
Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn - peter123
http://blog.summation.net/2009/03/why-hiring-is-paradoxically-harder-in-a-downturn.html
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larryfreeman
A-player vs B-player vs C-player is misleading.

I know that this is how everyone thinks nowaways but I think a solid team will
beat a team of disagreeing rock stars.

Easy-to-work with B+ players are completely missed by the A,B,C system. There
are some awesome engineers who will never be famous.

~~~
banned_man
It's also idiotic because there are so many variations, and people can change.
There are C players who have the talent to become B players in 6 months, and A
players after 5 years, and B players worth having because of their other
abilities (management potential, mentoring). There are also A players who will
flame out, or become discouraged upon meeting the wrong challenge. Humanity
does not divide so neatly.

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jderick
Our company has not experienced this paradox. In fact, it seems easier to hire
good people right now because few other companies are hiring. Maybe this is
more of a problem if you are hiring outside your network. So far, I don't
think anyone we have hired has been layed off. They all are top people who see
the writing on the wall at their less successful companies and are happy to
find a better job elsewhere before things get really bad.

~~~
frossie
In my experience the noise in a recruitment is generally a reflection of how
well you write your ad and how clear you are in your mind about the kind of
person you are looking for. Even in a downturn, I doubt anybody wants to waste
their time applying for a job they are clearly not qualified for. Through the
years I have learned to write much tighter job ads avoiding generic terms like
"DBA" in favour of things like "Sybase administrator". At least that weeds out
the people who don't know that Sybase is a database :-)

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queensnake
Anyone know whether the problems of that Stanford programming course are
online? It'd be fun (maybe!) to test oneself against the benchmarks. Of
course, I'm sure the correctness tests aren't available even if the project
specs are.

~~~
tigerthink
The class is CPSC 323, but it won't let me access it on the Yale server:

<http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/>

If you're really determined, you could email the teacher (see his homepage
here: <http://sce.cs.yale.edu/>).

I think a better way to figure out your ability would be to do the problem
described in this study and see how you measure up to the participants:

[http://page.mi.fu-
berlin.de/~prechelt/Biblio/jccpp_cacm1999....](http://page.mi.fu-
berlin.de/~prechelt/Biblio/jccpp_cacm1999.pdf)

You can see Peter Norvig's solution and commentary here:

<http://norvig.com/java-lisp.html>

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joe_the_user
I have a serious loathing for people who divide the world into "C players", "B
players" and "A players". I have indeed worked in places where I could do
things that other people couldn't. But I still feel that people fall down in
performance because they aren't given things that suited their ability.

But, reading more, this so-and-so doesn't just incidentally divide people, he
makes this division the foundation of his approach.

"They ("great people") only want to work with other great people. Once you
recruit a few great people, you’re in a bit of a quandary. You’ll need to,
from then on, only recruit other great people or the great people you do have
will leave. And if you hire any good people by mistake, the great people will
(directly or indirectly) want you to let the perceived mediocrity (i.e. good
people) go. And letting go of someone that is good is really hard to do. So
you’re stuck and that’s the rub." (<http://blog.summation.net/2008/02/the-
power-of-gr.html>). I actually haven't noticed that "rock star quality" makes
people anything but jerks to work with. This moron's description of a great
person sounds like the "brilliant" software engineer previously featured on hn
who "write incredible code" and sneered at anyone who expected comments. He
"only wants to work with great people". Right. Smart people who can keep their
"genius bubble" intact can indeed run rings around the fools who accept their
dodges.

Authentically good and pleasant people can work with many kind of people ...

The funny thing is that Rapleaf as company is a complete joke. Their server
takes many minutes to up with the most minuscule bits of information from any
email address. But the company keeps its genius bubble visible all the time.
Their hiring smart engineers... maybe some more great people can make the
scheme work.

~~~
tomsaffell
I understand where you're coming from, but I think you have interpreted the
author in a very different way to me. You say:

 _I actually haven't noticed that "rock star quality" makes people anything
but jerks to work with_

Nowhere does the author suggest that A Players are jerks to work with. In
fact, had he had this assumption, he surely wouldn't have called them 'A
Players'. It appears to me that _you_ have correlated something that he said
'being very good at what you do' with another trait 'being a jerk to work
with'. In my experience, this is not a strong correlation. Maybe in your
experience it is, hence your interpretation. But the crux here is that your
issue with his points _hinges on your addition_ : A Player = jerk to work
with.

As to _serious loathing for people who divide the world into "C players", "B
players" and "A players"_ I really do see where you're coming from - it does
sound a little distastefully, doesn't it? Anything that apparently force-ranks
human kind risks sounding distasteful I feel. But this isn't about classifying
the _person themselves_ (in their entire life), it's about classifying the
person's ability to job the job that they are currently pursuing. This is
hugely important. Someone might be a B Player in the world of software
engineering, but an A Player on the soccer pitch.

~~~
joe_the_user
If you glance at the page that Auren Hoffman links to, you'll see that he
defines his "A players" in the classic "Rock Star" fashion - they won't work
with anyone but other "A-Players", they'll leave if you hire other types, etc.
You can follow the link I provide for this.

Sure, people perform differently in different job and people who perform well
should be hired. Even then, the "only A-players" thing is dubious - even in a
super bowl team, some people are supporting players __and __good "stars"
respect their support __and* a variety of talents is useful even in software
creation.

It's pretty obvious that venture capitalist Hoffman using his "Rock stars"
rhetoric to pump up Rapleaf as "another Google". "Truly outstanding people" is
not a particularly well articulated criteria for hiring but it sure appeals to
the plebs and the marketers. It's unfortunate, because your management
philosophy shouldn't be a "look at how great I am" tool. If you really need to
get people to look at you, there are other ways to do it.

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dbshapco
"[S]pecifically target candidates rather than to post a job ad. I would
suggest targeting a company you think has great people[.]"

Like Rapleaf? Or was 'everyone but us' implied?

