

There is no such thing as good hiring, only good firing - twoz
http://www.fonality.com/blog/there-is-no-such-thing-as-good-hiring-only-good-firing

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harpastum
"while you shouldn't hire the guy that walks in one hour late, and didn’t
notice a Cheerio stuck on his lip, anything else is fair game."

As far as I can tell, The author is suggesting that interviews are completely
worthless. He's saying that until you actually deal with someone in the
workplace, you have no way of knowing how they will perform. He's saying that
there is no way to effectively differentiate applicants.

This, to put it simply, is complete bullshit. It's clearly possible to remove
the absolute worst applicants through interviews (i.e. can't put two lines of
code together). Furthermore, how do you get absolutely _zero_ idea of the work
ethic and ability of the person you're interviewing? The only conclusion I can
come to is that this author has no technical knowledge whatsoever, and
therefore can't distinguish between applicants.

This author is suggesting the 'spray and pray' method of hiring: hire a new
developers, fire those that don't perform in the workplace, rinse, repeat.
This is pure insanity.

I really hope I'm missing something, but the author really is pretty clear:
"your skill as a manager is not based on your ability to get good people into
your group, but on getting bad people out. The sooner you cull weaker players,
the sooner you can replace them with stronger players...and improve the human
composite of your firm."

~~~
frossie
Not only that, but (and I realise this may not be the norm in the HN
population) many of us work in places where people can't just get fired
because it turns out they are not an A-player. I could get an F-player fired,
but if I hire a B-player I am stuck with them. One of the important real-world
geek herding skills is getting the most out of your B-players.

That said: he is right in that most of the hiring literature is lame if not
outright stupid. I was once passed a book by upper (non-tech) management on
how to interview people and it really did tout all the nonsense cliches, like
the quality of the candidate's handshake. I am still boggling to this day.

------
ibsulon
I would never interview with a company with a corporate culture like this, and
neither would most of the hackers I've worked with. While I prefer to work
with great people...

1\. Not being at the bottom of the barrel, I have alternatives. Why would I
leave a situation for one known for hiring just about anyone and spitting them
out at heavy rates? There's a name for those types of gigs: contracting jobs,
and they pay for the risk.

2\. The corporate culture developed through such a system must be awful. Why
start making acquaintanceship with a new co-worker when even odds say they'll
be gone in a few months?

3\. It makes for lazy management. Sometimes, the problem is the process
doesn't fit the problem. But why go through that when you can just fire them?

Finally, this could only work in the major tech hubs. I'm a friend of a friend
away from most non-DOD projects in my area, and that's not terribly uncommon.
Unless you're hiring straight from university, you're probably going to have a
difficult time filling positions fairly soon.

