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Making generalizations from a set of interviewees is very risky - because interviewees are very, very different from the general population. I should know becau
by ap22213 10y ago
Making generalizations from a set of interviewees is very risky - because interviewees are very, very different from the general population. I should know because I recently made this same error.
Background: Current company recently got series B, and I'm trying to aggressively scale the engineering team. As such, I've been rapidly phone screening candidates at a much higher volume than usual.
After screening the first set, I began feeling very sad about the current state of software engineering. The average age was probably about 27. All had CS degrees. All were experienced Java developers. And, yet most did not know the difference between a long and an int. Most couldn't describe the differences between linked lists, arrays, and hash tables. Most could not explain how to make a block of code thread safe. Most could not describe how an interface is different from a class. Most could not explain the difference between value passing and reference passing.
I was so aghast. I mentioned in passing to a co-worker that computer science degrees must have become so dumbed down over the last decade. But, then I realized my mistake.
Of course these interviewees sucked! Very few of the good candidates were looking for work. So, I was only seeing the worst of the worst - not a random sample.
- acdha 10y ago> Of course these interviewees sucked! Very few of the good candidates were looking for work. So, I was only seeing the worst of the worst - not a random sample. Another thing I've seen many times is that the listing either wasn't written well, circulated in the right communities, or that details like compensation or the environment scared off people with better options. That can be a very delicate subject to bring up because many places don't want to admit that the problem could be their business rather than the candidate pool.
- ap22213 10y agoYep - odds are so low to find someone decent. Let's say you're a good, experienced developer. You get 10 recruiter messages per week. You ignore most of them but 1 in 20 you decide to read. There's a 10% chance that the description looks like a good fit. You contact the recruiter and tell them your salary requirements. There's a 15% chance that it's in your range. You decide to set up a phone screen. But, since you're valuable to your current company, you're extremely busy. There's a 20% chance that you can make the call. I'm too lazy to calculate that, but that's a huge number of people to contact just to phone screen one good person.
- micaksica 10y ago> Making generalizations from a set of interviewees is very risky - because interviewees are very, very different from the general population. While I agree with this statement, the ageism I think is plaguing the Valley is an interviewing/HR/hiring issue, as it is in that process that their confirmation bias is being reinforced there when they bring the old dogs through the door. FWIW the best engineers I have ever worked with, in my opinion, always seem to be the ones ten years or so ahead of where I am. They're the ones I am always learning something from.