8 ms·

Hiring Processes Are Also Engineering Processes

98 points by ramblinjan 10y ago

bcbrown 10y ago
I especially liked this part: > If you need someone who can hit the ground running right away, test them with the exact tools they’ll be using on the job. If you need someone flexible who can learn anything, test them on something new and unique. If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. Edit: Except for deliberately frustrating candidates.
- Zikes 10y ago
  > If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. Interviews are a two-way street. If as a candidate I'm given an unrealistic expectation that's intended to frustrate me, I'll get the impression that's how the company normally operates and choose to look elsewhere.
  - ramblinjan 10y ago
    This is a great point. When I talk about intentionally frustrating candidates, it's mostly based on a technical interview we would do that a lot of people would struggle with. It hit the critical thinking itch, I think, and some people can't handle that. Y'all have me thinking that this section could use a little revision, though.
    - Zikes 10y ago
      There could be reasonable ways to accomplish that. Knowing how well a candidate handles frustrating situations is definitely worthwhile, I just think there should be a lot of caution about how the situation is presented so that the candidate doesn't get the wrong impression.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  I would caution against purposefully frustrating your candidates. Interviews where the interviewer is frustrating definitely have not made me looks more favorably on the company.
- Terr_ 10y ago
  > try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers There's a Mitchell & Webb sketch which seems almost obligatory here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRtBvo9grLw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRtBvo9grLw "Derek is here to provide what we call 'extreme negative feedback', so that we can assess your ability to cope with stressful situations. Is that okay with you?"
- mikestew 10y ago
  If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. My head's so level, I'd outright ask the interviewer if she's intentionally being an asshole as part of the "negative feedback" portion of our interview, or if she's actually that bad to work with. Regardless of the answer, as I was walking toward the door I'd ask if negativity is such a problem at their company that they feel a need to test for it.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to give it some thought because it seems like I failed to explain this well enough (though I may just straight up be wrong about it altogether). The candidates who ended up frustrated weren't feeling that way because we were jerks to them (I don't think). Maybe what I'm getting at is don't be afraid to push people to the limit a little bit in a task, because their reactions to it say as much as their approach.
  - bcbrown 10y ago
    What I liked was the philosophy of deciding what personal traits are relevant for this job, and then specifically interviewing for those traits. The edit was because people seemed to be keying off the "frustrated" part, and that wasn't what I was trying to call attention to.
  - TheCowboy 10y ago
    Most jobs don't require people who can endure getting "pushed to the limit" every week, hour, day, etc. Especially while under close observation and scrutiny. That would strain most any person. If it is that demanding, then be upfront about that instead of surprising candidates during a stressful interview. People should be aware of what they accidentally select for in candidates. I feel like I am skilled at remaining calm in crisis work situations where people (customers, co-workers, owners) are dependent upon me, but I can bomb interviews just as easily as the next person. Some approaches might consistently filter people who get stressed during interviews, rather than select people who maintain poise.
    - ramblinjan 10y ago
      > then be upfront about that instead of surprising candidates during a stressful interview People are rarely humble enough to actually reflect on this if they're excited about a job. > People should be aware of what they accidentally select for in candidates Absolutely.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  Made a slight edit. Thanks for the feedback.
noahmbarr 10y ago
Andy Groove "High Output Management" covers this topic and more. Highly recommend! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VACHOK https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VACHOK
petesalty 10y ago
Hiring fast is actually really important. It sets a really good tone with candidates and forces you to have a hiring process with good decision points and processes. At Voxy we had a 1 week turn around goal from receiving a resume to having on offer on the table. Didn't always work out like that because of candidates, and vacations and what not, but that was the goal. The day of last interviews we either said no thanks that night, or got the offer out.
- pjmorris 10y ago
  Anec-data to your point: The two best companies I've worked for made their offers at the end of the interview day.
  - __derek__ 10y ago
    How did they go about doing that? It seems like it would be very difficult to avoid pressuring someone to decide on the spot. When that's not the intent (i.e. when the company respects a person's right to think about the offer), it seems like that risks becoming an uncomfortable situation.
    - pjmorris 10y ago
      The offer was made: they didn't require an immediate response. They had refined their decision process, they didn't constrain my decision process beyond what's customary.
      - __derek__ 10y ago
        Cool. So they just said, "Hey, we would like to offer you the job. Here are the details. Please take your time and let us know when you've made a decision"?
        pjmorris 10y ago
        That's right, although they said something like 'Please decide within the week' or something to that effect. I'd have to dig up old, old paperwork to get the exact phrasing, but it wasn't 'Hey dude, it's chill, whenever you make up your mind'
fecak 10y ago
Resume writer and ~20 year tech recruiter here. Just a comment to readers about the author's estimate that your resume is being reviewed for 5 minutes. It's not, so be sure not to write your resume as if it is going to get that much attention. Don't save the good stuff for the ending, thinking "the reader will get to that." Interview or delete decisions are often made in under thirty seconds, at least for things like a quick phone screen. If you start out the resume too slow, many readers are not getting to page two.
- aml183 10y ago
  As a recruiter, I second this!
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  Good point. I tried to be pretty conservative so it didn't feel like I was fudging numbers to make a point about speed in earlier rounds, but I wonder if I should clarify. I'll definitely include this when I write more for an audience of applicants. Resumes are soooooo boring, so anything to stick out is a big deal.
  - fecak 10y ago
    I was hoping not to seem pedantic on this, but it's potentially a key detail to a reader and I wouldn't want anyone to think they have 5 minutes to make an impression when the reality is much closer to 5 seconds to make an immediate positive impression. Then you likely get some more review time once the initial gut reaction is over. Nicely written article BTW.
    - ramblinjan 10y ago
      Thanks! Definitely didn't take it as pedantic. Thanks for the reminder about the impact this could have on an audience I didn't think about. I added a small disclaimer.
- drawkbox 10y ago
  Elevator pitch that resume.
aml183 10y ago
It's not an issue of time, but expectation. If it is clearly known that it will take 5 days to respond then the developer won't be peeved. The most important part of the process is to be transparent.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  Fair point.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  Made a small edit based on your comment. Thanks!
wbillingsley 10y ago
Most hiring processes are engineering processes in the same sense that throwing a sheet over two chairs to make a cubby house is civil engineering...
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  The title got updated by HN, I think. I'm not trying to call everything engineering (I don't actually think everything should be approached as an engineering process). My argument is that the decisions you make about culture and process in hiring inevitably affect your actual team's process.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  hiring processes are business processes engineering processes are business processes there is the common "base class"
CoolGuySteve 10y ago
Where does this assumption come from that rejecting the majority of candidates leads to better results? At some point you're just cutting into the bone and rejecting candidates that are perfectly acceptable. The more candidates you reject, the more time you waste and the more people come out of your interview with a negative experience of the company. These costs can easily outweigh the cost of a bad hire. Nobody writing these blog-anecdotes even quantifies what that cost is. At the end of the day, programming interviews seem more like hazing than anything. No other profession hires with a full day oral examination. It's fucking ridiculous.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  It depends on your definition of "perfectly acceptable." Almost every job in every industry with a hiring cycle rejects "a majority of candidates," especially when there's limited space. > These costs can easily outweigh the cost of a bad hire. How so? You're right that I've relied a good bit on the anecdotal, but aren't you doing so a bit here? Bad hires are ridiculously costly--especially on a small team--because they aren't just expensive. On a good team, almost every new hire lowers everyone else's productivity initially. Hiring more people because of loss aversion also falls prey to the trap of "more people = more productive" that's been pretty thoroughly debunked in the software industry (http://a.co/3ierKnl http://a.co/3ierKnl)
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > Hiring more people because of loss aversion also falls prey to the trap of "more people = more productive" Although perhaps true, I don't really see how this is relevant to what CoolGuySteve said. CoolGuySteve isn't recommending anything about the number of people that are hired for a particular role, or the rationale for picking that number. Rather, he's just observing something about the cost of being overly picky about the previously fixed number of people that are hired for a particular previously fixed set of openings.
    - ramblinjan 10y ago
      I'll have to think some on this. I really was not trying to take the brutal "we only hire the best" nonsense that a lot of companies do.
Apocryphon 10y ago
Was there ever a time in the tech industry where employers would provide actual training to new hires? Besides Facebook's boot camp.
- grigjd3 10y ago
  Every new hire takes training.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Old school IBM/HP/DEC
misterbowfinger 10y ago
I want to say this again: a technical recruiter should not define hiring policy or hiring process. Their value is in their relatively low cost per candidate. I look at this a little differently. OP seems to treat Engineering as a totally independent organization within a company. In bigger companies, I understand. But I don't think it makes as much sense in a smaller company, where, often, the tight-knit culture is what's keeping the ship afloat. Engineering is one piece of the pie. The success of the company is everyone's success. Consequently, the team's hiring process can and should be influenced by people outside of Engineering, to some extent. One has to take the comapany's culture in account.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  You've got me looking back at what I've written, because I actually agree with you on company culture (if the company's culture is a positive force). My point about technical recruiters is because they're very often totally separated from the engineering culture. Oddly enough, I'm speaking about smaller companies more so than bigger ones because a large company is less likely to give their engineering teams enough autonomy to really do anything with what I've written. The main thing I wanted to get at here is that a hiring process can not be thought of as separate from your engineering process. I'm not trying to argue that hiring should be insulated from reality. I'm arguing that there are a lot of companies who are ignoring the fact that it isn't.
achanda358 10y ago
Not communicating clearly and on time definitely leads to terrible candidate experience. I was on the receiving end of this when a recruiter from a famous hosting company told me over the phone that they are going to make an offer by the end of the month. When that time came, he told me that they would need to conduct another interview with the CTO who is out till the end of that month. By this time, it had already been 3 months in the pipeline. I hung on to it because I liked talking to the team and loved the product. But this is surely not worth my time.

98 points by ramblinjan 10y ago

I especially liked this part: > If you need someone who can hit the ground running right away, test them with the exact tools they’ll be using on the job. If you need someone flexible who can learn anything, test them on something new and unique. If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. Edit: Except for deliberately frustrating candidates.

Zikes 10y ago
> If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. Interviews are a two-way street. If as a candidate I'm given an unrealistic expectation that's intended to frustrate me, I'll get the impression that's how the company normally operates and choose to look elsewhere.
- ramblinjan 10y ago
  This is a great point. When I talk about intentionally frustrating candidates, it's mostly based on a technical interview we would do that a lot of people would struggle with. It hit the critical thinking itch, I think, and some people can't handle that. Y'all have me thinking that this section could use a little revision, though.
  - Zikes 10y ago
    There could be reasonable ways to accomplish that. Knowing how well a candidate handles frustrating situations is definitely worthwhile, I just think there should be a lot of caution about how the situation is presented so that the candidate doesn't get the wrong impression.
tdb7893 10y ago
I would caution against purposefully frustrating your candidates. Interviews where the interviewer is frustrating definitely have not made me looks more favorably on the company.
Terr_ 10y ago
> try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers There's a Mitchell & Webb sketch which seems almost obligatory here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRtBvo9grLw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRtBvo9grLw "Derek is here to provide what we call 'extreme negative feedback', so that we can assess your ability to cope with stressful situations. Is that okay with you?"
mikestew 10y ago
If you need someone with a level head, try to frustrate your candidates and ditch the ones with short tempers. My head's so level, I'd outright ask the interviewer if she's intentionally being an asshole as part of the "negative feedback" portion of our interview, or if she's actually that bad to work with. Regardless of the answer, as I was walking toward the door I'd ask if negativity is such a problem at their company that they feel a need to test for it.
ramblinjan 10y ago
Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to give it some thought because it seems like I failed to explain this well enough (though I may just straight up be wrong about it altogether). The candidates who ended up frustrated weren't feeling that way because we were jerks to them (I don't think). Maybe what I'm getting at is don't be afraid to push people to the limit a little bit in a task, because their reactions to it say as much as their approach.
- bcbrown 10y ago
  What I liked was the philosophy of deciding what personal traits are relevant for this job, and then specifically interviewing for those traits. The edit was because people seemed to be keying off the "frustrated" part, and that wasn't what I was trying to call attention to.
- TheCowboy 10y ago
  Most jobs don't require people who can endure getting "pushed to the limit" every week, hour, day, etc. Especially while under close observation and scrutiny. That would strain most any person. If it is that demanding, then be upfront about that instead of surprising candidates during a stressful interview. People should be aware of what they accidentally select for in candidates. I feel like I am skilled at remaining calm in crisis work situations where people (customers, co-workers, owners) are dependent upon me, but I can bomb interviews just as easily as the next person. Some approaches might consistently filter people who get stressed during interviews, rather than select people who maintain poise.
  - ramblinjan 10y ago
    > then be upfront about that instead of surprising candidates during a stressful interview People are rarely humble enough to actually reflect on this if they're excited about a job. > People should be aware of what they accidentally select for in candidates Absolutely.
ramblinjan 10y ago
Made a slight edit. Thanks for the feedback.

noahmbarr 10y ago

Andy Groove "High Output Management" covers this topic and more. Highly recommend! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VACHOK https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015VACHOK

petesalty 10y ago

Hiring fast is actually really important. It sets a really good tone with candidates and forces you to have a hiring process with good decision points and processes. At Voxy we had a 1 week turn around goal from receiving a resume to having on offer on the table. Didn't always work out like that because of candidates, and vacations and what not, but that was the goal. The day of last interviews we either said no thanks that night, or got the offer out.

pjmorris 10y ago
Anec-data to your point: The two best companies I've worked for made their offers at the end of the interview day.
- __derek__ 10y ago
  How did they go about doing that? It seems like it would be very difficult to avoid pressuring someone to decide on the spot. When that's not the intent (i.e. when the company respects a person's right to think about the offer), it seems like that risks becoming an uncomfortable situation.
  - pjmorris 10y ago
    The offer was made: they didn't require an immediate response. They had refined their decision process, they didn't constrain my decision process beyond what's customary.
    - __derek__ 10y ago
      Cool. So they just said, "Hey, we would like to offer you the job. Here are the details. Please take your time and let us know when you've made a decision"?
      - pjmorris 10y ago
        That's right, although they said something like 'Please decide within the week' or something to that effect. I'd have to dig up old, old paperwork to get the exact phrasing, but it wasn't 'Hey dude, it's chill, whenever you make up your mind'

fecak 10y ago

Resume writer and ~20 year tech recruiter here. Just a comment to readers about the author's estimate that your resume is being reviewed for 5 minutes. It's not, so be sure not to write your resume as if it is going to get that much attention. Don't save the good stuff for the ending, thinking "the reader will get to that." Interview or delete decisions are often made in under thirty seconds, at least for things like a quick phone screen. If you start out the resume too slow, many readers are not getting to page two.

aml183 10y ago
As a recruiter, I second this!
ramblinjan 10y ago
Good point. I tried to be pretty conservative so it didn't feel like I was fudging numbers to make a point about speed in earlier rounds, but I wonder if I should clarify. I'll definitely include this when I write more for an audience of applicants. Resumes are soooooo boring, so anything to stick out is a big deal.
- fecak 10y ago
  I was hoping not to seem pedantic on this, but it's potentially a key detail to a reader and I wouldn't want anyone to think they have 5 minutes to make an impression when the reality is much closer to 5 seconds to make an immediate positive impression. Then you likely get some more review time once the initial gut reaction is over. Nicely written article BTW.
  - ramblinjan 10y ago
    Thanks! Definitely didn't take it as pedantic. Thanks for the reminder about the impact this could have on an audience I didn't think about. I added a small disclaimer.
drawkbox 10y ago
Elevator pitch that resume.

aml183 10y ago

It's not an issue of time, but expectation. If it is clearly known that it will take 5 days to respond then the developer won't be peeved. The most important part of the process is to be transparent.

ramblinjan 10y ago
Fair point.
ramblinjan 10y ago
Made a small edit based on your comment. Thanks!

wbillingsley 10y ago

Most hiring processes are engineering processes in the same sense that throwing a sheet over two chairs to make a cubby house is civil engineering...

ramblinjan 10y ago
The title got updated by HN, I think. I'm not trying to call everything engineering (I don't actually think everything should be approached as an engineering process). My argument is that the decisions you make about culture and process in hiring inevitably affect your actual team's process.
bbcbasic 10y ago
hiring processes are business processes engineering processes are business processes there is the common "base class"

CoolGuySteve 10y ago

Where does this assumption come from that rejecting the majority of candidates leads to better results? At some point you're just cutting into the bone and rejecting candidates that are perfectly acceptable. The more candidates you reject, the more time you waste and the more people come out of your interview with a negative experience of the company. These costs can easily outweigh the cost of a bad hire. Nobody writing these blog-anecdotes even quantifies what that cost is. At the end of the day, programming interviews seem more like hazing than anything. No other profession hires with a full day oral examination. It's fucking ridiculous.

ramblinjan 10y ago
It depends on your definition of "perfectly acceptable." Almost every job in every industry with a hiring cycle rejects "a majority of candidates," especially when there's limited space. > These costs can easily outweigh the cost of a bad hire. How so? You're right that I've relied a good bit on the anecdotal, but aren't you doing so a bit here? Bad hires are ridiculously costly--especially on a small team--because they aren't just expensive. On a good team, almost every new hire lowers everyone else's productivity initially. Hiring more people because of loss aversion also falls prey to the trap of "more people = more productive" that's been pretty thoroughly debunked in the software industry (http://a.co/3ierKnl http://a.co/3ierKnl)
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > Hiring more people because of loss aversion also falls prey to the trap of "more people = more productive" Although perhaps true, I don't really see how this is relevant to what CoolGuySteve said. CoolGuySteve isn't recommending anything about the number of people that are hired for a particular role, or the rationale for picking that number. Rather, he's just observing something about the cost of being overly picky about the previously fixed number of people that are hired for a particular previously fixed set of openings.
  - ramblinjan 10y ago
    I'll have to think some on this. I really was not trying to take the brutal "we only hire the best" nonsense that a lot of companies do.

Apocryphon 10y ago

Was there ever a time in the tech industry where employers would provide actual training to new hires? Besides Facebook's boot camp.

grigjd3 10y ago
Every new hire takes training.
Spooky23 10y ago
Old school IBM/HP/DEC

misterbowfinger 10y ago

I want to say this again: a technical recruiter should not define hiring policy or hiring process. Their value is in their relatively low cost per candidate. I look at this a little differently. OP seems to treat Engineering as a totally independent organization within a company. In bigger companies, I understand. But I don't think it makes as much sense in a smaller company, where, often, the tight-knit culture is what's keeping the ship afloat. Engineering is one piece of the pie. The success of the company is everyone's success. Consequently, the team's hiring process can and should be influenced by people outside of Engineering, to some extent. One has to take the comapany's culture in account.

ramblinjan 10y ago
You've got me looking back at what I've written, because I actually agree with you on company culture (if the company's culture is a positive force). My point about technical recruiters is because they're very often totally separated from the engineering culture. Oddly enough, I'm speaking about smaller companies more so than bigger ones because a large company is less likely to give their engineering teams enough autonomy to really do anything with what I've written. The main thing I wanted to get at here is that a hiring process can not be thought of as separate from your engineering process. I'm not trying to argue that hiring should be insulated from reality. I'm arguing that there are a lot of companies who are ignoring the fact that it isn't.

achanda358 10y ago

Not communicating clearly and on time definitely leads to terrible candidate experience. I was on the receiving end of this when a recruiter from a famous hosting company told me over the phone that they are going to make an offer by the end of the month. When that time came, he told me that they would need to conduct another interview with the CTO who is out till the end of that month. By this time, it had already been 3 months in the pipeline. I hung on to it because I liked talking to the team and loved the product. But this is surely not worth my time.