
Trial week: Our hiring secret - drusenko
http://www.sequoiacap.com/grove/posts/akzj/trial-week-our-hiring-secret
======
crazygringo
> _I tell people that the worst case scenario is that they use a week of
> vacation, but because of the extra pay they can take a nicer vacation later
> on._

I don't know about you guys, but if you're only getting 2 or 3 weeks of
vacation a year, I think it's pretty insane to waste up to _half_ of it on
testing out a job. You need your vacation days for, you know, _vacation_ , for
your long-term mental sanity.

For a candidate who's already employed, that comes across as a completely
unreasonable request. I mean, imagine if you interviewed at _two_ companies
like this -- you get no vacation that year! Ugh.

~~~
gfodor
The point, I think, is that by the time you get to "trial week" phase you are
pretty much set on joining, and it's just to avoid complete disasters. So the
odds of you burning through two of these is incredibly low, and it's worth it
anyway, since if you actually ended up not getting through trial week you are
avoiding what could have been several years of a dysfunctional work
environment, not to mention all the other opportunity costs of moving, etc.

~~~
austinl
"Our hire rate out of trial week is around 66%, which feels like the right
level."

66% seems quite low for that kind of arrangement, enough to be discouraged
from applying in the first place unless you're currently jobless. I can
definitely understand the 90-100% temp-permanent programs though.

~~~
drusenko
You'd be surprised the reasons it doesn't work out though. It's almost never
intelligence. It's usually that someone was a huge dick, or was really lazy.
It's just so strange to me that you couldn't keep your inner asshole at bay
for one week, but better to know sooner than later.

~~~
annnnd
To play a devil's advocate: it might be better if you DON'T "keep your inner
asshole at bay for one week". If those people didn't like the way they were,
they would have changed themselves already anyway. On the other hand,
pretending to be something they are not just gets them to places where they
are not appreciated for what they are - so why would someone want to do that?

The point is, evaluation works both ways. Did they fail your test or did you
fail theirs? :)

Nice point of view though, thanks for sharing!

~~~
jonahx
I don't see why that's playing devil's advocate. This is exactly the point of
the program, and arguably its most important use case. Whether you frame the
failure as "we didn't hire him because he's an asshole" or as (from his pov)
"i just couldn't stop myself being a dick, their company culture was annoying"
\-- the employer has achieved his intended outcome, which is to filter out bad
fits for the company.

------
7Figures2Commas
It's funny. Silicon Valley is considered to be one of the least risk averse
places but when it comes to hiring, it's incredibly risk averse.

On one hand, companies are loathe to make a hiring decision without running
candidates through a meat grinder. Resumes? Those doesn't tell us anything.
Code samples? You might not have even written the code and truth be told,
we're not going to take the time to look at them anyway. References? Everyone
says you're a rockstar, but how do we know you'll be a hit with our team?

On the other hand, prospective candidates who are currently employed often
expect offers without doing much of anything. Four-plus hours of interviews? I
can't take time out from my job. A real-world coding test of some sort? I
could get in trouble with my current employer, and I want to spend time with
my family tonight. And by the way, how much are you going to pay me again,
because if total comp is less than $xxx,xxx, we should end this conversation
before it even gets started.

Don't get me wrong: the cost of a bad hire or career move can be very high,
and companies and prospective employees should use common sense (and gut
instinct) to filter out relationships that clearly aren't likely to work. But
it's insane to believe that every element of risk can be eliminated in these
transactions, which is precisely what both sides so frequently seem to be
doing.

As a company, if you demand to try before you buy and the word "employee
development" is a foreign concept, you're likely to have problems. As a
prospective employee, don't expect a company to hand you the goods if you act
like you're window shopping.

------
CodeMage
_I tell people that the worst case scenario is that they use a week of
vacation, but because of the extra pay they can take a nicer vacation later
on._

Maybe I'm a paranoid pessimist, but it seems to me that the worst case is that
their employer finds out about this and then fires them because of breach of
contract, specifically the non-compete clause. Granted, not everyone is under
a non-compete clause, but it's still a risk people should think about. And
it's still something Weebly should think about, too, unless they actually
completely throw away the work their candidates produced during the trial
week.

~~~
tptacek
Employers of salaried employees generally don't need cause to fire employees,
and not only are employee non-compete contracts generally not binding in
California, but also it's not the nature of an enforceable non-compete that
you can't do software development for any company (or even most companies).

~~~
bradleyjg
It's actually worse. A non-compete has to do with work _after_ you leave a
given company's employment, and like you say are non-enforceable in California
and some other states. A no side work agreement, or a no side work without
approval, or a we own the IP of your side work unless waived, are all much
more widely enforceable and I would think would be violated by this kind of
set up.

~~~
tptacek
I don't think "no side work" is a market contract term for tech workers. I'd
appreciate it if someone could correct me on this. Noncompete was market, and
practically boilerplate, before the CA ruling. "No side work" is a much more
egregious intrusion into employee private lives.

~~~
bradleyjg
It's entirely standard for large employers -- places like IBM, Microsoft,
Sony, JPMorgan -- to at a minimum restrict it or require permission. If by
'market' though you mean venture backed start-ups and the like, then I have no
idea.

Keep in mind that, even in the context of non-compete, California isn't the
be-all-and-end-all of the subject. It is the state where the prior employment
took place that matters. (Usually, choice of law questions can get
complicated.)

~~~
drusenko
all of our employment agreements in CA must include this notice (besides, we'd
never claim ownership over what someone does on their own time):

Exhibit B

CALIFORNIA LABOR CODE 2870 NOTICE:

California Labor Code Section 2870 provides as follows: Any provision in an
employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to
assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall
not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her
own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or
trade secret information except for those inventions that either: (1) relate
at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the
employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or
development of the employer; or (2) result from any work performed by the
employee for the employer. To the extent a provision in an employment
agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise
excluded from being required to be assigned under California Labor Code
Section2870(a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and
is unenforceable.

~~~
bradleyjg
That looks like it relates exclusively to patents (given the invention
language). In any event, California law doesn't govern employment contracts /
quasi-contracts entered into in another state.

If you were to 'trial' an employee who had signed a copyright assignment
agreement with his current employer in a state where such agreements are
enforceable, the prior employer would have a colorable argument that it owned
any code written during that week.* If the employee had signed an agreement
containing an "anti-moonlighting" provision, again in a state where such
provisions are enforceable, the prior employer would have a cause of action
against the employee for breach of contract and possibly against your company
for tortious interference with a contract.

As I say in the sibling comment, I really think you should talk to your lawyer
about this, particularly since the policy is now been subject to a fair amount
of publicity that a disgruntled ex-employer might reasonably come across.
Although I don't like your hiring policy, I have nothing against your company
and would hate to read in a few months that you are bogged down in litigation.

*Federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over copyright actions, but will apply substantive state law in interpreting and applying contracts. Which state's laws can be complicated, but the most likely one is where the employment took place.

------
ghshephard
I've interviewed north of 300 candidates in the last 10 years. I consider
myself an expert interviewer and regularly baseline my interview results with
the 6 month and 1 year results of those candidates that we hire.

Despite having very strong domain knowledge in the areas that I interview in,
and having had lots of experience - it's unclear to me that my "interviews" do
anything other than eliminate those manifestly unqualified for the position,
that should have been filtered out during a phone screen by a qualified
technical recruiter (or, for that matter, by the candidate themselves after
reading through the requirements and comparing them with their own
skillset/experience)

Indeed, the only process that I've observed in the last 10 years that really
correlates well with the actual outcome of a candidate, is getting a
reference, either my own, or someone I trust, from someone who has worked with
that person for a significant (1 year+) period of time.

Interviewing is really next to worthless - I think even Google has discovered
that, even in their incredibly quantitative process, there really isn't much
in the way of correlation with how candidates perform on the job and what the
interviewers thought of them. Even worse, there is some evidence to suggest
that some candidates who performed poorly on the interviews (but still got
hired) ended up performing better on the job.

Negative Correlation!

I think Weebly is on the right track here - but unfortunately the process
doesn't scale, and, eventually, they'll end up with too many star candidates
who will just pass them up rather than jump through these hoops. These types
of candidates already have lots of job offers, and they certainly aren't going
to "burn a week of vacation" on the off chance they might get a job.

It's the sort of thing you can do when you have under a couple hundred
employees, but starts to fall apart as you grow.

~~~
EdiX
>I think even Google has discovered that, even in their incredibly
quantitative process

Google's process is not that incredibly quantitative. When I interviewed there
everyone I spoke to had seen my resume, for example, if you wanted your
process to be quantitative you would want your datapoints to be correlated as
little as possible. I think they are doing it more to keep up with appearances
(it should look hard, to attract the best candidates and repel the worst ones)
than anything scientific. They also copied a lot of their hiring process from
Microsoft (and most software houses in SV are just copying from Google).

------
pkteison
While I have no problem with an evenings/weekend work sample, I'd only agree
to a trial week if I was currently unemployed and desperate. I also choose not
to do contract-to-hire, which is the other 'trial period' approach I've seen.
Anecdotally, the two places I've worked at that mostly did contract-to-hire
for their other employees, the quality of my coworkers seemed a fair bit lower
than at other jobs. Good contractors didn't care for the for-hire part, and
folks who just wanted salary didn't care for the contract part, so you were
left with people who couldn't find a position without agreeing to something
they didn't care for.

------
overgryphon
So they only hire college students?

I couldn't see anyone with a current job willing to do this. Not only does it
cost a week of vacation (difficult to justify to a spouse), but how much
advance notice can you give your current management?

Edit: Honestly, I wouldn't have agreed to this in college either. A week is
long time to dedicate to one potential job offer when other companies have
more reasonable expectations. Weebly would have to be offering something
really special.

~~~
drusenko
We've never hired anyone straight out of college (but not because we don't
want to). Nearly everyone we've hired has been currently employed, and about
75% were even relocated from out of state.

On the college student front, we're trying to make improvements to get better
at that. As a small startup, we never made the long-term investment in
properly timing the recruiting and interviewing process, but now that we're a
bit bigger, we're focusing on it more.

------
analog31
Good way to weed out people with personal commitments such as families.

~~~
c23gooey
The pessimist in me says that they are doing this deliberately.

Its much harder to get a worker with family commitments to work long
hours/weekends etc

------
jmduke
I am very surprised that the number of people who opt out of the trial week is
only 5% -- clearly it's working for the company, but personally I'd be hard-
pressed to give up a week's vacation time.

Still, if you were to do such a work-trial program, I can't imagine a better
way to do it than this.

~~~
_dark_matter_
That was my thought. Especially with a family, vacation time is too important
to spend working. While everything they pay for and do is nice, I wouldn't be
willing to give it up to try and get a job. (Just one job, that is. If I
really wanted to leave, I might spend some vacation time interviewing at many
places, but 1 place for 1 week seems a little reckless in that circumstance.)

~~~
bradleyjg
This looks to me like a not so subtle form of age discrimination. The pictures
on their job page do nothing to dispel that impression. E.g.
[http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/_/1/167522_orig.jpg](http://www.weebly.com/uploads/1/_/1/167522_orig.jpg)

~~~
johnrob
A much easier form of age discrimination would be to simply not hire older
people. Why bother with the hassle of setting up a trial program?

~~~
iends
Because being too obvious is illegal?

------
lambda
Is there any way that this could lead to legal trouble? If you're taking a
week of vacation from your current job, that seems to imply that you're now
drawing two salaries simultaneously; double dipping, so to speak. Sure, your
current job isn't expecting you to be working, but they are expecting you to
be getting rest and relaxation, and be able to come back fresher, not, say,
come back stressed out after not quite cutting it for a week at another
company.

~~~
PeterisP
Your job has no business "expecting" anything about what you do on your
vacation. It's your time, do whatever you want.

For an example, see a poster above who goes on military training at that time,
- it likely is more exhausting than any computer job, but perfectly okay
anyways.

~~~
Swannie
Except where most larger companies do require you to declare outside work or
advisory/consulting arrangements, and would hold you in breach of employment
terms if you did not.

USA labor laws are messed up!

------
hpagey
I think this is a really bad idea and I am not entirely sure if its legal.
People who need a visa sponsorship are not allowed to work for other employers
except their sponsoring employer. So your "trial" week idea, while legal, is
indirectly preventing sponsorship candidates from applying to your company.
You are also discriminating against disabled people or people who cannot leave
their current location for extended periods, due to health related conditions,
for example people on dialysis.

Are you comfortable precluding such people from applying to your company?

------
jorgem
I had a co-worker (about a decade ago) who took two weeks of vacation, and
started his own "reverse trial" at a new job without quitting the old job.

He liked the new job, came back from "vacation", and gave his notice. I don't
remember how much notice he gave.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I guess.

------
pud
Unrelated, but this is the first time I've seen blog post on SequoiaCap.com.
Can't help but think they were inspired by YC/HN (and the design seems
inspired by Medium.com).

I love it and hope more companies like Sequoia publish useful content for
entrepreneurs, whatever the medium -- their own site, or wherever.

~~~
nerfhammer
USV has also made its site into an HN-inspired social news site recently

------
tlogan
The trick here is to discourage older people / people with family to join the
company. Clever trick :)

------
CCs
A few years back I would have been thrilled to show up for a week and prove my
skills.

Most of the interviews bored me to death. Coming up with a solution for a non-
existing problem was a pain. "How many tennis balls would fit into a ..."

Fortunately for the jobs I really wanted I was asked to solve real problems
the companies had at that time. It got me excited and I was hired in no time,
without any effort or stress.

On the other hand some good developers were not this lucky and they struggled
finding a job they actually enjoy. Having a chance to prove themselves is all
they need.

"Other commitments" is moot point. A new job is a life-changing event for most
of us. The potential of finding a great job where you feel happy every day
worth it many times over. (Yes, I do have a family and other commitments.)

------
EvanKelly
I really like this idea, and Weebly seems to be doing everything to make it as
easy on the applicant as possible.

Outside of financial compensation, though, I hope that companies that do this
are very flexible on the scheduling of the week of work.

I know that it would be difficult to take a week off of work at the wrong time
without burning too many bridges. I try to give my company plenty of notice on
vacation (months sometimes) so that they can plan ahead for my absence. It's a
two way street, since they try and give me plenty notice for when I'm
absolutely necessary. Most interview processes I've been through would not
have that flexibility.

~~~
tptacek
FWIW, this is Weebly, not Sequoia.

~~~
EvanKelly
Thanks, I think I edited it as you were commenting as I noticed it on my re-
read.

------
jasonlotito
How many people with commitments such as family and children went through this
program? How many of those people were flown out?

------
freework
Its always funny how every time one of these articles gets written, the author
mentions a small percentage of people (in this case 5%) who refuse to go along
with the process. What they always seem to miss is that they are the top 5%.
In other words, the ones who you want to hire. This goes for any whiz-bang
candidate filtering mechanism.

~~~
bryanh
Who cares if they are the top 5% if they don't jive with the way you do
things. That just causes extra stress and trouble later on, so it is better
for both sides. Besides, the top 5% of what? Raw coding ability? I bet you the
people they hire are in the top N% of people who _should_ work there.

I share the sentiment that you shouldn't just adopt whatever whizbang hiring
scheme you read about. It takes experience to hone in on.

------
kevinpet
> When we put it that way, very few people have declined to continue the
> interview process because of the trial week, less than 5% of applicants.

How many people decline the interview process before you've offered them trial
week because they are aware that's how you hire?

~~~
alexhomer1
I was wondering this myself. Surely people are aware that they'll have to go
through with this before the initial interview. 5% sounds like people who
found another job and didn't feel like going through with this.

All in all, from someone with a somewhat legal background this seems like a
pretty unsubtle form of age discrimination. It wouldn't be very hard to argue
that this actively discourages people with families (aka older people) from
applying.

------
dmourati
I'm in the 5% that would _never_ agree to this. Why not just hire them and
then make the trial week their first week of actual employment. Nothing stops
a company from terminating an employee after one week for no reason at all.

~~~
grinich
Yeah, but that's a shitty thing to do if you can avoid it.

------
general_failure
I don't understand all these hiring practices. You think if I am a dick I will
show myself and it will be obviously visible in a week? Trust me, people will
fake it till they make it. So, if its faking for a week, they will do that.

It is also very silly to think that people will now work with no pressure for
a week. In fact this like a 5 day interview session. It is more stressful!

Instead, hire people to the best of your knowledge and make sure you have the
correct feedback, review loops in place. Hire the best management. Make sure
under performers are not allowed to hang around. Those are better things to
invest in than this.

------
jbrandon52
What happens when the candidate works for a competitor?

~~~
solox3
The candidate(s) who work for a competitor during their employment knowingly
breach their existing contracts, get fired, and continue to undergo Weebly's
trial week.

------
sockypuppy
I've had something of an unusual career path, and I've found out first-hand
that a lot of companies don't like people with weak resumes / references, and
it's hard to build these up (especially references).

I always try to convince companies I'm interviewing with to do a "try-before-
you-buy". Of course, it's a lot easier to do the trial week as an employee if
you're starting out from a position of being unemployed, rather than taking
vacation to do this.

~~~
michaelochurch
I understand weak resumes, but what is your reference problem? Lack thereof,
or bad ones?

You can get more references by doing freelance projects, but if you have a bad
reference, then you need to fix it. Contact me offline (michael.o.church at
Google's email service) and I'll explain the decision-tree for that game.

------
edvinbesic
While I understand the negative comments regarding the trial week coming out
of vacation time, if you are currently unemployed this is not an issue.

Coming from Sweden it is very common to have a trial 6-months, but then once
you're hired its hard to get fired/let go. When I was looking for a job
straight out of school I would have preferred a one week trial versus busting
my a*# for 6 months straight with the risk of being let go, although this is
very rare (you need to mess up big time).

------
knappador
For candidates not living in the Bay Area, this is a welcome arrangement,
especially to independent contractors like myself who can work remotely
anyway. Based on very limited experience, travelling to job interviews creates
the kind of disorientation where you can't believe what you're looking at is
real at a time when people are trying to get to know you. These forces are
countervailing. Even while getting on the elevator, I was about 10% sure of
where I was at in the city and just living on instinct. This makes travel
exhilarating, but for an interview, it makes you want to try to cram in a
month's worth of the necessary relationship building in one day while half-
disbelieving what you are doing. Still fun, but it also seems that 95% of
worthwhile mental activity happens in the combination of sleep and then re-
approaching things the next day from new angles. I had already decided to
always plan for extra time. Unconventional interviews are cool, and definitely
necessary for the added responsibility and chemistry requirements, but don't
let the travel make unconventional into just plain weird. I recommend anyone
going to the Bay Area spend some extra time.

------
drjesusphd
My hiring secret is disqualifying those who would agree to a Trial Week.

~~~
nathan_long
How are your results?

------
jwb119
Really curious to know how the legal aspect of this is handled. It would seem
to be a bad thing if these people are working on real projects for Weebly, but
their IP is covered by an existing employment agreement with a competitor, for
instance. I might be missing something with the scope of the work though.

~~~
drusenko
People don't work on a "real" project -- meaning a project that will be
shipped into production -- so IP assignment is not an issue.

The project people work on is dependent on their role (front-end, back-end,
etc). It is meant to be representative of their full-time job and is a
standardized project so that we can objectively compare across candidates.

------
fecak
"Try-before-you-buy" has been around for years in the tech field, although
usually it was done over a period of a few weeks or months versus just a few
days. The concept is not new, but basing the hiring decision on a week is at
least somewhat novel.

I think the real hiring secret here is more around measuring a candidate's
interest in the company, and it seems a main hiring criteria is a willingness
to show your dedication and 'loyalty' to the company before being hired. If
the candidate wasn't compensated, this is similar to a one week pledging for a
fraternity or sorority, where the decision to hire/induct the applicant is
verified by their willingness to participate in the process.

Would the company consider hiring anybody that was unable (work contract,
family responsibility) or unwilling to go through this process?

Even though the company is paying candidates, taking a week of vacation time
to audition is still a significant investment of time. Most candidates in the
industry are comfortable with the amount they earn, and many would sacrifice
2% of their salary for an extra week of vacation.

To prove this theory, as a recruiter I've had countless candidates try to
negotiate lower salaries or benefits for additional PTO (or unpaid time off).
I have had exactly one candidate in my fifteen years that tried to negotiate a
higher salary and less PTO. The value of PTO is significant, and if industry
pros are that hungry for cash then we should see more of them using their PTO
to earn money (of course there are some who will).

In an ideal world, every candidate would have the free time to be able to vet
their employer in this way also. Working for a company for a week should help
prevent some 'bait and switch' tactics.

If you truly want to test your candidates' dedication and belief in your
company before hiring, this is a good method to weed out people who might only
be 99% committed. Of course, it eliminates some strong talent as well, and
unfortunately I'd suspect that the talent it eliminates in most cases is
senior level with families.

------
ph0rque
What's the percentage of candidates that decline a job after trialling for a
week?

~~~
drusenko
It's only happened once.

------
dupa99
2 phone/skype fizzbuzz interviews and a week trial. Alternatively, a project
which is a simple tool or Open Source contribution. The later maybe be more
appealing for students since they would like to have some github portfolio.

------
icn2
I love this idea. Hope more and more companies could adapt this way for
hiring.

------
cribdragger
If you're unemployed, accepting payment will end your unemployment. So will
refusing the opportunity. At least if you're following the terms of your
unemployment to the letter of the law in most states.

------
mollyisgreen
Perhaps one workaround (for locals) to this whole "one week of vacation from
existing job might be unfeasible" problem is to have they come in for two full
work days on the weekend + another day or two if necessary (depending on the
team's preferences). This way, they don't have to take off (as much) time from
work, but can still put in the requisite time for you to get a good feel for
their fit.

------
stephenaturner
Sounds like it has some similarities to what Automattic does --
[http://automattic.com/work-with-us/](http://automattic.com/work-with-us/) \--
Though of course being a remote work company Automattic can implement it quite
differently, and probably more fairly (remote work is much easier to fit into
a current job more seamlessly, and if needs be, more secretly).

------
acconrad
Why not just take a week off unpaid? If they pay you well enough for the trial
week (which they should, since this is technically a one week contract, and
thus a contractor's hourly rate is higher than an employee's) then you could
reason that you're making more money without sacrificing your vacation time -
you are allowed to take vacation time and not be paid.

------
abraxasz
Like others have said, if you want to implement such a program, then that's
the way to do it. Now whether it would be good to see this as a trend for the
industry is not clear cut. Say you have only 3 weeks of vacation a year, then
you can only interview with 3 companies. And that's assuming that you are
willing to burn ALL of you vacation time.

~~~
michaelochurch
Right. It's a good idea for a single company that does it. It fucking sucks if
everyone starts doing it and if hire rates drop to the level (~20%) typical of
in-office interviews.

Anyway, the fact that it burns a week of vacation means it's going to exclude
the passive job seekers, in practice. It's probably a good mechanism for
filtering the unlucky/good unemployed from the generally undesirable, but the
people who have jobs and might passively look around after ~3 years aren't
going to bite.

~~~
DenisM
Their hire rate is 66%, so you get a near 90% chance of getting a job after
doing this with two different companies using the same policy.

~~~
jacalata
Not necessarily - it's quite possible that the kind of reasons that get a 'no
hire' at this stage will show up consistently in this environment and
consistently be a problem for employers.

------
anamecheverri
I think this is a wonderful strategy for both the company and the potential
employee. When I have interviewed for jobs in the past, as much as they were
interviewing me, I was interviewing them to understand if I would like to work
there. So I would be pretty happy with the opportunity to get a better feel
for whether this is the right place for me.

------
arthurgibson
I've heard about another company offering this to engineers and sales people.
As far as I remember both individuals had kids and turned it down, but I don't
think the company offered compensation. I assume if you really want the job,
you'd do it.

------
kenster07
This is a great substitute for employers without adequate intuition about
their candidates and/or the willingness to actually go through a candidates'
references and public projects.

------
dl8
This sounds like an awesome process since I'm not the best interviewee, but I
can see how it might not be the best for people who already have jobs.

------
michaelochurch
I don't fully dislike this idea-- I think it has some value for both sides--
but it could evolve into backdoor age discrimination (which is what a lot of
the startup "culture" is). Weebly seems to be doing it right-- 66% hire rate,
not a competition, everything paid-for, etc.-- but I'd be worried if this
caught on. What if companies start instituting 2-month trial periods at
submarket rates, and what if that becomes the norm? What if hiring rates of
20% (comparable to in-office interviews, but harmful when contiguous periods
are required and vacation time, instead of stray sick days for interviews,
must be used)? What if companies delay reimbursement for months, exacerbating
the disadvantage of a protracted job search? Or, what if companies use the
trial week period not to evaluate work, but for unethical purposes such as
doing the sketchier reference checks (e.g. back-channel) that savvy job
seekers prevent by using (or faking) time pressure from competing offers?
Speaking of which, exactly how _is_ this going to interplay with the
(presumably ongoing) job search of the candidate, and the likelihood of offers
coming in with tight timeframes? Do people get to move around their trial days
to take other interviews? They should have that right.

It's an interesting idea, but I can see it going in a really bad direction.

~~~
EvanKelly
You've obviously thought a lot about hiring practices. Do you think hiring for
"culture fit" is always bad or do you think most companies have a poor
interpretation of what a "culture fit" is?

~~~
michaelochurch
I think "culture" is a strange word in this sense. Are you talking about
whether people drink after hours, or how much autonomy employees have over
their project assignments? Some cultural elements are meaningful, some are
not, and it's highly subjective. Sometimes, "not a culture fit" means
"arrogant asshole". Sometimes, it means "not 23, privileged, white and male".

The cultural things I care about, personally, are the ones that affect how I
work. I'm a huge fan of open allocation, as you might know from my other
posts. I don't care much about making friends. I'll make a couple, if I'm
lucky, and that will happen naturally; but I go to work to work, not to be
"cool" or find drinking buddies.

Also, the chummy culture of the VC-darling hot startups is really superficial.
These people act like they have deep friendships because it fills a void and
makes the 90-hour weeks bearable, but as soon as a person leaves, he's spoken-
of as if he were hanged unto death for some unspeakable crime. Just shows how
much real friendship there is in the VC-funded world.

