
Overfocus on tech skills could exclude the best candidates for jobs - davidwparker
http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/07/overfocus-on-tech-skills-could-exclude-the-best-candidates-for-jobs.html
======
tokenadult
There is steady, day-by-day interest here on Hacker News in what the best
hiring procedures might be for technology companies. Some of us are in a
position to be hiring workers, and many of us have been in the position of
applying for jobs. The fundamental error in hiring procedures the author of
the submitted article identifies is putting biographical data about the job
applicant, which is just one thing to look at in a hiring procedure,

[http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/testtypes...](http://www.siop.org/workplace/employment%20testing/testtypes.aspx)

in too crucial a role in hiring procedures. Don't screen out people on the
basis of biography until you know what they can do for you. A job applicant's
biography may possibly tell you what the applicant did for other employers,
but it is a demonstrably low-validity way to find an applicant who can and
will do a lot for you. The best hiring procedure is to give your applicants a
work-sample test.

Because I posted the latest revision of my detailed FAQ for Hacker News on
company hiring procedures

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4270768>

just yesterday, I won't repeat all those keystrokes here. If you would like to
know more, read the FAQ and follow the links to the references included in the
FAQ.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4270768>

But the bottom line is that most companies in most countries use stupid hiring
procedures, because their managers are too lazy to do even elementary research
on the HUGE prior literature on what hiring procedures are most effective (and
most legal in countries that have laws about hiring procedures). In the United
States, if you are looking for the "best candidates for jobs" that the
submitted article here talks about, you had better be using a work-sample test
as part of your hiring procedure.

~~~
scott_s
Is there any literature on portfolio-based hiring? That's basically how people
are hired into most research positions: hiring managers evaluate the research
you've done, and invite you to interview based on it.

Interviews still are important, but they're usually not about assessing the
technical ability of the candidate - that's already been established from
their prior work. Rather, it's more: do I want to work with this person?

The github-is-my-resume meme is rather similar to this approach, I believe. I
don't believe that one's github account _is_ a resume, but it is a portfolio.

Anecdotally, I can say that IBM Research does well by hiring former interns.
(I did two internships as a grad student before being hired.) That's exactly a
work-sample scenario, and I know that it's often the easiest hiring decision
for managers: they already have worked with the candidate, and have observed
what they can do.

~~~
wallflower
> Is there any literature on portfolio-based hiring?

From the world of higher learning, the emphasis on portfolios is well-known.
The interesting thing to emphasize is that the focus is on long-term
development - e.g. have you become a _better_ researcher or teacher over time.

Remember, we don't want someone with 7 years of experience if those 7 years
were spent doing the same thing, not getting better/learning more skills.

I think this is something that checklist-based interviewing fails to uncover.
Behavioral-based interviewing (e.g. STAR) does better but it forces the
candidate to know that this evidence of programming maturity over time is what
is being probed for (if it is). Whiteboard-based interviewing is probably the
best but it requires dedicated interviewing by engineers and there are flaws
to it (emphasis on reducing false positives v. false negatives)

> "In the section where I describe the various courses I have taught, I
> include several sentences that detail how both my successes and my failures
> in one course led to improvements in subsequent semesters. I refer to this
> development in my statement of teaching philosophy as well, but in the
> teaching portfolio I can point directly to the evidence of those
> improvements in sample syllabi." [1]

> "In some ways, it's like a two-year-long take-home exam," says A. Mitchell
> Fraas, a graduate student in Duke's history department. When the system was
> introduced, in 2005, he and his peers could opt to complete either a
> portfolio or the traditional exams. Mr. Fraas chose the portfolio, he says,
> because it offered a measure of control and a permanent record of his
> progress.

"I liked the sense of being able to see in a tangible format everything I was
doing working up to exams," he says, "rather than blurting stuff out in a
four-hour oral and never seeing it again, or scribbling something down on a
24-hour exam."

Felicity M. Turner, a fifth-year graduate student in the department, says the
portfolio gave her an opportunity to revise her papers and think through an
issue until she was happy with the result. In the portfolio model, she says,
"the responsibility is on you to formulate your own argument, so the process
of creation is yours." [2]

[1] [http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/developing-an-
effective-...](http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/developing-an-effective-
teaching-portfolio/32297)

[2] <http://chronicle.com/article/Portfolios-Are-Replacing/9141/>

------
olefoo
My sense is that many of the complaints about a "skills shortage" are in fact
thinly veiled boasts about the selectivity and eliteness of the complainant
and his organization. It's my observation that most of the actual hiring still
happens through informal networks and social contacts rather than through the
official, formal hiring process.

~~~
jandrewrogers
While a "skills shortage" complaint is an obvious status seeking behavior, it
does not take away that there is an actual and severe skills shortage for many
position.

There are normal software developer jobs where it is nearly impossible to find
anyone qualified even when one has no significant price sensitivity. We know
such people exist because we have some on staff but expanding the pool has
proven to be difficult.

For some segments of the market, the skills shortage is legit.

~~~
xiaoma
> _There are normal software developer jobs where it is nearly impossible to
> find anyone qualified even when one has no significant price sensitivity._

Well, if you're looking for someone with a year's experience at a start up
with decent JS/jQuery skills, some experience on iOS and ruby and hobby stuff
on the side...

Have a look at my profile. I'm a pretty bright guy with a track record of
learning stuff that most people struggle with, but so far have had an
unsuccessful job search in SF for 2 months due to pretty much everybody
wanting an expert.

Edit: If you're looking only for those who already possess "expert", "ninja"
or "rockstar" skills, then please don't email me.

------
iamdave
I came close to rejecting an interview with a company after a recruiter pushed
back my resume, and I'll tell you why:

What I saw was either a noticeable discrepancy in adequately communicating to
the recruiter (who for full disclosure, has the title: "Technical Recruiter"
in their email signature) what they wanted out of a candidate for the role,
the hiring manager not having any actual understanding of what the role
entails, the recruiter greatly misunderstanding the intentions and
requirements from the hiring manager -OR- a devastating combination of all
three.

I say this, because the recruiter rejected my resume twice for a role that I
am highly interested in based on the notion that I did not adequately explain
my experience with text files and Microsoft Excel. Now, if you're a technical
recruiter, hiring for a data analyst position and you make a point of looking
at a resume that lists database administration experience, modeling,
forecasting and technical analysis of clearing house data and fail to forward
a resume for a job that would entail all three because I didn't say in clear
terms "I used Notepad.exe and excel.exe" something is very, critically and
fundamentally wrong with your recruiting process.

That would be like asking a nuclear trained submarine electrician with 14
years experiance, 6 in the service field, with things like programming
multigenerator plc control systems, can you show me more experience on wiring?

~~~
Tangaroa
Maybe the recruiter was looking for somebody who used a specific tool rather
than someone who knows the fundamentals and could use any tool. In the early
00's, I was turned down from a web job after they found out in the interview
that I developed web sites using notepad, vim, and text files instead of
Dreamweaver. The same thing might have happened to you.

~~~
iamdave
If it turns out to be the case, I'll still go to the interview but never work
with that recruiter again. We've reached a point in tech now where processes
are (nearly) tool agnostic; and to focus on that given the context of the
resume (which the role based on my experience in the role with other
companies), this is especially true. I don't need to rely on notepad to
manipulate CSV data, I can easily use Excel, Sublime or any other tool that
can open a comma separated file.

So I'm going to softly reject the notion that this recruiter was looking for
someone who uses a specific tool. With the experience you mentioned, I can
absolutely see why they'd want a certain toolset because perhaps their
internal development lifecycle relies on features not present elsewhere.

If that's the case with a recruiter, it's entirely their job and
responsibility to their candidates to find this out and outline it in a job
post to explain this without inundating interested prospects with tool-speak.
This could have easily been accomplished, but it wasn't.

------
liquidcool
My observations as someone who's checked job boards/sites continually for
almost 20 years:

Through the mid-nineties, when I graduated college, the requirements were
reasonable. A solid understanding of software development fundamentals and
reasonable experience for the advertised position. Focus was on ability and
potential.

A few years later, as the .com boom was underway, requirements dropped to
unreasonable levels. I saw people with embarrassing "qualifications" who were
far better compensated than me. If you could grope a computer without getting
slapped, you were hired to build web sites and paid top dollar.

A few years later, after the bubble burst, the pendulum swung in the other
direction, hard. The market was flooded with applicants, and requirements at
best matched the resume of the person who left. At worst, we got "10 years of
Java" in 2001. Focus was on experience in very specific (and usually broad
ranging) skills.

I have seen very little recovery from this point. It became the new norm. I do
think it's getting better, but not a lot better, and only recently.

People are hiring employees like they would consultants or contractors. For
short term hires, I want very relevant experience because paying premium,
short term rates to someone learning on the job is very expensive. But if I'm
hiring an employee, I just want someone who can learn quickly and with whom I
can happily work for the next 5 years.

------
xiaoma
I agree with the article. As I written before, the job hunting market in SF
has been maddening:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4216622>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4155172>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4253909>

Never before in my life has it taken more than 3 weeks to find a job, certain
bloggers keep claiming the job market is "on fire" and yet I've been at it for
two months, already having reached out to about 30 companies and done at least
half that many informal meetings.

The really strange thing about it is that my skills are undeniably stronger
than when I got hired at my first tech job in Beijing 18 months ago, and that
search was much easier. Similarly, I've met a few interns over the past month
with clearly less productive ability than I have who have been hired with
great packages. The other thing I've noticed is that the hiring demand is very
bimodal.

On one hand, hiring managers I've talked with at various small-medium sized
companies have had extremely high expectations and been quick to reject me for
not having specific skill X or for not having N number of years' experience
with Y. Worst is that in many cases, this doesn't happen until they or their
recruiters have actively pursued me over half a dozen phone calls and a trip
to their office.

On the other hand, there are clients with lots of money to spend on making
sites or customizing iPhone apps. In this market, I've suddenly found myself
to be at the highly-skilled end of spectrum. Not only is there the potential
for great earnings, but it's still not bad in terms of learning opportunities.
It's leading me to seriously consider abandoning the job search entirely. I
can just freelance, keep going to meetups to hang out and learn with the
inside crowd and start saving money to bootstrap my own thing. It wasn't my
original plan, but the long-term result will be the same.

~~~
scottbruin
Hi xiaoma, I'm the product and tech lead at a place in LA. Email me with more
info if you're still looking for a front-end gig.

------
msluyter
I totally agree with the article. Perhaps if you're a startup moving very
quickly, you might need someone with a specific skill set; otherwise, you're
probably excluding better candidates by focusing on skills.

I've performed a fair number of technical interviews over the past few years
-- usually looking for some combination of Java & database skills -- and I've
developed a couple of informal heuristics, imperfect, but with some predictive
power.

1\. The ability to code seems inversely proportional to the number of acronyms
on the resume.

2\. Listing certain skills is a negative indicator: XML, for example, or
Eclipse.

3\. Certifications are often (though not always) a bad sign.

~~~
bad_user

         Perhaps if you're a startup moving very quickly,
         you might need someone with a specific skill set
    

My experience is the opposite of this claim ... when working for a startup you
cannot afford the privilege of being specialized, but rather a jack of all
trade that can easily switch between technologies and problem domains like
putting on socks in the morning.

    
    
        I've developed a couple of informal heuristics, 
        imperfect, but with some predictive power.
    

Your rules will give you a lot of false negatives, because the current hiring
practices are completely broken, so naturally many people also know how to
game the system (devs are a smart bunch in general)...

1\. I also added lots of acronyms on my resumes in the past, because resumes
are first read by HR people that look for keywords

2\. I never listed XML or Eclipse, but I am listing Emacs :) ... regardless,
this is in no way worse than listing those same requirements in a job posting,
which many do

3\. Certifications are cheap to get and in the corporate world certifications
matter. I never got one, but that's only because I work with startups or with
companies that know these certifications are useless

~~~
msluyter
I agree with you, and for the record, I was only approaching this as one
developer (out of several) doing an interview. It's just that, after several
iterations of, 1. "Hey Mike, can you interview this guy tomorrow" 2. Looks at
resume, sees dozens of acronyms, languages, platforms 3. "Ok, can you write a
function to reverse a string?" and getting something like 4:

    
    
    		for (int i = s.length() - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
    			String newString = new String();
    			char x = s.charAt(i);
    			newString = newString + x;
    		}
    

Well.... you get pretty jaded.

~~~
whichdan
Out of curiosity - is there something particularly wrong with that code, or is
it just nauseating reading the same thing over and over?

~~~
msluyter
1.) newString gets re-created every iteration of the loop, so it always
contains a single character, and at the end of the loop it contains the first
character of the string. 2.) Strings are immutable (in Java), so "newString =
newString + x" creates a new object on every iteration. Better to use a
StringBuffer and swap the ith and N - i - 1th characters of the string.

~~~
rhizome
Isn't there some common library that contains a reverse() String method?
That's why I like Ruby, for stuff like "string".reverse in the standard
library. I can just use the language and know that the people writing the
language are better language() method implementors than I am, which is fine.
Not sure how well that flies in interviews at KPMG, but whatever.

------
powerslave12r
This article resonates strongly with me as a candidate who works as a
generalist Software Engineer at a small company and has been looking out for
opportunities.

At this point I am frustrated enough to put up a big 'Fuck you recruiters!' on
the top of my resume.

I mean there are tons of software positions that I apply to that I know I can
easily handle but just get turned down because of lack of 5x years of
experience with Tech Stack Zaphod v4.2.

/rant

~~~
ericabiz
Want a better job? Put more info in your Hacker News profile. Email address,
Github link, personal website, LinkedIn...so when you write these posts,
people can contact you if they're interested.

~~~
powerslave12r
Thanks for that. I'll update my profile.

------
columbo
> I know many companies that are hiring, and all of them are saying they can’t
> find the people they want.

Here's why (real job posting, name and location withheld):

    
    
        Responsibilities:
        Analyze, design, and develop scalable, reliable Java EE applications, using several Java technologies: Servlets, JSPs, EJB, JMS, and JDBC
        Lead the solution architectural design and/or analysis tasks
        Design and develop the Java programs required to achieve the desired functionality
        Prepare technical documentation
        Work with the SQA team to ensure high-quality products
    
        Qualifications
        Must have:
        Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent
        7 years + of experience in large-scale application design and development
        Experience in Data security Domain
        Sound knowledge in Cryptography
    
        Nice to Have:
        Proven expertise in OO design and development using Java EE
        Good experience in Servlets, Hibernate, Spring etc.
        Experience developing in JUnit and Ant
        Experience with Java technologies and frameworks: JMS, JDBC, JAXB, JAXP, JAX WS, etc.
        Expertise in Web development, XML Web standards, and Web Services
        Experience developing Web Portals (using AJAX, Ext.js++) is an asset.
        Proficiency in English (oral and written)
      
      

I bet you $8 that the job posting above could be done by someone with 1/4 of
the necessary "years" of experience.

Most places seem to find some <insert tech job> and just blindly copypasta all
of the acronyms they can find into a big wall of useless information.

If you want to hire someone then put as much effort into the job posting as
you would expect from the candidate applying, don't just put a wall of text up
and expect to get a "rockstar" (good god, I hate that term so much). Have the
team where the person will be working in write the job posting.

~~~
mickeyp
I seriously doubt hiring managers are actually "blindly copypastaing acronyms"
unless they are hiring for a role for which they have previously written
similar/identical a job ad.

A much, much more likely scenario -- and this I have observed first-hand many
times -- is that BigCorp used to have Bob on staff, until Bob realised he was
worth more and left; subsequently, the hiring managers assess what exactly it
was Bob was hired to do (Cobol) and what he actually did (something like the
above) and decided to include the former _and a carbon copy match of every
niche, technology, domain and specialist skillset_ Bob had.

Why?

Because they want another Bob, of course! It's unlikely such a person exist
and, more likely, the ones who do charge out the yazoo for their skills.

~~~
kaarlo_n
> Why? > > Because they want another Bob, of course!

This happened to me at my previous job. My manager asked me to write the
skills section for the advertisement of my replacement.

It ended up being a mish-mash of the old job ad, some of my skills, and some
new ones like "BI" and "text files"!

------
dbecker
The claim that every applicant should get to "make their case" to a human may
sound nice in theory, but it would be a monumental waste of time.

It's easy to get a stack of 500 resumes, and many of those resumes are from
people who legitimately lack the skills to be productive. A company committed
to talking with every applicant would never get anything else done.

~~~
phaus
I don't think that he was trying to suggest that every single applicant should
get an interview. Right now there are people who are being excluded from
consideration for missing one small item from the checklist of requirements.
I'm not a programmer, but I've run into the same issue as a telecommunications
specialist.

As an example, I applied to a position that was looking for someone with at
least 1-2 years of experience working with military Satellite Communications
systems. I have almost a decade of recent SATCOM experience but when I spoke
with their recruiter, they wanted someone who had specifically worked with
their system and would not budge on this issue. For anyone who has worked in
the telecommunications industry, pretty much all of the long-haul systems are
made up of the same basic components (modems, crypto, frequency converters,
high-powered amplifiers, etc.) and you can train someone who is familiar with
one system to use another in just a few days. Six months later, this position
was still being advertised and the employer still wasn't budging.

Now many people might say that this is a company I shouldn't want to work for
anyways, but generally when someone is looking for a job it is because they
don't have one.

~~~
dbecker
I was probably overstating the author's position when I mentioned interviewing
every single applicant. But, I think I'm correctly interpreting him as
interviewing a lot of people who don't meet some predefined "requirement"
list.

The strict requirements filter doesn't work great... You may be the perfect
example of where it's missing a great potential employee.

But the problem remains: if you receive 500 resumes, and you don't have time
to interview even 100 of them... how do you whittle down the pool?

~~~
slurgfest
The problem isn't whittling down the pool, it is finding signals in noise.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Sounded like spam filtering, when I thought about it.

------
dmoy
Like J-Live, kicking it again, only with a slight twist.

This is probably still the most relevant write-up:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4270768>

------
Zenst
If you want somebody to talk to your computers you employ somebody who can do
that. If you need somebody who can deal with customers, then you employ
somebody to do that. You can find a happy medium for many roles. But for a lot
your better of seperating them. This is why you have sales people and
marketing people and HR and line managers. Your tech people dealing with your
computers need to be able to do that, anything else upto and including
personal hygiene is a bonus. Computer room cooling units aint just to cool the
computers down, for many there air showers.

The real question should be, are companies asking the right types of tech
questions in there interview process. The tech skill should be relevant to
what you have experienced and asking question about how they would deal with a
situation you recently had and seeing how there mind responds knowing how you
eventualy solved it will give you an insight. It also tells you, if we had
this chap then would we of solved that problem quicker and if it's yes then
that person nomatter what is sombody of value to your company, thats the
easiest way in an interview on how to measure there tech skills. You can ask
more detailed questions during the thought process as you already have the
answears as you experienced it. Remember there is a probabtion period as well
so you have a safty net nomatter what and remember that works both ways. So
don't overpromise either, be honest and open. Works both ways. Somebody who
knows there limitations is also important. Some people have no limitations,
but they can take a while, as long as they know that again that can be fine.
You as the manager should also have somebody who you can communicate with,
even if you have to interpret geek to managment, anything else is a bonus if
they can do the job in a way that add's value, everybody is happy.

------
notime
I agree with the article and with, "I look for an applicant that fits the
culture, who is bright, and who is excited and wants to learn." Recruiters
can't automatically filter on culture, so that is out. Recruiters aren't
always that experienced (no offense), as they've probably gotten recruited
into the recruiting company as new blood or just started doing it because they
thought they'd be good at it. So having them judge things like culture, how
bright the employee is, and how much they want to learn (and not just faking
it), would be tough.

And without a recruiter, you are going to be missing out on a lot of
candidates. I personally have gone through this recently and know small
companies that either tried to do this themselves or with a minor (not heavy
hitting) recruiter, and finding people that way is SO SLOW.

So basically, this advice is good for interviews once you can get people in,
but you won't be able to change the fact that the process to getting people in
will stay the same.

------
ten_fingers
There are some other common reasons, apparently so far not mentioned in this
thread, for job ads with a list of detailed qualifications nearly impossible
to satisfy:

First, the ad might be only to satisfy some legal or bureaucratic purpose and
not to help fill a real job. Having the requirements be nearly impossible to
satisfy helps reduce the number of responses as desired.

Second, the ad might have been designed to give the employer plenty of excuses
to reject people for whatever unstated reasons they have in mind. So, maybe
they don't want to hire anyone in set A they have in mind so ask for five
years of HTML5 experience and use lack of that experience to reject anyone in
set A.

Likely real hiring in organizations good to work for don't use such absurd
ads.

Such ads bring up a fundamental problem: The worker that happens to have so
much experience that they can respond to a nearly impossible to satisfy list
of 'skills' likely has many more related skills and, really, is quite highly
experienced. So, such a worker is likely more experienced than the people
hiring. So if the less experienced people hiring have actually done well
enough in business to be able to pay a new employee, then the more experienced
worker should be able to do still better starting their own business!

Or maybe the worker should do anything to get an interview with the company,
see what they are doing, and then start a company to compete with them!

There is a related point: Such a worker will have to have at home his own
computing, laptop, desktop, servers, and good Internet connection. So, really,
he must already have nearly everything but a good 'business idea' for bringing
up his own Web site and, thus, starting his own business. And in doing this
work, he gets to use the tools he already knows or ones he would like to learn
instead of the tools someone else wants him to learn and use.

Likely good companies are not hiring via such ads but are hiring via Linkedin,
job fairs, networking, open source code samples, etc.

The real solution here is due to Darwin: Companies that waste time in silly
recruiting efforts are at a competitive disadvantage and on the way out of
business.

So, here is the good news: If some companies can remain in business spending
time, money, and effort in such silly, wasteful ways, then think of how much
money there is to be made if cut out the waste!

One final point hackers should understand: The 'suits' should be afraid of the
hackers and they are!

