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The main problem with hiring/resumes isn't just volume. Volume has become a problem with the ease of sending the resume. We removed a barrier(fax, mail, drop

by ismarc 16y ago

The main problem with hiring/resumes isn't just volume. Volume has become a problem with the ease of sending the resume. We removed a barrier(fax, mail, drop off) and naturally the flood started. Businesses compensated by listing arbitrary values for hard skills/experience, which in turn applicants sent resumes to places they were even more unqualified for on paper. The crux of the problem is that there isn't a way to directly quantify what is absolutely needed for a job position, and in turn, there isn't a way for an applicant to demonstrate they meet those qualifications, short of the person doing the job. The need for human interpretation is too ingrained in the current process, even with the filtering mechanisms in place

cabalamat 16y ago
> The crux of the problem is that there isn't a way to directly quantify what is absolutely needed for a job position, and in turn, there isn't a way for an applicant to demonstrate they meet those qualifications, short of the person doing the job. This varies according to job. E.g. for a programming job, the employer could ask applicants to solve a programming problem, such as FizzBuzz (or something harder).
- ismarc 16y ago
  But even that doesn't provide any quantitative judgement of what the job requires or what the applicant can do. It says they can write code that does X. I've never been a part of or seen a job where the only real skills needed were syntax knowledge and basic familiarity with common algorithms. There's things like interpreting requirements, time/task/priority management, bug diagnosis, impact assessment, domain knowledge. How do you quantify "Can figure out why we keep getting kernel panics after the kernel upgrade on only some machines? Oh, the thing the machines have in common are they are the multi-core/multi-processor boxes. Is it a bug in our code or the kernel? Are they still acceptable for the position if they can't identify the problem, but can identify that rolling the kernel back is a viable short-term alternative?" The ideal scenario is the applicant mashes a button and gets a list of job they're truly qualified and a good fit for (as in, highly likely to get a phone screen on) and the hiring company can mash the same button. Everyone keeps trying to find new ways to invent or improve the button. No filter or screen is going to work until companies can definitively measure the quality of applicants between two postings for the same job (e.g., A/B test job position listings) and candidates determine if they are qualified based on that. There's a lot of problems to solve, but the biggest by far is the fact that 90% of the jobs out there have only "can breath, assistance to breath is ok" and "can show up" as the hard skills that are required. I'm not kidding, go spend a couple of hours on Monster, or Craigslist...at least programmer jobs have <arbitrary number of years> in <technology X>...most jobs don't.

by ismarc 16y ago

cabalamat 16y ago

> The crux of the problem is that there isn't a way to directly quantify what is absolutely needed for a job position, and in turn, there isn't a way for an applicant to demonstrate they meet those qualifications, short of the person doing the job. This varies according to job. E.g. for a programming job, the employer could ask applicants to solve a programming problem, such as FizzBuzz (or something harder).

ismarc 16y ago
But even that doesn't provide any quantitative judgement of what the job requires or what the applicant can do. It says they can write code that does X. I've never been a part of or seen a job where the only real skills needed were syntax knowledge and basic familiarity with common algorithms. There's things like interpreting requirements, time/task/priority management, bug diagnosis, impact assessment, domain knowledge. How do you quantify "Can figure out why we keep getting kernel panics after the kernel upgrade on only some machines? Oh, the thing the machines have in common are they are the multi-core/multi-processor boxes. Is it a bug in our code or the kernel? Are they still acceptable for the position if they can't identify the problem, but can identify that rolling the kernel back is a viable short-term alternative?" The ideal scenario is the applicant mashes a button and gets a list of job they're truly qualified and a good fit for (as in, highly likely to get a phone screen on) and the hiring company can mash the same button. Everyone keeps trying to find new ways to invent or improve the button. No filter or screen is going to work until companies can definitively measure the quality of applicants between two postings for the same job (e.g., A/B test job position listings) and candidates determine if they are qualified based on that. There's a lot of problems to solve, but the biggest by far is the fact that 90% of the jobs out there have only "can breath, assistance to breath is ok" and "can show up" as the hard skills that are required. I'm not kidding, go spend a couple of hours on Monster, or Craigslist...at least programmer jobs have <arbitrary number of years> in <technology X>...most jobs don't.