
Why most hiring processes suck (2011) - jimsojim
http://www.adammcfarland.com/2011/12/13/why-most-hiring-processes-suck/
======
rmrfrmrf
This post is why hiring processes suck _for the company_ , but IMO the
solutions presented here swing the pendulum too far in the other direction.
Aptitude tests and work sample requirements are great, but there's some kind
of ethical line crossed when you're constantly _taking and taking_ from your
applicants without giving anything back in return (e.g., meeting someone face
to face).

I've been on both sides of the fence before and I know what a grueling process
hiring is for both applicants and managers, so I certainly appreciate the time
commitment that goes into hiring. That said, if your company wishes to present
itself in a way that is caring of its employees, a great first impression
would be in the hiring process.

~~~
ssharp
People should absolutely be respectful of their applicants' time. And
applicants should use how they're treated during the application process as a
signal for how they'll be treated as employees.

One of the best interviews I had was very informal, was only with the hiring
manager, and it was pretty obvious that there would be a good fit between
myself and the company. I took the job and had no regrets over it.

One of the worst interview processes I went through had me doing two rounds of
phone interviews and then a half-day in-person consisting of four one-hour
interviews with various people. The selection of people conducting the one-
hour interviews were fair enough -- HR, hiring manager, a peer, and someone
from a related department I'd have contact with but wouldn't work with
frequently. But you could easily tell there was no organization behind what
they were doing, unless their strategy was to have each of the persons doing
the interview have the same exact conversations with me. This was at a Fortune
500 company and it became clear from the interview process that the culture
would be extremely frustrating for me to work in.

I think it's fair to follow a process like this to respect the time of your
applications:

resume cover -> screen -> phone interview -> in-person interview ->
tests/samples -> hire

And you drop people out of the funnel at every step. I also think it's best to
keep your in-person interviews to two hours max, between however many people
they need to talk to.

~~~
mtbcoder
> tests/samples

Technical tests are a double-edged sword. For candidates with little to no
prior work experience (fresh out of uni for example), it makes sense. Unless
serious question marks arose during the prior interviews, I find it
disrespectful to play the "stump the candidate" game with candidates who come
in with 10, 20+ years of experience. I'm not aware of any other industry that
deploys a barrage of obscure technical tests on their candidates the way some
companies do in IT.

~~~
bdavisx
That's because you can get someone with 10 years of "experience" who can't
pass FizzBuzz.

Although trick questions and the like are bad, and a sign that you should
avoid the company giving those questions in an interview.

------
caminante
The post struck me as an incomplete thought where the author ran out of steam.
My hunch was correct when I got to his advice:

    
    
      'Attempting to “solve” these problems means that as a
      company you have to throw away everything that you know  
      and start from scratch.'
    

Feel free to go die on that hill, with HR further above in fortified gun
nests.

~~~
jjawssd
Please explain

~~~
caminante
Quick example: His bullet points for "What's Wrong" read like a draft outline.
For example, bullet #6 says, "[The interview process is] a very uncomfortable
process for the applicants" \-- then he rambles giving reasons that don't
really point to why there's a problem: a) he lists issues that every applicant
will likely face (even in "great" interview processes b) good processes
intentionally make applicants uncomfortable at times and c) lists quirks that
are just part of the negotiating process and relatively unavoidable.

These rough edges aside, the structure seemed incomplete. After his unfiltered
stream of problems and process, he then says ~"throw away everything and start
from scratch" and throws in a quote from a self-improvement, business book, as
if he just did everyone a favor.

------
analog31
An impression I have is that, bad as hiring practices are, we still hire good
people most of the time. At my workplace we have the mainstream HR hiring
process, but we hire plenty of talented, creative, engaged people, and have a
healthy culture. Some things like the personality test, are a pure cost with
no conceivable impact. Everybody should know how to take a personality test by
now, just like we all learned how to pass a "behavioral" interview.

A process that admits some variability, even if by accident, may make your
organization more robust in the long run by avoiding mono-cultures, both
technical and personal. Some of the skill areas that my employer depends on,
including mine, were hired by accident.

The most frustrating thing is HR won't let you see what's out there and adapt
your requirements to what's available.

~~~
caminante
> The most frustrating thing is HR won't let you see what's out there and
> adapt your requirements to what's available.

Good point.

P.S. Though personality tests are EZ to juice, as you mention, they're still a
low-pass candidate filter. Honestly, I see their biggest value as "just
another ploy" to wear down candidates during interviews.

------
davidgerard
> They minimize or completely disregard whether or not someone will be a
> cultural fit.

This is because in practice, "culture fit" is the current buzzword excuse for
what is otherwise called "illegal discrimination".

~~~
pc86
So what about it, then? Is cultural fit supposed to be completely ignored?
It's important, and assuming that it means illegal discrimination is totally
false.

~~~
SilasX
I don't think the problem is filtering by cultural fit itself, but rather, the
overbroad use of the term for widely different scenarios to the point where it
conveys no information at best, or hides bad reasons at worst.

The term can mean a legitimate work compatibility issue like "people feel
awkward around him when they try to crack innocent jokes to ease the stress",
but can also mean "he insists on picking up his kid every day rather than
going out drinking".

------
steven2012
I wrote this before, but I think the most effective way to hire is to do your
best without giving into to grueling whiteboard interviews, and take a chance
on someone who seems smart. But also fire the person quickly if it seems like
they won't be a good fit. After spending years interviewing people, this is
the best conclusion I've come up with, because nothing else works as
conclusively. Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. Whiteboard
interview questions are a terrible measure of whether someone will be able to
contribute. Same goes for the other types of interview questions.

Of course, you need to give the person a chance to ramp up, etc, but if they
can't be a contributing team member in 2 months, then it's better to give them
1-2 month's severance and get rid of them. I know one late-stage startup in
the city that is using this technique, and I believe Netflix uses this
technique as well. It sucks, and kind of creates a bit of a harsh environment,
but it's a fast way to build out your team, and probably has the same success
rate as any other interview method, if not better because you cull your bad
performers quickly.

~~~
lmm
> do your best without giving into to grueling whiteboard interviews, and take
> a chance on someone who seems smart.

Um, what does that mean in practice? "do your best" is pretty much
meaningless. "Someone who seems smart" seems to invite hiring by stereotypes.

------
xacaxulu
Get rid of HR completely. The best places I've worked at had no HR team.
Instead, the team interviewed and decided together who to hire. Anyone could
veto a new hire and anyone could introduce or recommend a new hire. I know
this wouldn't work at a _huge_ company but I'm fairly certain I read about
Berkshire Hathaway operating like this at the BU/Department level.

~~~
antics
Let's be clear that this is really terrible advice for every company except
very, very small companies.

An HR department is not a "big company" thing that's there to get in your way.
Its job is to do things like (e.g.) protect the company against liability in
messy sexual harassment scenarios or (e.g.) hiring discrimination lawsuits.

The substitute for this functionality is not goodwill or "just doing the right
thing" because this role necessarily involves a detailed understanding of
employment law. If you disregard this department when building your company
past, say, tens of employees, you are basically certain to be in for a bad
time later. The book is written here by companies like GitHub, who have had
major scandals that could have been prevented mostly or wholly by a competent
HR department. If you look at their example and don't learn, then you are a
fool.

------
mcbrogrammer
In the UK, HR are often less involved in the earlier stages, and actually
become a problem at the latter stages of the process. Tech hiring still sucks
hard though. We like to think there are simple clean bias free processes we
can follow and repeat for awesome hiring, but somehow still go with the gut at
the end of the day.

------
cgearhart
The problem with hiring is that there are too many applicants, and too many
disincentives in the process for companies looking to hire.

Lots of people are looking to catch a break, score their dream job, or just
see what's out there, while many more just need _something_ to pay the bills.
In almost every case, applicants can't win what they don't put in the middle
-- which means that they have to apply if they meet even some of the position
requirements.

Unfortunately, for every well-qualified applicant there are many less-
qualified applicants, and the deluge of applicants means that it's simply not
possible to review each person individually. Instead they get run through a
filter built from loose heuristics that try to capture job requirements.

I've long felt that the solution here is the same as a busy nightclub: charge
a cover. For someplace like Google that gets hundreds of thousands of resumes,
that'll cut down on the applicant pool quickly. Reimburse it with a bonus for
candidates who make it to the interview stage. It's not about penalizing
applicants, it's about encouraging applicants to be honest about the fit
between their skills and the position requirements. I predict there would
certainly be fewer applicants failing FizzBuzz.

Employers are also hypersensitive to false positives (candidates who don't
work out), and a (justified) fear that they'll invest in a candidate who will
move on after learning and maturing in the company. It sucks having to fire
someone who isn't working out, and it can hurt morale even if the employee
wasn't producing. The cost of onboarding, training, and firing a candidate
sets a high threshold against false positives. It's just as bad when a new
employee is working out well but leaves abruptly for a better offer. I don't
have a solution to the former, but the latter is usually a good indication
that you need to review your compensation policies and the overall competitive
positioning of your total package compared to the market. Happy employees
don't usually leave; people quit when they don't have advancement potential,
when they don't feel fairly compensated, and when they're bored. [1][2]

[1] [http://randsinrepose.com/archives/bored-people-
quit/](http://randsinrepose.com/archives/bored-people-quit/) [2]
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html)

------
mcv
> The question that wasn’t useless? It was “what do you know about our
> company?”

This wouldn't work for me. I rarely know much about the company I'm talking
to. Once I was so amazingly off the mark about what the company did (I must
have confused them with another, though I still don't know which one), that
_I_ was shocked and disappointed with myself. I still got the offer. (I turned
it down; I would have been good at it, but I got something closer to home
instead.)

