Well...we see things differently. I won't go into it. I've made a commitment to behave circumspectly in my online interactions. Take note that I link to my complete background in my HN handle. I am deliberately putting myself in the position of being held accountable for what I post. I can't please everybody, and, in today's culture, everyone seems to be looking to pounce on everyone else. Rather sad. I can't fix the culture, but I can just make sure that I don't become infected by it, and contribute to it.
If I have to become the culture in order to participate in it, then I will just take my toys and play in my own sandbox. I won't compromise my personal ethos, just because everyone else is.
As a manager, I took my Responsibilities very seriously. I worked for an extremely frugal and conservative corporation, and had to fight like a badger to get headcount. Making sure that the person that filled that headcount was top-notch was critically important, and I spent a great deal of time evaluating résumés and interviewing candidates. I would have killed for information like what you can get from a well-stocked SO story. Each candidate was a potential "family member." I kept them for decades. Japan wouldn't even recognize their existence until they'd been there for over a year.
Have you ever seen a designer get ready for an interview? I was trained as an artist (way back when), and know the drill.
They bring a large (usually black) case with them. It contains samples of their work; often including things like sketches and layout exercises. They go over the contents of this case with the interviewer; often telling stories about how they addressed some kind of issue, or the creative process that went into the work. I guess they may bring a laptop with them, these days.
No design manager in their right mind would ever think of ignoring the portfolio, and, instead, throw a matchbook on the table, and ask the designer to "Draw Spunky."
I have a lot of art background as well, and you are speaking my language. So I don't know exactly what we're not agreeing on or why...
I'm not saying ignore people's portfolio. I'm only saying I don't spend a lot of time doing it before I talk to them. You also understand as well as I do that code portfolios and art portfolios are very different things, we can't compare those two types of interviews directly. It's easy to get a sense of quality from an art portfolio very, very quickly. At the same time, it can take days to understand whether a code portfolio has high quality.
You, as someone who'd done a lot of hiring, I think understands that a hiring manager doesn't have 4 hours to research each and every candidate at the resume phase before interviewing them on the phone, while also trying to write code and manage other coders at the same time. We take the best candidates we get, rank the resumes, look over the portfolios, reject any candidates that aren't prepared for the job, then call the top candidates and chat on the phone for a few hours, after that bring in the top from that set for interviews, which can be multiple days.
I also take hiring extremely seriously, and I've never had to fire someone, because we spend a lot of time talking with the candidate and making certain they'll fit in well on the team. That time spent talking is spent talking about their portfolio, having the candidate explain in their own words why they made the design decisions they made, why they chose to work on certain projects.
I would be willing to bet that in a face to face conversation, we would be agreeing damn near 100% on hiring philosophy and process. The problem here is it's hard to get across my motivation online in text. :P
I'm cool with that. I understand that online communication is a rather delicate art. I tend to come across as stuffy and pedantic, because I have found it's the best (not foolproof, though) way to avoid irritating folks.
My writing tends to be a lot more casual, and even a bit humorous. I like humans, and believe that the human relationships we make are the most important artifacts of our lives.
If I have to become the culture in order to participate in it, then I will just take my toys and play in my own sandbox. I won't compromise my personal ethos, just because everyone else is.
As a manager, I took my Responsibilities very seriously. I worked for an extremely frugal and conservative corporation, and had to fight like a badger to get headcount. Making sure that the person that filled that headcount was top-notch was critically important, and I spent a great deal of time evaluating résumés and interviewing candidates. I would have killed for information like what you can get from a well-stocked SO story. Each candidate was a potential "family member." I kept them for decades. Japan wouldn't even recognize their existence until they'd been there for over a year.
Have you ever seen a designer get ready for an interview? I was trained as an artist (way back when), and know the drill.
They bring a large (usually black) case with them. It contains samples of their work; often including things like sketches and layout exercises. They go over the contents of this case with the interviewer; often telling stories about how they addressed some kind of issue, or the creative process that went into the work. I guess they may bring a laptop with them, these days.
No design manager in their right mind would ever think of ignoring the portfolio, and, instead, throw a matchbook on the table, and ask the designer to "Draw Spunky."