6 ms·

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kiddin

by maxaf 11y ago

> The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Are you fucking kidding me? What am I going to tell my current employer while I "audition" for the mere possibility of a next job? Most working adults in the US don't even get three to eight weeks of discretionary vacation that they aren't already using to spend time with family or, you know, recharge after working the salt mines for meager scraps. This is the wrong approach for anyone except - maybe - very junior candidates. Fresh out of college, zero responsibility, wide open prospects. Those people could actually use 3-8 weeks of paid auditioning. Those of us who have families simply can not afford to do this.

greglindahl 11y ago
Trial employment is a great way to not be able to hire the best. A trial period means uncertainty. Any reasonable candidate will consider that a negative, compared to a competing offer which looks more certain.
- dang 11y ago
  What's a better option in your view? Interviews suck and seem hopelessly broken.
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    I agree that interviews are broken; no matter what styles of interviews I've seen, I see them fail to predict the future. Becoming good at firing is one way to triumph despite interview problems. Sometimes the employee is quite aware that they aren't working out. Even if they aren't, their coworkers probably can see the disaster unfolding. Done well, there's no morale hit.
- dsp1234 11y ago
  A trial period means uncertainty. More specifically, this is another way for an employer to move the risk of hiring back onto the employee. It's the employee who is going to need to leave their current position for an 'audition'. This is going to put the employee at a disadvantage during negotiations because the employee will likely not have as strong a position compared to have an existing job to fall back on. So unless the 'best' are already unemployed, then this helps the employer reduce their risk, and improve their bargaining power during offer negotiations. As a thought experiment, if you were trying to hire one of the 'best', during negotiations would you prefer if that person was currently employed or currently unemployed? As an employee, I'm glad that generally my BATNA includes staying at my current position (at a minimum).
dominotw 11y ago
So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring some humility and kindness to tech interviews.
- cableshaft 11y ago
  That's pretty much every job though. You're generally watched and judged more closely when you first start out anywhere, and it relaxes after you've proven yourself. Even if it's not happening overtly, you can bet it's happening. And not just from your boss, but from coworkers as well.
  - dasboth 11y ago
    That's true, and some companies are quite liberal with their ability to sack people at a week's notice during their probation period.
- atonse 11y ago
  This is one of those examples where a totally well intentioned move is completely misunderstood. What is the purpose of an interview? To see if someone's a good fit and works well with you. Interviews don't tell you that. Working with the people fixes that. At least these are paid contracts. It's one thing if they were unpaid, then sure, yes it sucks. But it's the equivalent of doing a freelance gig for a couple of weeks to see not only if they like you, but if YOU like working at that company. You can evaluate working at a company, get paid to do it, and find out all the pitfalls BEFORE you leave your existing job. What could possibly be so damn disgusting to you about this?
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    I think they find it disgusting because all the risk is shifted onto the employee. By the time 3-8 weeks have elapsed, the employee has definitely quit or lost their previous job, so if they don't get hired, they will be involuntarily unemployed, with no prospects because they've been busy with their "audition".
cableshaft 11y ago
He did say it was something they could do in their off time, so they could still keep their old job while they worked on it, and they'd get paid for their time too. I think that's why it's 3-8 weeks, because some people have more time to work on it and some people less. I don't think it's great necessarily, and certainly not great for everyone (some people really have very little free time outside of work, kids, and other responsibilities) but I also don't think that's bad. I actually wouldn't mind the side income from such an endeavor right now. There is also the potential legal problem of people working under contracts that don't let them do side work, which is also a legitimate argument against this approach.
- vkjv 11y ago
  This. It's important for them to understand their biases. This has a bias towards individuals who either are already contractors, do not have a job, or have large amounts of "free" time that is not dedicated to other endeavors. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with this as long as they understand their bias. Sometimes it's more important to pass on potentially great hires in order to weed out bad hires. For what it's worth, I would never do this. I'm not going to quit my current job to take this kind of risk. I also don't have "free" time. I have several time consuming hobbies / commitments outside of work that I'm not willing to break for 3-8 weeks.
ghaff 11y ago
He does go on to say that it's 10-20 hours per week that they can do on nights and weekends for which they are paid. That said, I don't really disagree with your basic point. Under the appropriate circumstances, some limited paid contract work can make sense. For example, for an industry analyst job, we used to ask for writing samples. In retrospect, asking them to write something on a specific topic (and paying for them to do so), might have been a good approach. But 100+ hours of audition does seem awfully high to me.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  So candidates are expected to work evenings and weekends instead of spending that time with their families? The process seems to strongly favor young and single folks. Then again maybe that's fully intended. The tech industry has a huge ageism problem after all.
  - kimdouglasmason 11y ago
    Ageism is so rife in the tech sector in the US that people don't even notice it because it's omnipresent. I would go so far as to say that in the Bay Area, actively discriminating against anyone with the appearance of being over 40 is the default behavior for tech companies. For example, if you look over 40 and not a tech lead/manager and haven't been one, you won't be hired, as you will be seen as having a lack of career trajectory. The entire 'career trajectory' premise is inherently ageist.
  - nbb 11y ago
    Well, it's only for a few weeks and only when you are looking to change jobs, and you get paid. I'd wager that many, if not most, people wouldn't mind picking up a little extra income on the side from time to time.
  - szx 11y ago
    Can you suggest a better alternative? Then again, maybe it's time to stop looking for a one size fits all solution and acknowledge that (in an ideal world) we might want to have different processes for different candidates, depending on their life situation and/or individual priorities?
Spooky23 11y ago
It's amazing that you'd go through all sorts of hand-wringing to supposedly eliminate (or at least claim to feel bad about) bias, and then put people through a mandatory process to basically go back to square one. You're implicitly excluding mid career employees with actual obligations, single mothers, people with obligations outside of work, and people who work for companies with contracts that assert copyright for work performed outside of work. If anyone asked me to do an "audition" contract job on nights and weekends, screwing up my family life and my professional job that I'm still obliged to perform, I would laugh heartily before hanging up. Even in a unemployment situation, I'd get stuck with a more complicated tax return, and be faced with a future of similarly douchey behaviors to follow.
- jandrese 11y ago
  Just how enforceable are those "we own everything you do on your time off" contract clauses? I've seen those in a lot of tech jobs and they seem like textbook overreach to my non-lawyer eyes. Are there any cases of people working on some open source project on nights/weekends and have their employer swoop in later and claim copyright because of their employment contract? Has it ever stood up to legal scrutiny? Whatever happened to just hiring someone on a contingency basis? Sure it will cost more if the person ends up being a bad fit since you'll be paying unemployment and they'll be out of a job entirely, but it's far more schedule friendly and less sketchy than this "pretend to be a moonlighting contractor" bit.
glenntzke 11y ago
This is ok in an industry where there are far more jobs available than workers. I'd say it's fine in any software hotbed like NYC or SF where there's really no excuse to be unemployed as a software developer unless you are so willingly or incompetent. Privilege is working both ways here: the developer has their pick of the crop and so does a highly successful and desirable employer. Edit: I want to point out that I think it's only acceptable in a region where the developers have the market advantage.
monkmartinez 11y ago
This sounds like a Police, Fire, and/or Military hiring process. For example; The test to get hired with my fire department was 2 hours long. 1800+ people took the test: 400 passed. Then you have to pass a Physical test: 250 passed. Then there are two formal interviews: 150 passed. Then the final selection of 50. After the selection, the candidate is required to pass a 22 week academy. The attrition rate in the academy is roughly 30% So out of the 50 that start the academy ~35 graduate. Then you are on probation for 1 full year, where maybe 5 or so are fired for various reasons. That is, once you get past the interviews, the real training and evaluation begins. There is no guarantee that you will have a job until you complete probation.
- darryl42 11y ago
  And if you move between cities or switch fire halls you are back to writing the the test? This is the equivalent of getting into the school you want, not a job interview.
  - monkmartinez 11y ago
    I am not sure I understand what you mean exactly. You can't just "switch" fire departments without the "process", at least I am not aware of any. If I wanted to move, I would have to do most, if not all of the "process" over again... complete with no guarantees.
    - darryl42 11y ago
      Really? You move from city A to city B and have to go back to fire fighter school? Admittedly I don't know very many firefighters but the way in for some was to get in a small city, then move to a larger one as they were already in the club so to speak. I don't believe they started at the bottom rung again.
- brooklyndavs 11y ago
  Between this and the software engineer vs developer article that was on the front page yesterday I really am starting to think if our industry needs to start taking some sort of industry wide recognized professional certificate into consideration. I know IEEE offers some but I've never met anyone who actually has one. I love how egalitarian software development and engineering is but I think the root of the problem is I as a hiring manager don't trust you can do the things you say you can do. So I'm going to use a test/trail period/white-boarding session to find that out. While making it a little less open an industry wide certificate would at least certify a minimal skill set level for everyone.
potatolicious 11y ago
This strategy seems like it would effectively choose the best candidates out of the pool labeled "desperate people". It mostly categorically excludes anyone who has market desirability and doesn't have to put up with it. I suppose it could work in parts of the country/world where the supply of engineers vastly exceeds the number of jobs, but it likely fails spectacularly in anything resembling a tech hub. This strikes me as the stronger/more extreme version of take-home interview projects, which while being good at filtering for quality, also simultaneously selects only for people who are willing/forced to put up with it. I suppose if your strategy is "hire the best of the desperates", this works for you.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  That is the same idea behind take-home tests. "Code this App. It should be 5 hours worth of work. Get back to use when you are done". I asked a friend who hires for his start-up why they do it. And their answer was exactly what you suggested -- to find desperate people and it also requires minimum investment of their time to start with. The rationale is because in the end they'd have to invest a significant amount of their time during the delivery crunch, that ends up selecting for that trait pretty well. He spoke as a friend, and will probably never say or admit it in public to the outside. But yeah it is something that happens. I imagine they are not the only ones who came up with that realization.
- sandmansandine 11y ago
  Yep, I interviewed with a small startup in the ABQ/Denver area and they asked if I could build a project over the week with their platform. "You know, don't spend more than 8 hours or so on it, you can just do it over a weekend and then maybe take some notes on any bad documentation or ideas you have"... Luckily I had many other interviews to go to, I didn't waste my time on their project. I'm sure a lot of people in Albuquerque would have though.
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ktRolster 11y ago
Maybe the solution would be to pay 25% extra during the audition. In that case, it is something I would be willing to do.
wvenable 11y ago
Stackoverflow and every business in the Joel-universe is about hiring very junior candidates.
wott 11y ago
In my country, everyone in engineering and programming is hired through a trial period of 4 to 8 months. So what? I'd rather have this being used more often as a real trial and not have to go through the ever humiliating process of totally random interviews lead by unqualified recruiters making decisions with unknown arbitrary criteria.

by maxaf 11y ago

greglindahl 11y ago

Trial employment is a great way to not be able to hire the best. A trial period means uncertainty. Any reasonable candidate will consider that a negative, compared to a competing offer which looks more certain.

dang 11y ago
What's a better option in your view? Interviews suck and seem hopelessly broken.
- greglindahl 11y ago
  I agree that interviews are broken; no matter what styles of interviews I've seen, I see them fail to predict the future. Becoming good at firing is one way to triumph despite interview problems. Sometimes the employee is quite aware that they aren't working out. Even if they aren't, their coworkers probably can see the disaster unfolding. Done well, there's no morale hit.
dsp1234 11y ago
A trial period means uncertainty. More specifically, this is another way for an employer to move the risk of hiring back onto the employee. It's the employee who is going to need to leave their current position for an 'audition'. This is going to put the employee at a disadvantage during negotiations because the employee will likely not have as strong a position compared to have an existing job to fall back on. So unless the 'best' are already unemployed, then this helps the employer reduce their risk, and improve their bargaining power during offer negotiations. As a thought experiment, if you were trying to hire one of the 'best', during negotiations would you prefer if that person was currently employed or currently unemployed? As an employee, I'm glad that generally my BATNA includes staying at my current position (at a minimum).

dominotw 11y ago

So its basically extended interview for like 8 weeks where your every move is being watched/judged. When did it become ok to treat people like shit and humiliate them with these ridiculous "interviews". Seems like we keep coming up one worse idea after another. Shame on everyone who thinks its ok to humiliate people with your idiotic algorithm/whiteboard/big O interviews. This is getting so out of hand. Can we bring some humility and kindness to tech interviews.

cableshaft 11y ago
That's pretty much every job though. You're generally watched and judged more closely when you first start out anywhere, and it relaxes after you've proven yourself. Even if it's not happening overtly, you can bet it's happening. And not just from your boss, but from coworkers as well.
- dasboth 11y ago
  That's true, and some companies are quite liberal with their ability to sack people at a week's notice during their probation period.
atonse 11y ago
This is one of those examples where a totally well intentioned move is completely misunderstood. What is the purpose of an interview? To see if someone's a good fit and works well with you. Interviews don't tell you that. Working with the people fixes that. At least these are paid contracts. It's one thing if they were unpaid, then sure, yes it sucks. But it's the equivalent of doing a freelance gig for a couple of weeks to see not only if they like you, but if YOU like working at that company. You can evaluate working at a company, get paid to do it, and find out all the pitfalls BEFORE you leave your existing job. What could possibly be so damn disgusting to you about this?
- nitrogen 11y ago
  I think they find it disgusting because all the risk is shifted onto the employee. By the time 3-8 weeks have elapsed, the employee has definitely quit or lost their previous job, so if they don't get hired, they will be involuntarily unemployed, with no prospects because they've been busy with their "audition".

cableshaft 11y ago

He did say it was something they could do in their off time, so they could still keep their old job while they worked on it, and they'd get paid for their time too. I think that's why it's 3-8 weeks, because some people have more time to work on it and some people less. I don't think it's great necessarily, and certainly not great for everyone (some people really have very little free time outside of work, kids, and other responsibilities) but I also don't think that's bad. I actually wouldn't mind the side income from such an endeavor right now. There is also the potential legal problem of people working under contracts that don't let them do side work, which is also a legitimate argument against this approach.

vkjv 11y ago
This. It's important for them to understand their biases. This has a bias towards individuals who either are already contractors, do not have a job, or have large amounts of "free" time that is not dedicated to other endeavors. Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with this as long as they understand their bias. Sometimes it's more important to pass on potentially great hires in order to weed out bad hires. For what it's worth, I would never do this. I'm not going to quit my current job to take this kind of risk. I also don't have "free" time. I have several time consuming hobbies / commitments outside of work that I'm not willing to break for 3-8 weeks.

ghaff 11y ago

He does go on to say that it's 10-20 hours per week that they can do on nights and weekends for which they are paid. That said, I don't really disagree with your basic point. Under the appropriate circumstances, some limited paid contract work can make sense. For example, for an industry analyst job, we used to ask for writing samples. In retrospect, asking them to write something on a specific topic (and paying for them to do so), might have been a good approach. But 100+ hours of audition does seem awfully high to me.

enraged_camel 11y ago
So candidates are expected to work evenings and weekends instead of spending that time with their families? The process seems to strongly favor young and single folks. Then again maybe that's fully intended. The tech industry has a huge ageism problem after all.
- kimdouglasmason 11y ago
  Ageism is so rife in the tech sector in the US that people don't even notice it because it's omnipresent. I would go so far as to say that in the Bay Area, actively discriminating against anyone with the appearance of being over 40 is the default behavior for tech companies. For example, if you look over 40 and not a tech lead/manager and haven't been one, you won't be hired, as you will be seen as having a lack of career trajectory. The entire 'career trajectory' premise is inherently ageist.
- nbb 11y ago
  Well, it's only for a few weeks and only when you are looking to change jobs, and you get paid. I'd wager that many, if not most, people wouldn't mind picking up a little extra income on the side from time to time.
- szx 11y ago
  Can you suggest a better alternative? Then again, maybe it's time to stop looking for a one size fits all solution and acknowledge that (in an ideal world) we might want to have different processes for different candidates, depending on their life situation and/or individual priorities?

Spooky23 11y ago

It's amazing that you'd go through all sorts of hand-wringing to supposedly eliminate (or at least claim to feel bad about) bias, and then put people through a mandatory process to basically go back to square one. You're implicitly excluding mid career employees with actual obligations, single mothers, people with obligations outside of work, and people who work for companies with contracts that assert copyright for work performed outside of work. If anyone asked me to do an "audition" contract job on nights and weekends, screwing up my family life and my professional job that I'm still obliged to perform, I would laugh heartily before hanging up. Even in a unemployment situation, I'd get stuck with a more complicated tax return, and be faced with a future of similarly douchey behaviors to follow.

jandrese 11y ago
Just how enforceable are those "we own everything you do on your time off" contract clauses? I've seen those in a lot of tech jobs and they seem like textbook overreach to my non-lawyer eyes. Are there any cases of people working on some open source project on nights/weekends and have their employer swoop in later and claim copyright because of their employment contract? Has it ever stood up to legal scrutiny? Whatever happened to just hiring someone on a contingency basis? Sure it will cost more if the person ends up being a bad fit since you'll be paying unemployment and they'll be out of a job entirely, but it's far more schedule friendly and less sketchy than this "pretend to be a moonlighting contractor" bit.

glenntzke 11y ago

This is ok in an industry where there are far more jobs available than workers. I'd say it's fine in any software hotbed like NYC or SF where there's really no excuse to be unemployed as a software developer unless you are so willingly or incompetent. Privilege is working both ways here: the developer has their pick of the crop and so does a highly successful and desirable employer. Edit: I want to point out that I think it's only acceptable in a region where the developers have the market advantage.

monkmartinez 11y ago

This sounds like a Police, Fire, and/or Military hiring process. For example; The test to get hired with my fire department was 2 hours long. 1800+ people took the test: 400 passed. Then you have to pass a Physical test: 250 passed. Then there are two formal interviews: 150 passed. Then the final selection of 50. After the selection, the candidate is required to pass a 22 week academy. The attrition rate in the academy is roughly 30% So out of the 50 that start the academy ~35 graduate. Then you are on probation for 1 full year, where maybe 5 or so are fired for various reasons. That is, once you get past the interviews, the real training and evaluation begins. There is no guarantee that you will have a job until you complete probation.

darryl42 11y ago
And if you move between cities or switch fire halls you are back to writing the the test? This is the equivalent of getting into the school you want, not a job interview.
- monkmartinez 11y ago
  I am not sure I understand what you mean exactly. You can't just "switch" fire departments without the "process", at least I am not aware of any. If I wanted to move, I would have to do most, if not all of the "process" over again... complete with no guarantees.
  - darryl42 11y ago
    Really? You move from city A to city B and have to go back to fire fighter school? Admittedly I don't know very many firefighters but the way in for some was to get in a small city, then move to a larger one as they were already in the club so to speak. I don't believe they started at the bottom rung again.
brooklyndavs 11y ago
Between this and the software engineer vs developer article that was on the front page yesterday I really am starting to think if our industry needs to start taking some sort of industry wide recognized professional certificate into consideration. I know IEEE offers some but I've never met anyone who actually has one. I love how egalitarian software development and engineering is but I think the root of the problem is I as a hiring manager don't trust you can do the things you say you can do. So I'm going to use a test/trail period/white-boarding session to find that out. While making it a little less open an industry wide certificate would at least certify a minimal skill set level for everyone.

potatolicious 11y ago

This strategy seems like it would effectively choose the best candidates out of the pool labeled "desperate people". It mostly categorically excludes anyone who has market desirability and doesn't have to put up with it. I suppose it could work in parts of the country/world where the supply of engineers vastly exceeds the number of jobs, but it likely fails spectacularly in anything resembling a tech hub. This strikes me as the stronger/more extreme version of take-home interview projects, which while being good at filtering for quality, also simultaneously selects only for people who are willing/forced to put up with it. I suppose if your strategy is "hire the best of the desperates", this works for you.

rdtsc 11y ago
That is the same idea behind take-home tests. "Code this App. It should be 5 hours worth of work. Get back to use when you are done". I asked a friend who hires for his start-up why they do it. And their answer was exactly what you suggested -- to find desperate people and it also requires minimum investment of their time to start with. The rationale is because in the end they'd have to invest a significant amount of their time during the delivery crunch, that ends up selecting for that trait pretty well. He spoke as a friend, and will probably never say or admit it in public to the outside. But yeah it is something that happens. I imagine they are not the only ones who came up with that realization.
sandmansandine 11y ago
Yep, I interviewed with a small startup in the ABQ/Denver area and they asked if I could build a project over the week with their platform. "You know, don't spend more than 8 hours or so on it, you can just do it over a weekend and then maybe take some notes on any bad documentation or ideas you have"... Luckily I had many other interviews to go to, I didn't waste my time on their project. I'm sure a lot of people in Albuquerque would have though.

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ktRolster 11y ago

Maybe the solution would be to pay 25% extra during the audition. In that case, it is something I would be willing to do.

wvenable 11y ago

Stackoverflow and every business in the Joel-universe is about hiring very junior candidates.

wott 11y ago

In my country, everyone in engineering and programming is hired through a trial period of 4 to 8 months. So what? I'd rather have this being used more often as a real trial and not have to go through the ever humiliating process of totally random interviews lead by unqualified recruiters making decisions with unknown arbitrary criteria.