

Job Applications and the Entitlement Complex - gecko
http://hicks-wright.net/blog/reddits-entitlement-complex/

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abyssknight
"Similarly, I'll be more likely to say "hire" to the Eagle Scout, triathlete
developer than a candidate who bludgeons me with all of their
"accomplishments"."

That line struck me as a bit off base. My father works at a corporation where
they were looking at hiring a security engineer. His boss wanted to hire a guy
who had leadership qualities, and one candidate was on a basketball team that
went to nationals. His boss was excited, and really wanted to hire this guy.
The other candidate was fresh out of college, had a security background,
skills and passion. The candidate wasn't nearly as well received, but he did
end up getting the job.

Would you have hired the basketball player? I'm curious, not flaming. I
legitimately want to know why accomplishments in the field are less important
then those outside. I mainly want to know because my resume is chock full of
things I've done in the field. If I need to change that, I definitely want to
know ahead of time.

I for one could potentially list my BSA rank and efforts, but I'm not sure
what business value that has.

~~~
DenisM
So listing field-relelvant "accomplishments" is bad form at Fog Creek? Ahem.
Good to know, I suppose.

Actually, it would be good if every company just listed this sort of "how we
hire" on their web site, so that you can steer clear of the ones you find
absurd.

~~~
tghw
It's probably my fault for the wording, but you're completely misreading that.
All I'm saying is that someone with a personality has a better chance, all
else equal. Without a cover letter, I can't know that.

~~~
DenisM
Ok, that makes more sense.

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WilliamLP
> One, which was mostly held over at Hacker News, generated good discussion on
> the value of cover letters in various hiring situations.

...

> The other group, from the Programming Reddit, was far more hostile.

This is a good encapsulation of the difference between the two sites. If you
want a polite place where something is respectable because it is well written,
and where agreement is the preferred outcome, this is the site for you.

If you want a place where ideas themselves are challenged rather directly, and
where respect is not automatically given because of flowery writing or
authority, then for all its faults, Reddit is actually far better.

You can tell which site I prefer to read:) I get sick of the way people here
get modded up and lauded for ideas that contain at their core severe and
inexcusable logical, scientific, or mathematical problems. What I think should
happen is that we should be looking through the skin and presentation, seeing
if those ideas are worth anything, and if they're not, helping each other out
by saying so clearly.

~~~
Periodic
I think the difference is more that the people on HN have a lot more shared
culture and shared values, meaning many are willing to make the same
assumptions and see the same outcomes; while the people at reddit are more
diverse and many are starting with totally different assumptions which would
make your argument invalid.

Also, I think people tend to link their HN profiles more with their real
lives. They shed a little more anonymity to gain a little more credibility. On
Reddit people are a lot more anonymous, which makes it easier to brutally
attack someone because there aren't many repercussions.

In general I am happy that there is almost always a dissenting opinion in the
comments on HN, pointing out flaws in the argument that I might have been too
complacent to catch.

------
nir
Is there a Spolsky Complex over at Fog Creek? :) Come on, guys - there isn't
_that_ much to say about the software process that haven't been said already.
A short post with some code is way better than another discussion of "how to
hire people". More _why, less Yegge.

(Anyway, can anyone point to a company that truly figured out hiring? From
what I've seen, it's mostly down to decision makers having good people
instincts. Resumes, references, cover letters etc only get you so far. They
aren't even that useful as filters, since they often leave out good candidates
as well as poor ones.)

~~~
raganwald
"Can anyone point to a company that truly figured out hiring? From what I've
seen, it's mostly down to decision makers having good people instincts."

Conjecture for discussion: This is true of almost _all_ aspects of running a
successful software development group: Hiring, Project management,
Architecture, UI Design...

Nobody seems to have "figured it out" to the point where you can write out an
objective, repeatable process. It almost always comes down to having people
with good "instincts" (i.e. They make good decisions) in positions where (a)
they can make decisions, and (b) the team acts on those decisions without
obstructing them or screwing them up.

~~~
nir
Good point. Personally, I think that articles describing how _you_ do X (and
why) - assuming the writer has some history of successfully doing X - are more
valuable than articles that try to define how X _should_ be done. And even
more valuable are articles about an actual thing you've done, and how you went
about it. More show, less tell.

------
smanek
Link seems to be broken - anyone have a mirror?

~~~
tghw
Forgot to enable caching. Should be up now.

~~~
cdr
Still timing out for me. I'll try later.

~~~
tghw
Gah...yeah, looks like my analytics package was killing it... It's up for
now...hopefully it'll stay that way.

~~~
davidw
Looks dead to me.

