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I've often heard this, and it seems a poor excuse for a terrible interview process/terrible hiring figures. Why do you not try to improve your interview process

I've often heard this, and it seems a poor excuse for a terrible interview process/terrible hiring figures. Why do you not try to improve your interview process to lower the false-negative rate? Doing so in an intelligent way need not raise the false-positives rate (unless you somehow believe that the interview process is already perfected by Google...)

evanws 10y ago
They definitely try their best to give every candidate as fair a shot as possible, but there's always going to be error. It becomes a question of what type of error hurts more, accidentally rejecting someone who's qualified or accepting someone who isn't. They reasonably believe the latter is significantly more dangerous.
pablasso 10y ago
Oh, I can play this game too: Why don't we make software without bugs? if you do software in an intelligent way there's no need to create bugs. Of course everyone strives for better processes —at the end of the day, that means more revenue— is just that those problems seem easier to solve from the outside.
- taspeotis 10y ago
  As an extreme example: NASA has done a pretty good job of making software without bugs [1]. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long — had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
  - hyperpape 10y ago
    Keep going, why don't we all write software the way NASA does? (Also, it's just an analogy. I think perfect hiring would be much harder than bug free software).
    - na85 10y ago
      Because companies are interested in profit; not top-quality software. Anyone who tells you differently is deluded or lying.
    - taspeotis 10y ago
      That's why it's an extreme example. I don't know if it's possible for anyone to answer this question but: does any organisation have a hiring process that's 5000:1 better than the average equivalent, like NASA's 5000:1 software defect rate?
  - alexeiz 10y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if NASA had a different definition of "error" than a typical "bug" in commercial software. My video player plays every single mpeg/avi/mkv I through at it. Yet it has dozens if not hundreds of serious bugs. I just doubt those bugs fall under the NASA's definition of "error".
asuffield 10y ago
I am not allowed to share our data with you about how well the process is performing. But I would like to point out that of the two of us, only the one who doesn't know is suggesting that we have "terrible hiring figures" or a "terrible interview process".
- asuffield 10y ago
  Hi, downvoters who aren't commenting. What exactly is your objection to this post?
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    I didn't downvote, but I'll take a shot at answering. Your post had a touch of condescension, sort of: "well I work at Google and you don't, so I obviously know better than you ...". Kind of reminds me of this HN comment and rejoinder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 Did you win the Putnam? Yes, I did. You generally don't know the history of the people you're interacting with here on HN, so it's not always appropriate to act so smug about where you work.
    - mwpmaybe 10y ago
      That thread is amazing. My favorite part is the inventors of Tarsnap and Dropbox basically saying to each other, "oh hey, I'm working on the same thing as you!"
      - cperciva 10y ago
        That's a bit of a mischaracterization. Drew said that he was working on the same thing as me; I didn't respond, because my response would have been "no, you're not; I'm building a secure backup tool" and I didn't want to antagonize people any further.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Basically "just take my word for it, I'm at Google".

evanws 10y ago

They definitely try their best to give every candidate as fair a shot as possible, but there's always going to be error. It becomes a question of what type of error hurts more, accidentally rejecting someone who's qualified or accepting someone who isn't. They reasonably believe the latter is significantly more dangerous.

pablasso 10y ago

Oh, I can play this game too: Why don't we make software without bugs? if you do software in an intelligent way there's no need to create bugs. Of course everyone strives for better processes —at the end of the day, that means more revenue— is just that those problems seem easier to solve from the outside.

taspeotis 10y ago
As an extreme example: NASA has done a pretty good job of making software without bugs [1]. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long — had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
- hyperpape 10y ago
  Keep going, why don't we all write software the way NASA does? (Also, it's just an analogy. I think perfect hiring would be much harder than bug free software).
  - na85 10y ago
    Because companies are interested in profit; not top-quality software. Anyone who tells you differently is deluded or lying.
  - taspeotis 10y ago
    That's why it's an extreme example. I don't know if it's possible for anyone to answer this question but: does any organisation have a hiring process that's 5000:1 better than the average equivalent, like NASA's 5000:1 software defect rate?
- alexeiz 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if NASA had a different definition of "error" than a typical "bug" in commercial software. My video player plays every single mpeg/avi/mkv I through at it. Yet it has dozens if not hundreds of serious bugs. I just doubt those bugs fall under the NASA's definition of "error".

asuffield 10y ago

I am not allowed to share our data with you about how well the process is performing. But I would like to point out that of the two of us, only the one who doesn't know is suggesting that we have "terrible hiring figures" or a "terrible interview process".

asuffield 10y ago
Hi, downvoters who aren't commenting. What exactly is your objection to this post?
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  I didn't downvote, but I'll take a shot at answering. Your post had a touch of condescension, sort of: "well I work at Google and you don't, so I obviously know better than you ...". Kind of reminds me of this HN comment and rejoinder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079 Did you win the Putnam? Yes, I did. You generally don't know the history of the people you're interacting with here on HN, so it's not always appropriate to act so smug about where you work.
  - mwpmaybe 10y ago
    That thread is amazing. My favorite part is the inventors of Tarsnap and Dropbox basically saying to each other, "oh hey, I'm working on the same thing as you!"
    - cperciva 10y ago
      That's a bit of a mischaracterization. Drew said that he was working on the same thing as me; I didn't respond, because my response would have been "no, you're not; I'm building a secure backup tool" and I didn't want to antagonize people any further.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Basically "just take my word for it, I'm at Google".