5 ms·

Actually, you point out a flaw in this model. Hiring has to be very specific - you need people who you can hang around with for a month and they don't drive you

Actually, you point out a flaw in this model. Hiring has to be very specific - you need people who you can hang around with for a month and they don't drive you crazy with their teeth grinding or something. So my hiring would have to be very careful and would have to lean towards people who are similar in age and interest to the rest of the team.

jrnkntl 16y ago
True. For our startup we experienced the same; we were working with a team of 3 and we could just camp out at one of our houses for a week and do dev'ing during the day and relaxing/drinking in the evenings. When we hired a 4th guy to help out these weeks turned from awesome and productive to a sluggish pita week. He produced great work but hanging around with him in the evenings was more stressing and tiring than all the work together.
deleted 16y ago
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smiler 16y ago
Similar age and interest? You can't discriminate based on age or interest - that's illegal
- maxklein 16y ago
  I would not put out an ad asking for people to hire, rather I'd work with people on project basis, and if I found one that is a good fit, I'd ask him to join. Would that be illegal also?
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    Seems unlikely. Also, given how small your company is, it'd be nearly impossible for someone to prove you've discriminated based on any particular factor, as opposed to just being selective. Not enough employees to demonstrate a pattern. So I doubt this should even be a concern for you.
- mrduncan 16y ago
  I assume you're talking about the US (apologies if you aren't) - interest is not a protected class. The following are protected groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class Edit: See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_VII#Title_VII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_VII#Title_VII I'll also state the obvious here - I'm not a lawyer and you shouldn't trust legal advice you receive on the internet.
- petercooper 16y ago
  In the real world, and especially in small companies, people eventually hire people they like and get a good feeling about. You're just not allowed to air your preferences in certain areas or restrict the /chance/ to different people. Behind closed doors, though, nothing is any better than before all these laws. If one didn't want to hire someone with quality "X", is their back-room thinking /really/ going to be entirely non-discriminatory? No chance.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Large companies can get in trouble if they seem to have a demographic pattern different from their industry, though. If you're the only Fortune 500 company in your industry that somehow has almost no black employees, someone will probably notice/sue, arguing that it's implausible you could have a demographic skew so much different from your competitors without a discriminatory policy (i.e. can't be explained just by the demographics of qualified people). Then they'll hope that during discovery they find some smoking-gun emails about it. But yeah, if you have 50 employees, nothing much will happen.
    - petercooper 16y ago
      I totally agree. It won't work in big companies, but small companies staffed by small-minded (or, sometimes, simply "realistic") people make up a large chunk of the economy. Some discrimination laws even preclude companies under a certain size, because when you only have a handful of people, it can be both practical and necessary to hire to spec. I guess a legal alternative is to headhunt rather than advertise positions. In the tech industry, I suspect this is a lot easier (thanks to open source, blogs, etc) than elsewhere. Surely there aren't laws against a company hunting down people they want to hire, rather than hanging out their shingle and waiting for people to submit résumés.
    - eru 16y ago
      > Large companies can get in trouble if they seem to have a demographic pattern different from their industry, though. Interesting metric. What happens if the difference comes about because you are more fair than your industry's average? Say you have more female employees. Could a man sue you? And how do you tell that `more fair' from `less fair'?
j_baker 16y ago
That's not a lot different from how you'd do hiring for a face-to-face company though.
numbchuckskills 16y ago
yup..definitely an illegal hiring practice (age discrimination); but confirms my suspicion that this is not a totally legitimate company anyways.

jrnkntl 16y ago

True. For our startup we experienced the same; we were working with a team of 3 and we could just camp out at one of our houses for a week and do dev'ing during the day and relaxing/drinking in the evenings. When we hired a 4th guy to help out these weeks turned from awesome and productive to a sluggish pita week. He produced great work but hanging around with him in the evenings was more stressing and tiring than all the work together.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

smiler 16y ago

Similar age and interest? You can't discriminate based on age or interest - that's illegal

maxklein 16y ago
I would not put out an ad asking for people to hire, rather I'd work with people on project basis, and if I found one that is a good fit, I'd ask him to join. Would that be illegal also?
- Psyonic 16y ago
  Seems unlikely. Also, given how small your company is, it'd be nearly impossible for someone to prove you've discriminated based on any particular factor, as opposed to just being selective. Not enough employees to demonstrate a pattern. So I doubt this should even be a concern for you.
mrduncan 16y ago
I assume you're talking about the US (apologies if you aren't) - interest is not a protected class. The following are protected groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class Edit: See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_VII#Title_VII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_VII#Title_VII I'll also state the obvious here - I'm not a lawyer and you shouldn't trust legal advice you receive on the internet.
petercooper 16y ago
In the real world, and especially in small companies, people eventually hire people they like and get a good feeling about. You're just not allowed to air your preferences in certain areas or restrict the /chance/ to different people. Behind closed doors, though, nothing is any better than before all these laws. If one didn't want to hire someone with quality "X", is their back-room thinking /really/ going to be entirely non-discriminatory? No chance.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Large companies can get in trouble if they seem to have a demographic pattern different from their industry, though. If you're the only Fortune 500 company in your industry that somehow has almost no black employees, someone will probably notice/sue, arguing that it's implausible you could have a demographic skew so much different from your competitors without a discriminatory policy (i.e. can't be explained just by the demographics of qualified people). Then they'll hope that during discovery they find some smoking-gun emails about it. But yeah, if you have 50 employees, nothing much will happen.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    I totally agree. It won't work in big companies, but small companies staffed by small-minded (or, sometimes, simply "realistic") people make up a large chunk of the economy. Some discrimination laws even preclude companies under a certain size, because when you only have a handful of people, it can be both practical and necessary to hire to spec. I guess a legal alternative is to headhunt rather than advertise positions. In the tech industry, I suspect this is a lot easier (thanks to open source, blogs, etc) than elsewhere. Surely there aren't laws against a company hunting down people they want to hire, rather than hanging out their shingle and waiting for people to submit résumés.
  - eru 16y ago
    > Large companies can get in trouble if they seem to have a demographic pattern different from their industry, though. Interesting metric. What happens if the difference comes about because you are more fair than your industry's average? Say you have more female employees. Could a man sue you? And how do you tell that `more fair' from `less fair'?

j_baker 16y ago

That's not a lot different from how you'd do hiring for a face-to-face company though.

numbchuckskills 16y ago

yup..definitely an illegal hiring practice (age discrimination); but confirms my suspicion that this is not a totally legitimate company anyways.