5 ms·

Manifesto: Things we believe about hiring

21 points by shawndumas 11y ago

markbnj 11y ago
As a developer who is currently in the market after the last startup I worked for started laying people off, I definitely agree that the current process can be badly broken. This is the first time I have had to go out and interview cold in six years, and I'm struck by how much it has changed. I had one company put me through seven interviews with different team members, each lasting 30-45 minutes, each appearing to go very well (including comments like "You're a shoo-in" and "I'll be very excited to work with you," only to receive a two or three sentence brush off email more than a week after the last of them. The whole process took nearly a month. I interviewed with another company, an NYC startup, and again it went well. After three weeks and no response to a polite inquiry email from me they finally reached out and asked me if I wanted to do an onsite. Three weeks without a word on how I had done or whether they wanted to proceed. I don't want to work for a company that treats candidates like that. There were other examples: a company that did two phone screens and told me I'd fit in "very well" and then asked me to drive to Boston for a f2f lunch (ten hour road trip), after which they brushed me off because they didn't think I'd be happy if I couldn't use docker and kubernetes right away. I interviewed with a large mid-western company a week ago today, second interview, spent almost an hour with two senior engineers. Felt like it went well. Have not heard a single word since, and no reply to an inquiry email. It's just disrespectful as hell in my opinion, and tells me a lot about a company's internal culture.
- znebby 11y ago
  I responded to a job posting for a YC company on the HN front page. The CEO responded within an hour and we scheduled a call for the following day. 40 minutes before that call was scheduled to take place, he cancelled it and asked to reschedule. Understandable, these things happen. When the rescheduled call was meant to take place, he just didn't show up. I emailed him about an hour later, just saying that I'm not sure what happened but I didn't get a call. He never replied. A few days later they were posting jobs on YC again. It's not like it was my dream job but it just made me so mad that someone would treat me like that. When I get to be in a position of hiring people I will never treat anyone like that. In the rare case I ever have to miss a call without informing in advance, I'll at least have the courtesy to apologize. Extremely disrespectful and I definitely wouldn't want to work at such a place, especially when this behaviour comes from the CEO.
- percept 11y ago
  The best jobs I've had were all handshake deals, short and simple. The 10-hour ones (screenings, exercises, interviews ad nauseam) are usually still open months later. It's not you--it's them.
  - markbnj 11y ago
    You know that's been pretty true for me, too. Often when one gig looks like its winding down I've met people and formed strong enough relationships that something else pops up, but this last startup was a mismanaged mess that fell apart for me in five months, so I sort of got caught by surprise.
gherig4 11y ago
I've gone through their process and these guys aren't any different from the rest of "them". I finished the problem within the allotted time but was then rejected. I have no problem with the rejection itself but in the feedback I was told that even though I finished it on time I didn't finish it fast enough. Thats the sort of vague moving the goalposts that I have NOT seen in most of my in person technical interviews and why all their blog posts and lofty goals should be taken with a huge grain of salt. EDIT spelling
- Bahamut 11y ago
  For some interviews, that's the true bar, not just getting a solution - for example, I got rejected by Facebook at the technical phone screen stage for not completing two questions in the time allotted (two phone screens, since they give you a chance to prove that the first failure was a fluke).
- namelezz 11y ago
  That sounds better than my experience with a fuck up startup a while ago. I solved all their tech challenges to have the email revealed. It's fun at that time. Sent my resume to that email. Received a phone call. Had a short interview over the phone answering behavioral interview questions, such as why you want to work here. Then never heard back although they mentioned over the phone that they liked my performance.
- pmiller2 11y ago
  Wow. What was the time limit, and how long did you actually take?
- itsdrewmiller 11y ago
  Are you talking about interviewing for triplebyte specifically or using their software to apply to other startups? At what stage did you end up getting rejected?
- Harj 11y ago
  I apologize for that. Writing personalized rejection emails for interviewees that gives clear feedback is something we're committed to and we apologize we didn't meet that goal here. I don't know the specifics of your interview but we do often make a decision to not move forward even when we reach a working solution. That could be for a wide range of reasons (design choices are one example, or seeing engineers we move forward with covering more ground beyond an initial working solution might be another). We know we'll inevitably get false negatives in our process, if you've any other feedback I'd be grateful to hear it. harj AT triplebyte DOT com.
p4wnc6 11y ago
I agree about standardization but unfortunately for lazy / hazing start-up types and for big bureaucrat types this converges to dumb shit like HackerRank, which (short, high time pressure, commoditized trivia) is close to the precise opposite of what matters in a candidate. HackerRack / IKM / etc do not qualify as the good version of standardized interviewing. Use of such tools speaks loudly of hiring dysfunction.
peterwwillis 11y ago
This seems somewhat unrealistic. > "A company can't meaningfully evaluate candidates if it treats each one differently." Each candidate may have very different kinds of experience! Different industries, different requirements, large or small projects, embedded or platform-agnostic, backend QC or live high traffic production code, different education, different specialties, different styles, different processes, people who work better alone or in groups, etc. People are highly variant. > "What matters is a candidate's strengths, and how quickly they can learn new things." Or, you know, if they are being hired to write production industrial control software and have never had to write code that doesn't just dump core on the first error, or understanding security when you're writing a web app for a bank. Picking up things as you go is great, but certain weaknesses conflict with the job. > "The hiring process should be treated like a software product, constantly iterated on using data, and improved over time." Nice idea. Nobody I know has the time for this, as hiring is generally done by the team and its manager. > "Compensation statistics should be public." There are many problems with this, besides the obvious poaching of employees. Salaries often range based on a number of criteria, and different offers are extended with different benefits or perks for different reasons. This can create emotional conflict between employees, make it harder to retain good talent, and can't be easily adjusted into a statistic. And of course, leaks about monetary figures can damage deals with potential clients or partners. > "they should be able to outsource technical hiring. The flaw with current external recruiting firms is they don't reliably deliver enough good candidates to build trust with companies." External recruiting firms generally result in bottom-of-the-barrel hiring. Companies use them because they don't have time to look themselves, and if they did have time they wouldn't know where to start, nor how to weed out undesirables. Companies that put focus and effort on hiring by themselves are going to look harder for someone they really want, rather than fill another seat with someone with a compatible resume. -- Hiring anecdote: The best hiring interview i've ever been in is still the first one I ever had for a real job. I had no experience, so they asked all kinds of things to evaluate how I thought, what I was comfortable or not comfortable with, and how I might adapt. They posed a technical problem to me, something they were looking for a solution to. I sat there and came up with a couple solutions, and they said no that doesn't work. I thought about it more and came up with two new solutions, and soon they had the whole team in there shaking my hand. Right after that, an HR hiring manager/rep gave me the lowest offer i've ever heard of in my life - it literally would have put me under the poverty line. He said my lack of experience and education was the reason. I teared up and left, knowing the only thing meaner than that offer was the way they made me believe I had the job. But I got a better job after that :-)
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
>> The hiring process should be focused on discovering strengths, not uncovering weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. This. Walking into an interview wigh hiding your weaknesses as a goal sets up Completely the wrong dynamic. Plus what kind of success for the interviewer? I have found a perfect person? Or I did not look hard enough for flaws?
munchor 11y ago
>Hiring processes need to be standardized. Candidates deserve a consistent experience and consistent evaluation. A company can't meaningfully evaluate candidates if it treats each one differently. I can only agree with this to a certain extent. It seems to me that sometimes, special candidates at a smaller company might require a special process. It's very hard to standardize this kind of thing and not that worth it in the long run, especially for startups who are hiring for all sorts of positions. Now this doesn't mean I don't agree with the rest of the points, as most of them actually seem pretty on point.
pmiller2 11y ago
They talk a good talk, but I wish more companies would walk the walk. The way companies hire now is like interviewing a surgeon by having her carve a turkey.

21 points by shawndumas 11y ago

As a developer who is currently in the market after the last startup I worked for started laying people off, I definitely agree that the current process can be badly broken. This is the first time I have had to go out and interview cold in six years, and I'm struck by how much it has changed. I had one company put me through seven interviews with different team members, each lasting 30-45 minutes, each appearing to go very well (including comments like "You're a shoo-in" and "I'll be very excited to work with you," only to receive a two or three sentence brush off email more than a week after the last of them. The whole process took nearly a month. I interviewed with another company, an NYC startup, and again it went well. After three weeks and no response to a polite inquiry email from me they finally reached out and asked me if I wanted to do an onsite. Three weeks without a word on how I had done or whether they wanted to proceed. I don't want to work for a company that treats candidates like that. There were other examples: a company that did two phone screens and told me I'd fit in "very well" and then asked me to drive to Boston for a f2f lunch (ten hour road trip), after which they brushed me off because they didn't think I'd be happy if I couldn't use docker and kubernetes right away. I interviewed with a large mid-western company a week ago today, second interview, spent almost an hour with two senior engineers. Felt like it went well. Have not heard a single word since, and no reply to an inquiry email. It's just disrespectful as hell in my opinion, and tells me a lot about a company's internal culture.

znebby 11y ago
I responded to a job posting for a YC company on the HN front page. The CEO responded within an hour and we scheduled a call for the following day. 40 minutes before that call was scheduled to take place, he cancelled it and asked to reschedule. Understandable, these things happen. When the rescheduled call was meant to take place, he just didn't show up. I emailed him about an hour later, just saying that I'm not sure what happened but I didn't get a call. He never replied. A few days later they were posting jobs on YC again. It's not like it was my dream job but it just made me so mad that someone would treat me like that. When I get to be in a position of hiring people I will never treat anyone like that. In the rare case I ever have to miss a call without informing in advance, I'll at least have the courtesy to apologize. Extremely disrespectful and I definitely wouldn't want to work at such a place, especially when this behaviour comes from the CEO.
percept 11y ago
The best jobs I've had were all handshake deals, short and simple. The 10-hour ones (screenings, exercises, interviews ad nauseam) are usually still open months later. It's not you--it's them.
- markbnj 11y ago
  You know that's been pretty true for me, too. Often when one gig looks like its winding down I've met people and formed strong enough relationships that something else pops up, but this last startup was a mismanaged mess that fell apart for me in five months, so I sort of got caught by surprise.

gherig4 11y ago

I've gone through their process and these guys aren't any different from the rest of "them". I finished the problem within the allotted time but was then rejected. I have no problem with the rejection itself but in the feedback I was told that even though I finished it on time I didn't finish it fast enough. Thats the sort of vague moving the goalposts that I have NOT seen in most of my in person technical interviews and why all their blog posts and lofty goals should be taken with a huge grain of salt. EDIT spelling

Bahamut 11y ago
For some interviews, that's the true bar, not just getting a solution - for example, I got rejected by Facebook at the technical phone screen stage for not completing two questions in the time allotted (two phone screens, since they give you a chance to prove that the first failure was a fluke).
namelezz 11y ago
That sounds better than my experience with a fuck up startup a while ago. I solved all their tech challenges to have the email revealed. It's fun at that time. Sent my resume to that email. Received a phone call. Had a short interview over the phone answering behavioral interview questions, such as why you want to work here. Then never heard back although they mentioned over the phone that they liked my performance.
pmiller2 11y ago
Wow. What was the time limit, and how long did you actually take?
itsdrewmiller 11y ago
Are you talking about interviewing for triplebyte specifically or using their software to apply to other startups? At what stage did you end up getting rejected?
Harj 11y ago
I apologize for that. Writing personalized rejection emails for interviewees that gives clear feedback is something we're committed to and we apologize we didn't meet that goal here. I don't know the specifics of your interview but we do often make a decision to not move forward even when we reach a working solution. That could be for a wide range of reasons (design choices are one example, or seeing engineers we move forward with covering more ground beyond an initial working solution might be another). We know we'll inevitably get false negatives in our process, if you've any other feedback I'd be grateful to hear it. harj AT triplebyte DOT com.

p4wnc6 11y ago

I agree about standardization but unfortunately for lazy / hazing start-up types and for big bureaucrat types this converges to dumb shit like HackerRank, which (short, high time pressure, commoditized trivia) is close to the precise opposite of what matters in a candidate. HackerRack / IKM / etc do not qualify as the good version of standardized interviewing. Use of such tools speaks loudly of hiring dysfunction.

peterwwillis 11y ago

This seems somewhat unrealistic. > "A company can't meaningfully evaluate candidates if it treats each one differently." Each candidate may have very different kinds of experience! Different industries, different requirements, large or small projects, embedded or platform-agnostic, backend QC or live high traffic production code, different education, different specialties, different styles, different processes, people who work better alone or in groups, etc. People are highly variant. > "What matters is a candidate's strengths, and how quickly they can learn new things." Or, you know, if they are being hired to write production industrial control software and have never had to write code that doesn't just dump core on the first error, or understanding security when you're writing a web app for a bank. Picking up things as you go is great, but certain weaknesses conflict with the job. > "The hiring process should be treated like a software product, constantly iterated on using data, and improved over time." Nice idea. Nobody I know has the time for this, as hiring is generally done by the team and its manager. > "Compensation statistics should be public." There are many problems with this, besides the obvious poaching of employees. Salaries often range based on a number of criteria, and different offers are extended with different benefits or perks for different reasons. This can create emotional conflict between employees, make it harder to retain good talent, and can't be easily adjusted into a statistic. And of course, leaks about monetary figures can damage deals with potential clients or partners. > "they should be able to outsource technical hiring. The flaw with current external recruiting firms is they don't reliably deliver enough good candidates to build trust with companies." External recruiting firms generally result in bottom-of-the-barrel hiring. Companies use them because they don't have time to look themselves, and if they did have time they wouldn't know where to start, nor how to weed out undesirables. Companies that put focus and effort on hiring by themselves are going to look harder for someone they really want, rather than fill another seat with someone with a compatible resume. -- Hiring anecdote: The best hiring interview i've ever been in is still the first one I ever had for a real job. I had no experience, so they asked all kinds of things to evaluate how I thought, what I was comfortable or not comfortable with, and how I might adapt. They posed a technical problem to me, something they were looking for a solution to. I sat there and came up with a couple solutions, and they said no that doesn't work. I thought about it more and came up with two new solutions, and soon they had the whole team in there shaking my hand. Right after that, an HR hiring manager/rep gave me the lowest offer i've ever heard of in my life - it literally would have put me under the poverty line. He said my lack of experience and education was the reason. I teared up and left, knowing the only thing meaner than that offer was the way they made me believe I had the job. But I got a better job after that :-)

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

>> The hiring process should be focused on discovering strengths, not uncovering weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. This. Walking into an interview wigh hiding your weaknesses as a goal sets up Completely the wrong dynamic. Plus what kind of success for the interviewer? I have found a perfect person? Or I did not look hard enough for flaws?

munchor 11y ago

>Hiring processes need to be standardized. Candidates deserve a consistent experience and consistent evaluation. A company can't meaningfully evaluate candidates if it treats each one differently. I can only agree with this to a certain extent. It seems to me that sometimes, special candidates at a smaller company might require a special process. It's very hard to standardize this kind of thing and not that worth it in the long run, especially for startups who are hiring for all sorts of positions. Now this doesn't mean I don't agree with the rest of the points, as most of them actually seem pretty on point.

pmiller2 11y ago

They talk a good talk, but I wish more companies would walk the walk. The way companies hire now is like interviewing a surgeon by having her carve a turkey.