4 ms·

Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other fie

Every tech company I've worked at rejects well over 90% of their applicants and has an interview process that would be considered insane in almost any other field. Joel Spolsky explains why this does not imply what you think it implies. http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html tl;dr; Imagine 1 low quality developer who applies to 9 places and gets rejected. There's also 1 high quality developer who applies to 1 place and gets accepted. Look, 90% of applications have been rejected!

throwawaydbfif 10y ago
Inc.com is a really bad source for such information... As if they would be expected to be neutral in such a situation. If this was true you would see it across professions and at every level of position, yet it's something fairly unique to software development.
- garyfirestorm 10y ago
  I can attest that this is true for mechanical/automotive industry.
- crusso 10y ago
  Joel Spolsky makes important points in the article. Disregarding them because you don't like the web site that they're posted on is fallacious reasoning.
  - throwawaydbfif 10y ago
    Inc is a publication targeted towards business owners. Nothing about the site is meant to be neutral. It's like learning about Democrats from a Republican website. I wouldn't disregard it so quickly if the source was more neutral.
    - crusso 10y ago
      And that's how echo chambers of thought develop. Only listen to the sources of information that you wish to and disregard others without evaluating what they are providing. Sorry, but Spolsky is normally extremely insightful and if you read the article, he makes many excellent points that are worth considering no matter which angle you're approaching the problem from.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  Indeed, thanks to Spolsky & co getting a scripting job entails a three ring circus of burdens and hazing to get an offer. They are looking for any excuse to not hire you rather than trying to fill a position.
- valuearb 10y ago
  You aren't asking Inc for a recommendation, if you did their bias would be an issue. Thinking clearly means focusing on facts of the argument, not Joel's job or the site's business.
- mavelikara 10y ago
  If inc.com is your problem, Joel makes the same argument on his blog here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/
jarsin 10y ago
Total BS. I have seen this first hand both as a hiring manager and as an applicant. I have been rejected from jobs based on totally insane interview questions that have nothing to do with the job. In one case I interviewed at 2 competitors. One gave me nothing but trick whiteboard questions, the other emphasized my experience and gave me a real world interview. I was rejected by the whiteboard company and hired by the competitor. My first day on the job I sat down and commited code that ended up in production the very next day and did that for many years afterwords. I have also hired people that had to pass insane interviews due to the company culture and watched them fail at being a developer. I know many good devs that cannot pass these interviews that would run circles around these super whiteboard problem solvers.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  You bring up another reason why 90% of applications might be rejected: false negatives. Consider a hiring filter which rejects 90% of good applicants and 99% of bad applicants. In such a world, consider a population of 10 good applicants. These 10 applicants will go on 100 interviews, be rejected on 90 of them and each will find a job. So in this world where every applicant finds a job, you still get 9/10 applications being rejected. This seems to agree with your (anecdotal, and likely biased [1]) experience. [1] "I got rejected after an interview, therefore hiring is broken" is a perennial topic on HN.
  - drewg123 10y ago
    I think this is probably close to being the case. The Google interview is an "any given Sunday" thing, with a huge amount of luck involved as to choice of interviewer and interview questions. I suspect that a person who got an offer, if forced to re-interview, would fail 9/10 times.
  - jcadam 10y ago
    I've come to accept that I'm no good at whiteboard interviews. The only way I can get hired nowadays is either via a personal referral and/or an employer so desperate (or serious enough about hiring someone in a reasonable time-frame) that they short-circuit their interview process and skip the whole whiteboard hazing process. For my current job, I had a total of 2 phone conversations (first with a recruiter, second with the hiring manager) over the course of a week when they all of a sudden dropped an offer on me. I was a bit surprised by it -- "What? An offer already? Uh, I was expecting some sort of interview first?" I actually nearly walked away at that point, but was... talked into accepting after a little back-and-forth on the salary. But anyway, I just ignore cold-call/emails from recruiters anymore, because I know it will just end in wasted time (like getting rejected after 4 rounds of hazing and a weekend-stealing homework project) and stress/frustration I don't need. Most companies are obviously being overwhelmed with large numbers of high quality applicants for every open position ;)
serge2k 10y ago
I'll accept that argument when google recruiters aren't talking constantly about their absurd false negative rates.

throwawaydbfif 10y ago

Inc.com is a really bad source for such information... As if they would be expected to be neutral in such a situation. If this was true you would see it across professions and at every level of position, yet it's something fairly unique to software development.

garyfirestorm 10y ago
I can attest that this is true for mechanical/automotive industry.
crusso 10y ago
Joel Spolsky makes important points in the article. Disregarding them because you don't like the web site that they're posted on is fallacious reasoning.
- throwawaydbfif 10y ago
  Inc is a publication targeted towards business owners. Nothing about the site is meant to be neutral. It's like learning about Democrats from a Republican website. I wouldn't disregard it so quickly if the source was more neutral.
  - crusso 10y ago
    And that's how echo chambers of thought develop. Only listen to the sources of information that you wish to and disregard others without evaluating what they are providing. Sorry, but Spolsky is normally extremely insightful and if you read the article, he makes many excellent points that are worth considering no matter which angle you're approaching the problem from.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
Indeed, thanks to Spolsky & co getting a scripting job entails a three ring circus of burdens and hazing to get an offer. They are looking for any excuse to not hire you rather than trying to fill a position.
valuearb 10y ago
You aren't asking Inc for a recommendation, if you did their bias would be an issue. Thinking clearly means focusing on facts of the argument, not Joel's job or the site's business.
mavelikara 10y ago
If inc.com is your problem, Joel makes the same argument on his blog here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/

jarsin 10y ago

Total BS. I have seen this first hand both as a hiring manager and as an applicant. I have been rejected from jobs based on totally insane interview questions that have nothing to do with the job. In one case I interviewed at 2 competitors. One gave me nothing but trick whiteboard questions, the other emphasized my experience and gave me a real world interview. I was rejected by the whiteboard company and hired by the competitor. My first day on the job I sat down and commited code that ended up in production the very next day and did that for many years afterwords. I have also hired people that had to pass insane interviews due to the company culture and watched them fail at being a developer. I know many good devs that cannot pass these interviews that would run circles around these super whiteboard problem solvers.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
You bring up another reason why 90% of applications might be rejected: false negatives. Consider a hiring filter which rejects 90% of good applicants and 99% of bad applicants. In such a world, consider a population of 10 good applicants. These 10 applicants will go on 100 interviews, be rejected on 90 of them and each will find a job. So in this world where every applicant finds a job, you still get 9/10 applications being rejected. This seems to agree with your (anecdotal, and likely biased [1]) experience. [1] "I got rejected after an interview, therefore hiring is broken" is a perennial topic on HN.
- drewg123 10y ago
  I think this is probably close to being the case. The Google interview is an "any given Sunday" thing, with a huge amount of luck involved as to choice of interviewer and interview questions. I suspect that a person who got an offer, if forced to re-interview, would fail 9/10 times.
- jcadam 10y ago
  I've come to accept that I'm no good at whiteboard interviews. The only way I can get hired nowadays is either via a personal referral and/or an employer so desperate (or serious enough about hiring someone in a reasonable time-frame) that they short-circuit their interview process and skip the whole whiteboard hazing process. For my current job, I had a total of 2 phone conversations (first with a recruiter, second with the hiring manager) over the course of a week when they all of a sudden dropped an offer on me. I was a bit surprised by it -- "What? An offer already? Uh, I was expecting some sort of interview first?" I actually nearly walked away at that point, but was... talked into accepting after a little back-and-forth on the salary. But anyway, I just ignore cold-call/emails from recruiters anymore, because I know it will just end in wasted time (like getting rejected after 4 rounds of hazing and a weekend-stealing homework project) and stress/frustration I don't need. Most companies are obviously being overwhelmed with large numbers of high quality applicants for every open position ;)

serge2k 10y ago

I'll accept that argument when google recruiters aren't talking constantly about their absurd false negative rates.