put in question
the quality of the work being done -- and I throw the resume away. On the
other hand, when I meet a person that shows me a code sample with a well-
organized and thoroughly commented api class hierarchy, I think "I wish I was
like that!" -- and that's a keeper.

Hence I don't agree with the article when it says to "ignore little theories".
Since I believe there's no universally-accepted, truly objective way to
effectively spot strangers that will make your enterprise succeed, I choose to
clone myself: me who is undeniably the right person for the job, otherwise
this company would never launched in the first place. Then, bit-by-bit, I
"genetically engineer" the selection process to create this better super-self
(the _team_ ) that will take us to the next level.

------
JoelMcCracken
Awesome article. I just came here to submit a note about style: If your text
includes a large, multi-paragraph quote, it is common to elide the trailing
quote between paragraphs. Including that trailing quote means that the second
person in a two person conversation is now speaking. It just confused me at
first, because I thought Oscar was the character to say "But it’s dangerous to
confuse correlation with causation. And especially dangerous to...".

------
jack-r-abbit
I'm not sure I agree with putting people who can't put together a resume
without spelling/grammar mistakes into the same unlucky group that simply had
their resumes tossed by chance. Having spelling and grammar mistakes on a
resume is sloppy... not unlucky. At a minimum it indicates they may not pay
attention to details when it really matters. But maybe that is just me. Or
maybe it just doesn't matter on a resume anymore. I'll admit I've never had to
whittle down a stack of 100 resumes... more like 10 so I would never just
blindly throw half away. But as I skim them all, the ones with the spelling
and grammar mistakes get set into the "second string" pile. I'll give them a
second look if the deeper dive into the other pile still doesn't find The One.
I've had it work both ways. Some times second string does have The One. And
other times second string is never looked at again.

~~~
civilian
No. One of my coworkers is a terrible speller, and especially so in IM. I
haven't seen his resume, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a mistake or
two in it. And he's pretty scatterbrained.

But when it comes to coding CSS or using javascript design patterns, he is
awesome. I ask him tons of questions. He is incredibly valuable.

I mean, it's okay for you to keep on doing what you're comfortable with. But
do you understand what you're missing out on? You're missing out on great
developers, and you're giving people like Reginald & I an advantage.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I am a terrible speller as well. I just take that extra bit of time to correct
things with that squiggly line under them. Technology allows me to hide my
horrible spelling ability very easily. So it is not so much that potential
candidates are bad at spelling (particularly since I am too) but more that
they just didn't take the time to do it right. I think resumes are still
pretty important documents. Maybe not as important as a patent application or
the actual code being written. But if they didn't take the time to do the
resume right... what else are they going to overlook when it is important?
Just my feelings.

And like I said, sometimes the second string does end up having the one. But
if I already found the one in the first stack, then I'm still getting a great
developer... just not the one with spelling mistakes. Plus, I'm not even a
hiring manager. I review resumes of would-be peers.

------
gwillis13
I'm going to upvote this for just the Sesame Street names. Reading the piece
with those names in mind, made this a lot more interesting of a read.

------
gnosis
_"but there’s no real difference between advertising for a Ninja and throwing
half your resumés away because you don’t like unlucky people"_

This assumes getting hired by you was a lucky event in their life. In fact, it
could very well be unlucky.

Perhaps if they hadn't been hired by you, they would have gotten a much better
job elsewhere. Or any number of other things in their life might have turned
out better had they not landed this particular job. Or maybe they'll wind up
hating the job, and wish they'd have gone to work somewhere else.

Considering someone to be lucky to work for you is very self-centered. Perhaps
it is _you_ who are the lucky one to have someone like them working for you,
and they the unlucky one.

------
jrockway
Hiring managers quoting Knuth? I fail to suspend my disbelief :)

------
maxcameron
Sir Reginald Braithwaite is one of Toronto's best. Thanks for yet another
fantastic article man.

------
SagelyGuru
The comments are missing out what to me was the most insightful and central
point of this post.

Namely that finding the only candidate who can possibly do the job at all
requires a very different approach to selection, compared to when it is
sufficient to eliminate applicants any of whom could do the job well.

Raising the talent bar tends to transform the latter situation to the former
and thus the advice given in this article is right and valuable.

------
joe_the_user
Can I call bullshit on the claim the 99% of people applying for a given
programming are unqualified?

Can I even call _total bullshit_?

Perhaps I could suggest a further that all this 99% unqualified noise is
mostly a bureaucrat ideology epiphany, based on intensifying the usual "I want
a Perl-programmer with five years Rails experience who can start yesterday
while riding a bicycle under water".

~~~
raganwald
I’m pretty sure the empirical evidence backs up the statistic. The Fine
Article links to Joel Spolsky’s explanation of the math:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html>

~~~
joe_the_user
Dude!

You know the link post _debunks_ that canard rather than supporting?

Edit: And you wrote the original blog post and you're always on hn. I would
suggest reading closely the link you posted.

~~~
raganwald
We can’t possibly be reading the same thing. The post I linked explains that
because there is deadwood that never gets hired but applies for every single
programming job, every time you advertise for a programmer, you get two
hundred applicants, one of whom is decent and 199 are the same 199 that apply
for every job.

Therefore, 1/2 of one percent of the applicants for every programming job are
qualified and the rest are not. That doesn’t mean that 1/2 of one percent of
working programmers are qualified or that you are being especially picky when
you reject so many candidates, just that the dynamics of the market ensure
that you get a lot of crap resumes when you advertise.

Now, what did YOU think Joel’s article said?

------
crasshopper
I hoped this article would discuss how to advertise your position to increase
the SNR (really, the appropriate-to-inappropriate-resume ratio).

Some things are obvious: if you use words like "ninja" and "rockstar" you are
communicating that you want young Rails programmers or something like that.

Likewise if you posted flyers inside a museum, or hid a puzzle in a Superbowl
TV ad, or wrote "Programmer needed!!! immediate openings!must be comfortable
with WordPerfect" on Craigslist, each of those is going to signal something
about your firm and attract a different type of person.

Someday I would love to see something on HN that goes much deeper into those
issues: how to pitch your culture appropriately and improve the resume stack
before it even gets to you.

------
BrainInAJar
Good article, but I found the "hypothetical conversation" format a bit off-
putting

------
opwernby
If you want to hire a good programmer, get a good programmer to interview the
candidate. The interview should take about three seconds: any longer than
that, and your candidate's a bust. Real programmers recognize each other on
the spot, like vampires. It has something to do with a look in the eye coupled
with total arrogance: it's hard to explain, but over the course of my career
(30 years) I've found that those programmers I've hired on instinct, just
because I recognized what they were immediately, were the only ones who ended
up being totally capable.

------
tferris
People like the OP make many mistakes when dealing with people.

They believe by using some kind of systems, techniques and tricks they can
find "best talents" and avoid "miserable candidates".

But the real problem lies somewhere else: People have the wrong expectation of
people—expectations are always too high and aim for perfection. You can expect
perfection from systems, programs, products, services but not from people and
thus, you should treat them like this. Of course real talents often deliver
this expected perfection but they are rare and usually if you got one it was a
lucky hit.

------
BobBobBobRob
I've heard of the "unlucky resume' selection process" elsewhere. And you were
doing good with it, but, sorry, the article runs on way beyond it's perceived
point-of-purpose.

Also, when Ernestine says "...I have a much lower signal-to-noise ratio?" She
had it backwards, she actually has the HIGHER signal-to-noise ratio. Whereby
the one guy has a large group of qualified candidates and can afford to throw
some away, she has a one in a hundred group of qualified candidates, thus, she
has the higher signal-to-noise ratio.

------
opwernby
There's a simple way to hire a good programmer: get a good programmer to
interview the candidate. Real programmers recognize each other within seconds:
it's like vampires. Something about a look in the eye and total arrogance.
Hard to explain. But all the really good programmers I've hired over the years
have had three-second interviews: it was just obvious. In my experience, if
the interview needs to last any longer than that, you'll end up having a
problem with the candidate.

------
janet236
What if correlation is causation? What if discriminating against certain
traits cuts the fat more efficiently? What if it's not just about relevance to
the task, but about the bigger picture, does the person deserve to be hired,
what would they be like to work with, would they fit in with the group.. Why
not exclusion for its own sake, if it produces good results? We all
discriminate every moment of our lives, down to the finest choices. It is a
moral good.

------
rizzom5000
While I enjoyed the article and its message, I found the spelling error on the
resume example underwhelming. A professional's resume is the veneer they
present to strangers. It's like the login page for your app. Do you want a
spelling error there when it is so easy to avoid? It screams sloppy and lazy
in the same sentence. Maybe the general quality of professional devs is so bad
that sloppiness and laziness are better than the alternative... ?

~~~
raganwald
What is the difference between a spelling mistake and failing to wear a tie to
an interview? I suggest nothing except for cultural standards. Once upon a
time, they were both punishable by immediate removal from the process. Today
one is tolerated but the other not tolerated.

they both signal the same thing: “I meticulously went over my presentation to
ensure that it meets your expectations.”

Let’s be clear: I think that everyone looking for a job should present the
best possible face, including the appropriate spelling and grammar. It’s just
that when hiring, I can easily overlook a spelling mistake if I think the
candidate may be that one in one hundred.

ANOTHER THOUGHT: To be fair, spelling mistakes are a lot closer to the line
than cultural fit or politics or things like gender and race. You can’t change
your race to suit the job. Things like your politics are changeable, but
unless you have a strong ethical objection to the company’s line of business
(I have declined to work on contract with a Tobacco company), it’s in
society’s best interests for you to be able to keep your political views
without being swayed by your employer.

Spelling on a cover letter is a different matter. Most people don’t have a
disability that prevents them from getting it right, and there is no greater
benefit to society in forcing employers to ignore spelling. It’s a matter that
is narrowly restricted to your interaction together, so it isn’t asking a
great deal of a candidate to get the spelling correct.

So, I guess I don’t have a violent objection to your point of view, even if
I’m espousing a different one in this post.

~~~
devs1010
I'm not quite sure I follow.. are you suggesting that not wearing a tie would
mean "removal from the process", even today? I've never worn a tie to a
programming interview and generally it seems most experienced developers
don't, at least in on the west coast of the US

~~~
guyzero
Once upon a time, not wearing a tie would have been unacceptable in a job
interview. This is no longer the case and the world has not collapsed into a
heap of smouldering cinders. I believe the point was that a few spelling
mistakes should not disqualify someone from being interviewed for a
programming job.

------
erikb
You simply can't "grill everybody hard" just to test for their success. The
goal just can't be to knock out "luck" totally. The problem space is just too
big to handle. If you can throw out 50 people out of 100 who are very likely
(let's say 90%) to not include the one you are looking for, then your chances
to find the one increased from 1% to 2.25%, which is more then double your
chance with 100 people and also a lot less work.

------
Tycho
Does anyone else hate how every job advert says they need

\- excellent communication skills blablabla \- 'team player' \- able to work
in a fast-paced environment \- bunch of other generic 'skills'

Of course those things are important to varying degrees in different jobs, but
having on the ad is pointless since every other ad asks for the exact same
thing. I find it off-putting straight away because it suggests the company is
happy to stick to idiotic norms.

------
fioll
I was with this article until the very end. You can't judge a good developer
via a tech interview. It is too short. Basically, you can't judge someone
until they have the job. And that isn't possible, so... despite what you are
trying to do, you are still hiring "lucky" people, and lucky CS grads at that.
Have fun with that.

------
charlieok
I do wonder why people advertise for “rock stars”. What is the thinking here?

Is it to screen out people who have some self doubt? “Hmm, I think I'm pretty
smart, but I don't know if I'm a rock star. I think I better avoid potential
embarrassment and look elsewhere”.

Is it code for “seeking brogrammers”?

~~~
codeonfire
It is to find naive people who are prone to flattery and manipulation. The
reason people want to hire people who respond to "rock star" is that they want
to manipulate that person into accepting well below average pay and far above
average hours. In reality it enrages developers who see right through the
patronizing attitude.

------
Navarr
The first ten times I saw this article I ignored it.

Now I'm glad I didn't.

From now on, I won't ignore unlucky headlines.

------
stcredzero
Just this morning, I was thinking about metrics. It should be possible to
develop a set of metrics for code quality that would apply to apps using
particular languages and libraries. These metrics would be general and very
imperfect, but they would still have some utility. For example, it would be
fairly easy to develop an automated metrics program to run on a given Ruby on
Rails app. Things like depth of nesting in code, reported errors per
statement, average lines of code per function.

What if there was a website where you could download a metrics app, which
would take the measurements, then upload the data to a web app, where someone
could login and see how well their shop stacks up in comparison to the general
population of shops using the same language and library?

This would give hiring shops some way to quantify the maturity of the shops a
prospective hire has worked.

~~~
terryk88a
No No NO. There really Really REALLY has never been a satisfactory set of
metrics for code quality. Not for COBOL and not for rails.

~~~
stcredzero
So the Rails community is free of deeply nested spaghetti logic and long run-
on cut and paste methods? There are no Rails apps with overly deep class
hierarchies?

Metrics are not so much for code quality as to flag widespread code suckage. I
still think this could benefit hiring.

------
marajit
Rehashing the famous story about Napoleon.

[http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2008061721542...](http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080617215426AAzoHDY)

------
liuming
Hiring is hard. Try not to judge candidate's professional qualification with
their personal lives. And try not to let' your indirect measurements to
override your direct measurements.

------
rubyrescue
_You belong here. We’ll do great things together_

inspiring!

------
Stevil
"So I gnore the little theories and go with what really matters." Spelling
mistake. I threw this article in the trash.

------
robbywashere
FOR THE UNLUCKY FEW, I HAVE A SOLUTION! PLAY BETTER ODDZ.
jobquery.hoverboardmagazine.com

------
JimW
I hope this encourages more like minded hiring managers out there.

------
DannoHung
Political affiliation and views are not a protected class.

~~~
raganwald
Ernestine works in Ontario. Or she would, if she were real.

------
CubicleNinjas
So, we should hire people who are so good they have spelling mistakes in their
holiest-of-holy document, don't fit in with your core company culture (ninja
or not), and hold back on research because it might bias your delicate
sensibilities.

This is garbage.

Really. I can't imagine a quicker way to fill a room with B-players.

------
Fatman13
This Oscar guy doesnt sound like too much of a nerd........

------
Fatman13
This Oscar guy doesnt sound like too much of a nerd........

------
kaiyi
TL;DR

~~~
raganwald
[http://raganwald.posterous.com/why-i-downvote-tldr-
comments-...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/why-i-downvote-tldr-comments-on-
hacker-news)

~~~
erikb
Thanks for telling me, so I could give this guy an upvote to counter :)

~~~
raganwald
Notice that I actually agree that my words were too long! I rarely actually
downvote people, and almost never when they're criticizing me.

~~~
erikb
Was that agreement stated in another comment?

~~~
raganwald
_I consistently write long essays and I lack the patience to edit them to
manageable length. More importantly, I lack the moral fibre to discard
perfectly good points. Any fool can chop filler out of an essay. It takes an
author of sterling character to discard perfectly good ideas in the interest
of making what remains an even better essay._

 _And I lack that character. Having written words about an idea I like, I find
it very difficult to let go of them, and my writing suffers for it_

~~~
pg
Try footnotes.

~~~
raganwald
Thank you![1]

[1]: Really!

