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Calling out Jason Fried for bad business advice

• kleinsch 16y ago
  I've thought for a while that people need to take hiring advice given by 37Signals and Fog Creek (Joel on Software) in perspective. It's a very different experience hiring when there are thousands of programmers who would die to work on your stuff than when you're an upcoming startup that nobody's heard of. That's not to say that their advice is wrong - Smart and Gets Things Done has lots of great advice. Keep in mind when reading these books/blogs that people aren't going to launch websites, Twitter campaigns, or rearrange their lives to get your attention like they do for 37signals and Joel.
  • jkahn 16y ago
    I totally agree. Unless you're a business with an established coolness-factor, you're stuck with contacts and trawling through resumes.
• protomyth 16y ago
  That "guy doing IT at law firm" might be the best programmer for your project. Using life circumstances to judge talent is equally as stupid as looking for bullet points (Stanford, Facebook) on a resume. Maybe his/her family needed the money, the health benefits, or some other event prevented him/her from pursuing their dream job/education. Hire a person, not a list.
  • tamersalama 16y ago
    > Hire a person, not a list.
  • jamn 16y ago
    Sure. You could have a PhD grad from Caltech A and a community college grad B such that B is more skilled for the job than A. But if you have a very small amount of information and time to make a decision, where would you place a bet? It's certainly very unfair for the many talented graduates from lesser known universities. However, I find the idea of recruiting based partially on these bullet points valid from a expected proficiency optimizing perspective. The talented guy doing IT at a law firm has some options to signal his talent. For example, he can create or become a top contributor in an open source project. I am sure many talented people who feel unfulfilled in their jobs do this.
    • tptacek 16y ago
      If you're in the jam where you have very little time to make a decision between two people based on their school and their job application, you may have screwed the whole process up several steps earlier. Try to avoid getting in this jam; make that an explicit goal of your recruiting (and, more importantly, business planning) process. You may find that Fried's "chuck the resumes" advice starts making a whole hell of a lot more sense.
      • jamn 16y ago
        I disagree. A recruiter that uses resumes effectively frees up time that lets him carefully inspect only those candidates that made it through this coarse filtering process. I've helped my friend do recruiting at his startup (albeit, not in the US). There are hundreds and hundreds of applications, and the constraint I pointed out becomes evident. Is it really cost-effective to personally interview and understand the context of every single resume-submitter, including those with absolutely no experience? How about someone without even a compsci degree and no experience to make up for it?
        • tptacek 16y ago
          You're not following. If you have a job req you need to fill right now, you're right. But the fact that you're hiring that way suggests you've made some decisions that are making life less pleasant. To be in a position to blow off resumes, you need to run a company like 37signals does. You need to chill out, do excellent work, collect fans, and be open to interesting people who go out of their way to bug you for jobs. The very best people in the industry don't give a shit about your job reqs. The minute they actually get on the market, they're snatched up, because their friends track their every motion and are alert to the slightest sign of unhappiness in their current job. You think Mark Dowd, Zed Shaw, or Tom Preston-Werner are going to fill out job reqs and send out resumes? That's naive. By running extremely lean, rocking out the business, and building stuff people like in an environment that builders like, 37signals can drag in A+ players when they become available, because they aren't clogging up the decks with people they fished out of a pile of resumes. Your friend, maybe not so much?
  • mkramlich 16y ago
    I'm right with you when it comes to dealing with people on an individual basis. I think his approach makes more sense if he has to weed through 1000 resumes submitted by total strangers, and since he doesn't have the time to zoom in too much on all 1000 of them, he would like some heuristic for narrowing them down to say only 100 or so. Applying a stereotype or thinking in general terms can be a useful filter to achieve that result. But yes, it's going to also filter out some people who would have been a great fit. This is another argument in favor of the 37Signals approach, because the Big Dumb Companies can disproportionately suck up the Good School types whereas the Small Smart Startups can disproportionately suck up the "Gets Things Done But Went To Bad Schools Or None At All" types. And they complement each other in the hiring ecosystem. It all works out in the end! :) And yes, I am speaking in broad brush stokes here, and there are exceptions for every rule.
    • astrec 16y ago
      Typically I can weed through 1000 resumes by simply excluding those unaccompanied by a cover letter.
• steveklabnik 16y ago
  I was always taught that saying "In my opinion" was bad form. You're making a statement, of course it's your opinion! To say so is just repeating yourself. So when I read REWORK, I see it as "Here's how I built my business. You could do the same." When I read Crush It, I hear "This is how I, @garyvee, built my business. You could do the same." I don't hear, "This is always the way that it works in every business ever." Maybe that's just me.
  • MartinCron 16y ago
    You are just being an informed and literate reader If someone says "this is the way it works in every business ever" you can immediately know they are full of it. I found Rework mostly unremarkable, but I do appreciate the way they are saying "you don't have to do things the same way everyone always has" so loudly.
  • ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    In my opinion, I think you're wrong. In some cases (like mine above) it is unnecessary to specify that it's your opinion, because it's truly and obviously an opinion. But not every statement made is someone's opinion [1]. For example: "In my opinion, the earth revolves around the Sun." "In my opinion, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States." etc. Because some statements are clear and simple facts, it can sometimes be useful to delineate opinion from fact, especially in cases where it's not explicitly clear which type of statement is being made. In most cases, I think that it's pretty clear from the context that 37signals' is writing from their own experience and sharing their opinions, and thus littering their writing with "weasel words" would diminish the quality of the writing. However, in many cases (including some by 37signals), writers intentionally leave out the "weasel words" not because their statements are obviously opinion, but because they know it will get people riled up and serve as good linkbait. Ironically, they often fall back to this whole idea of "of course it's only my opinion, weasel words are bad writing, etc", which strikes me as kind of a reverse-weasel. Write as if you're stating absolute truth (in order to get links), even when you aren't, and then hide behind "good writing" when people complain. [1] I'm really not interested in the greater philosophical questions of whether it's opinion that the earth revolves around the sun. If you are, be my guest, but I'm fully prepared to just accept some things as fact. The earth revolving around the sun is one of them :) EDIT: I might have been using "heliocentricism" wrong, so I removed it to prevent ambiguity.
• barmstrong 16y ago
  Jason's point was a great one - historically people focused too much on resumes, and that is often a mistake today because their work speaks for itself. You're probably objecting to the all encompassing way it was said, which I could understand. I think Jason would agree that resumes aren't 100% useless in every case. But writing from a "lets tell both sides of the story" perspective is boring and accomplishes nothing (everyone knows there are two sides to every story). If you think the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, then writing to push it the other direction is all you can do.
  • michael_dorfman 16y ago
    Jason's point was a great one - historically people focused too much on resumes, and that is often a mistake today because their work speaks for itself. Except, that's not a great point-- it's a pretty trivial point, and one that was hammered to death by Spolsky, t al., a decade ago. And, it's not a matter "let's tell both sides of the story", as much as "pay attention to the context." Fried has found something that works for 37signals. That's good, as far as it goes. To try to generalize from that into "This is the way everybody should do things" is not only arrogant, it's crazy. If Fried were really interested in doing his readers a service, he'd examine why his system works at 37signals, and outline the context which makes it appropriate-- so that if the reader's context is similar, he can adjust the advice accordingly.
    • steveklabnik 16y ago
      > If Fried were really interested in doing his readers a service, he'd examine why his system works at 37signals, and outline the context which makes it appropriate-- so that if the reader's context is similar, he can adjust the advice accordingly. Isn't that what he's doing? Both "Getting Real" and "REWORK" both present an entire philosophy, with many facets that work together to create the effect that they have.
    • tptacek 16y ago
      Wait, which of these points were made by Spolsky a decade ago? I have a near-fannish devotion to both of these people's writing, and I think you're either misremembering or have misread Fried's bit.
• chc 16y ago
  This guy seems to have precisely the problem he accuses Fried of demonstrating: He doesn't do things a certain way, so he assumes they just aren't done like that. When Fried warns against growing your business too fast based on pipe dreams rather than actual, quantifiable needs, this guy says, "Oh, come on, who does that? He's arguing against cartoon characters!" But a lot of people really do get caught up in the ideas of what they should be doing to grow their business according to some blueprint and don't stop to consider whether it's best for the business at this stage. I think Paul Graham has written about this too, where too much venture capital will put pressure on startups to become big business-y in a hurry, to their detriment.
• iamwil 16y ago
  37 hires from across the country. They've talked about telecommuting often. They don't have just resumes/job candidates from Chicago. That weakens his hypothesis.
  • sabat 16y ago
    Not at all. Whether they hire from around the world, Jason is still from a technological podunk town. He ain't from the big city, and he's presumptuous enough to believe he knows it all anyway.
• ddemchuk 16y ago
  The fun part about advice is you don't always have to take it
• naner 16y ago
  No advice is universal and the limited application of the 37signals crews' advice is apparent. This article is unnecessary. And it reads like it was written by an MBA-type who is upset that successful people are ignoring the gospel truth he was presented in college. There are very few hard-and-fast rules in any profession.
  • alphamerik 16y ago
    They lost me at Stanford vs State school, I had to stop there. Cover letters are an excellent way to judge the intent and character of an applicant. Sounds like Scott is the one with a chip on his shoulder there...
    • tptacek 16y ago
      It doesn't help that the rampant secondhand info we have about Google's hiring practices (for generalist devs out of school) suggests that they preference top schools; I wouldn't be surprised if that's where this guy drew that comparison from. Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring tech people, though.
      • madebylaw 16y ago
        Uh what? I like how everyone in this thread is complaining about judging an applicant by where their degree came from while simultaneously singling out people who are 'MBA types'. Double standard much?
        • tptacek 16y ago
          No, it's not a double standard. Just like saying 'grellas is more qualified to give legal advice because he graduated from law school is not a validation of the law school pecking order.
          • madebylaw 16y ago
            Yeah it's still a double standard because you're discounting people's experience for a 'category' whether that category is 'lawyer' or 'MBA' or 'state school grad'. For example: "Not sure why I'm meant to be influenced by how an MBA stumbles through hiring tech people, though." What if this MBA has 20 years of experience hiring tech people, both for small and large companies, and who is also an active programmer in their spare time. Don't you think their hiring advice might be important to consider? And yet your statement jumbles him in with all those other pointy-haired 'MBA types'. That is the same problem with only looking at an applicants alma mater is it not? Edit: And grellas' comments are awesome not just because he is a lawyer, but because of his rich experience working with startups and tech companies.
• deleted 16y ago
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• tptacek 16y ago
  This poster has missed the point of Jason Fried's post by a cosmic distance. He talked to a CEO last week who fell ass-backwards into a huge deal that he can't win without recruiting 2-3 "enterprise SAS sales persons" "ASAP". Why, if he followed Fried's advice, he'd never close those deals! You want to take the advice of people like Scott Olson if this is the situation you'd like to find yourself in: bouncing from make-or-break high-6-figures enterprise deals dogfighting with 3 other companies doing exactly the same thing you do. There is indeed a playbook that most direct sales enterprise software companies run from, and if you don't mind quietly crying into your hands for 5 minutes every day when you start your day sitting in the lobby of a telecom company you're pitching in Jackson Mississippi, you are well served by its plays[1]. I can't read Fried's mind, but here is the sense I get from how he writes --- and this may be my own bias here --- he would rather gnaw off and consume raw his own big toes than run this kind of company. He's writing his own playbook for his company. And in that playbook, he doesn't "staff up". He's unlikely to wind up in a situation where he has to delude himself that he can ramp up 2 sales reps so that they can close a single deal whose window is days to close. Instead, the point of Fried's model appears to be: grow headcount as slowly as possible, and instead of posting job reqs, leave yourself maximally exposed to motivated talent. Exposed: running a company that people love, and that people are inclined to ping for openings. Motivated: people who are seeking out the opportunity to work with you. Talent: people who can prove themselves with something other than a sheet of paper that looks identical to everyone else's paper. Scott Olson's friend can't do that. He runs an enterprise software company that needs "Enterprise SAS Salespersons". Guessing, regardless of the "deep technical rocket science" involved, that top talent isn't beating down the doors to get an interview at that company --- unless it's attached to a monstrous 1099 consulting rate. But, I mean, what do I know? All I can say for reasonably sure is that Fried is crying his way to the bank because of this mean post. By the way: I've lived in Chicago all my life, started 2 companies here, one of which I'm at now, and I don't know anyone who (a) works for the park district or (b) is hiring people with UofC MBA's. Scott might just have needed a better social circle here, and some different career choices. As someone who has spent a couple years in the valley, I will attest to the fact that it is easier to find people talking about the "rocket ride days at Netscape" there. That wasn't enough of a win for me to stay, but hey, if "heady stuff" like that does it for you, mazel tov! You be a mensch in the valley, I'll keep growing a business in Chicago. [1] This playbook is also the reason every VC-funded enterprise software company with less than 10MM revs has products with pilot pricing at $70,000, and why they all have the exact same 3-person VP/Marketing, Dir/Marketing, and Marketing Communications Manager marketing team, solely responsible for giving the CEO a "marketing plan" that in no way influences the sole product the whole company develops. It is also the playbook that recruits 3 "sales engineers" so that there are enough people staffing the pointless industry conferences the playbook dictates they must spend $200,000 on every year. And it's the reason you're getting fucking obnoxious phone calls from "inside sales" people every other day. And since nobody who actually knew what they were doing would ever go out of their way to subject themselves to this kabuki startup built out of PowerPoint "lego" slides and strip club visits, you do indeed need resumes to execute this plan. But hey. Little stress balls with your company's name on it. Don't forget the perks.
• yosho 16y ago
  Blogs get attention by being on one side of the fence instead of straddling the fence. Obviously Jason Fried doesn't want to write "Resume's work sometimes, other times pay attention to the cover letter," That's just boring.
• 0nly1ife 16y ago
  SvN, Getting Real, and Rework are an indirect marketing campaign for Basecamp. Sensationalized, aggressive, and confrontational articles attract more readers and more Basecamp signups. I love 37signals, but sometimes I wonder if they are providing me with good radical business advice or if they are raising controversy to attract attention.
  • tptacek 16y ago
    Both, of course.
    • blasdel 16y ago
      Based on a conversation I had with Jason Fried, I'd say neither. They publish this stuff primarily just for the sake of writing it. It's an outlet for a company that purposefully avoids adding features to their products if at all possible. It's a deliberate practice to keep themselves creative — the megalomaniacal marketing is just added ego-gravy.
• dhh 16y ago
  This guy reminds me of Stephen Fowler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzIDaRY82fU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzIDaRY82fU
  • sthomps 16y ago
    Good point. I forgot how much of a slime bag that guy was.
    • douglasputnam 16y ago
      Mr. Olsen's essay is what we commonly call a rant. Though he doesn't fully reveal in his tirade why he perceives Jason Fried as a dangerous enemy who must be defeated, we can deduce the real reason for his seemingly bottomless anger: oxytocine poisoning. Oxytocine is the love/hate hormone; it binds a cohort together and simultaneously creates aggression towards outsiders. Oxytocine is responsible for the condition known as The Fanboy Syndrome. Whether by design, or by instinct, each utterance from the lips of Jason Fried and Davie Heinemeier Hansson carries a payload of powerful semiotic messages that alter the target's brain chemistry. Sometimes the target will become a Fanboy, and sometimes the target will feel a threat to a pre-existing Fanboy alliance---then comes the rage. As members of the tech community, we endure constant oxytocine bombardment by masters of manipulation. With each new version of Android, with every semi-annual dose Steve Jobs charisma, with every shift in the Facebook security policy, in the Ruby vs Python vs Java flame wars, we are exposed to massive, and sometimes fatal, doses of harmful hormones. It's important to remember that we are not animals; we can take defensive measures. When next you feel your Fanboy or your Hateboy urge rising from the depths, do not resist it. Resistance is futile. The path to freedom from oxytocine slavery is to acknowledge it, to embrace, and then, to let it go.
      • joshbert 16y ago
        What a beautiful and informative post. Thank you, sir.
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
• joshbert 16y ago
  I really like Rework and 37signals in general, so I might be biased. Having said that, I'll have to join the feeling that their opinions aren't that radical, just different, and that you can take it with a grain of salt and still get several golden nuggets. For all I saw, the OP missed the point.
• jonpaul 16y ago
  I really hate to resort to name calling, as I realize it reduces the name caller's credibility... fuck it. Am I the only one that thinks this guy reads like a douche bag? "Mr. Fried", "The Pernicious Lack of Perspective (PLP) is metastasized through the entire corpus of their “business advice” work.".... or maybe it's this guy's writing style? Maybe, I'm use to reading so many informal blogs that have a conversational tone? I don't know. Help me out.
• camworld 16y ago
  This article could easy be titled: No-name Blowhard Slams Accomplished Internet Entrepreneur in Half-Assed Effort to Validate Gigantic Ego I've known Jason Fried since 1998 or so and he's a stand-up guy. Over the years he has built his own successful empire by carefully hiring the right people and nurturing them in the proper ways. While his advice is unconventional, it is by no means bad advice. What works for him and 37 Signals will likely work for others.
• petenixey 16y ago
  What a lot of 37Signals-fanatical-defence and unnecessary MBA bashing. I'm a huge fan of the business 37Signals has built however Scott Olsen hit it on the head with his critique of their advice. 37Signals do indeed suffer from a "Pernicious Lack of Perspective" and from "Strident Insistence". If you read Rework (which frankly will only take you an hour), it is a series of chapters that could each be retitled "And another thing I really like about what we do at 37Signals". Their advice doesn't work in all cases and they seldom if ever draw examples of other companies where it does. This doesn't take from what they have achieved but it does mean they're often far too far out of their boat when shouting advice at others. Kudos to Scott for not only making this point but also being a very good writer.
  • tptacek 16y ago
    It's like you want them to write a book that says "And another thing I really like about what they do at Boeing...". I'll let Jim Collins write that book, and then wait for Boeing to go out of business like Circuit City.
• rit 16y ago
  I have mixed feelings about this. I sure as hell don't think just because Person 1 went to Stanford and Person 2 went to State School that one is better than another. Maybe part of it is that I'm from Pennsylvania and we happen to have some fairly good state schools like Penn State. Or the fact that when it comes down to writing code, where you went to school means absolutely DICK. Hooray, you spent 4 years learning Java at exorbinate cost. So what? What does matter to me - and shows in the resume, incidentally - is what you did after school ( or instead of it, in my case ).
• mkramlich 16y ago
  All advice should be taken with a grain of salt. Interpreted and adapted to a particular set of circumstances. Anything 37Signals says is no different. Personally, I've found a lot of wisdom in what JF/DHH have said. Does everything they say apply, literally, in 100% of situations? Of course not. But there is/was a whole lot of traditional/oldskool advice out there that is too extreme in the other direction, and what they advocate is a refreshing alternative that DOES work for them, and DOES work for other folks. As always, YMMV and caveat emptor.
• JanezStupar 16y ago
  I feel divided. The articles feel like two different articles mixed together. One extremely insightful about workings of the Enterprise world. And the other - bashing of Jason Fried on the grounds of awfully picked examples. Now I believe that Mr Olson is the one suffering the PLP. As far as I perceive Jason Fried he's extremely self confident and may come across as arrogant to some. But personally I'm fine with that. I like people who know they're good and are not ashamed to feel good about it. And I like when they talk about it. I also like how this particular kind of people know better than talk about stuff they know nothing of.
• mkramlich 16y ago
  Here's the deal: 37Signals is a so-called lifestyle business. Except it gives them a pretty damn good lifestyle. So if someone wants to lead the same kind of lifestyle, listening to them provides a model for how one might achieve that. If you want something different, or if you're going after a radically different kind of customer, their stuff might not apply.
  • axod 16y ago
    ", listening to them provides a model for how one might achieve that" As long as you've built up a massive blog readership and are selling them koolaid about how totally awesome you are. Oh and if you create rails.
    • tptacek 16y ago
      Yes, axod! Building things people want is indeed a prerequisite of 37signals-style success, and it is indeed worth noting that it is not a prerequisite of enterprise software success. It is so weird to me, this "critique" of 37signals that says "but, they did all these awesome things, of course they're successful". This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme.
      • axod 16y ago
        So you're saying it's completely possible for anyone to create the next rails? The issue isn't that I disbelieve they did awesome things so they're successful. Sure - they did good stuff, and got some luck. The question is, can it be replicated by others, and is their advice useful to people looking to build companies. Their advice is SO narrow. It's basically "how to build 37signals". So for me, it's not really very useful unless I invent a time machine, and decide I want to build 37signals before they do.
        • tptacek 16y ago
          People created frameworks before Rails. They continue to create frameworks now. Someone will be the Rails of Node.js, for instance. But calling 37s a successful "framework company" seems sort of inept; their customers, by and large, do not seems like Rails users. Indeed, Rails users seem like exactly the kinds of people who think that Basecamp and Campfire are trivially reproduced and not worth the money. All I'm saying is, if you think that having a popular blog is the key to 37signals success, then go start a popular blog. Nobody is stopping you. God did not reach out from the heavens and give SvN to 37signals. Meanwhile, how many people work for Github? 4? What parts of 37signals' advice clearly don't apply to them? Are there no other examples of small companies with strong revenue that we can come up with?
• mkramlich 16y ago
  I'd like a feature where I can hit one button to grant a +1 vote to everything said by a particular user within a given thread, without even necessarily reading it beforehand. It would save me a lot of time regarding tptacek today. :)
• lyudmil 16y ago
  "You’d ignore this [information about schools and previous jobs], and go straight to the cover letter? Really? ... Really?" Yes, really. That's the point. Merely being incredulous doesn't form a coherent argument against it. My angle on this is a little personal, which would probably automatically strip my it of any validity, but let me explain why. Perhaps it would make a compelling case to someone. I'm originally from Bulgaria and graduated high school there. For obvious political reasons I hadn't traveled at all and I wanted to study in the US. I got into private and public schools, but the difference in the standard of living at the time was such that even with substantial financial aid I could only afford to go to a state school. Still, I'd get to see the US (New York in particular) and the draw of the adventure was enough to get me to go. After school, like most international students, I took advantage of a program that is essentially an extended internship (OPT). There were hard time constraints, so I needed to find a job quickly. I ended up working at a consulting firm you never would have heard of doing mostly Java with a bit of Rails. It was a great place to work and I learned a lot. If the respect and trust of the people you work with counts for something, I'm fairly confident I got good. None of this is something I could convey in a resume. Worse, Mr. Olsen would dismiss me outright because I have gone to a state school (because I was poor) and done Java (because I couldn't afford to sift through the market). Feel free to attribute this to cognitive dissonance, but I find his views arrogant, ineffective, and lacking a human approach. His argument is a pernicious over-simplification of a complex, human problem.
  • amirmc 16y ago
    Worse, Mr. Olsen would dismiss me outright because I have gone to a state school ... and done Java Mr Olsen makes no judgement in his post as to which of the two candidates is 'better'. He just asks the question "You’d ignore this information, and go straight to the cover letter?"
    • lyudmil 16y ago
      You're correct that he doesn't make an explicit judgement, but there are two things to note: (1) he used the rhetorical question to prove a point (he meant something by it), and (2) the obvious answer to the rhetorical question is "No." Therefore, it's fair to ponder what the equivalent statement would be if it weren't written in the form of a question. The way I interpreted it was "No one could rationally ignore this information. Clearly one should factor it when making a decision about which cover letter to read first, which candidate to interview first, etc." I don't think that's an unfair way to read this, and it clearly implies something about the qualities of former candidate with respect to the latter.
• mixmax 16y ago
  Reading through the comments there's a lot of defending 37signals. I think the poster is absolutely right though. There was an interview with Marissa Meyer on The Charlie Rose show where they talked about recruiting talent for Google and Marissa was asked what her experience was. Since it's Google they had obviously tried to do all sorts of predictions on how well a new employee would turn out based on cover letters, interviews, resumes, etc. What she said was interesting. The only predictor of how well a new employee would do his job was his resume. Nothing else gave a statistically significant prediction. So Marissa and I think the poster is right and Fried is wrong :-)
  • amirmc 16y ago
    Here's a link to the video (from 41m25s): http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10129 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10129
    • dlo 16y ago
      Thanks. I took the liberty of transcribing the latter part of that section. "We basically found that their background and references are the best predictor. You can't use them exclusively, but it's true: The best predictor of future performance is past performance. And that's what we really found out through the regression models. We also found that there were a few interviewers in the company who were very, very good. They were several standard deviations off, meaning that they could tell in an interview where or not someone was going to be good or not. In some cases, they would be aberrant and reach a different conclusion from the other interviewers, but they would be correct."
  • 9oliYQjP 16y ago
    Isn't there a bit of self selection and typical Google pseudo-science going on with this approach? You can't get in the door of Google without a particular baseline standard resume. This is Fried's entire point, that he would actually consider a high school dropout whereas Google will not. It's a disagreement as to the relevance of a resume which is, for all intents and purposes, an abstraction of a person. Fried argues to skip over the abstraction and go straight to judging the person. There is an entire group of people that the likes of Google simply will not look at and so it makes their results a little less substantive. Here are folks that would never get hired at Google in their 24 year old form: -John Carmack -Bill Gates -Steve Jobs -Larry Ellison -Paul Allen -Michael Dell If Marissa Meyer truly believes she's found a statistically significant predictor, then I urge her to hire people without doing any interviews. She won't, because she knows it's more pseudo-science from Google. I wish more people would call them out on this kind of logic. They have a particular knack for marketing local maxima as the global kind.
• winternett 16y ago
  I write quite well and could indeed craft an excellent custom cover letter but I refuse to include cover letters when applying for jobs and I've never had problems landing great interviews and jobs. Letting my experience and educational background speak for me has never let me down, and I'm no rocket scientist. If an employer ignored my resume, its probably better that I don't work for them, its the first sign of arrogance and disregard to throw away the intellectual capital of time honored industry practices as an employer as a blanket statement backed by faulty reasoning unless you're hiring someone for a writing job. I don't include cover letters because it leaves room for discussion when I'm called in for an interview.
  • humblepatience 16y ago
    Wait so, why don't you write a cover letter again? on right because... its the first sign of arrogance and disregard to throw away the intellectual capital of time honored industry practice cover letter is industry standard too, yo, but you disregarded it
    • winternett 16y ago
      Having a cover letter is an extra, your resume is the center piece. You can have a resume without a cover letter, but you can't have a cover letter without a resume. Not including a cover letter helps me to get in the door, if a potential employer is serious about hiring me, I have no problems preparing or giving them past writing samples. I am an individual , and I'm not bound by EEOE rules, that's another reason I can disregard time honored industry practices, and how its a bigger deal if a company ignores resumes.
• VictorHo 16y ago
  I see a lot of hate towards this article, but there are definitely nuggets of truth here. Yes his tone might be a bit defensive, and yes he might sound like an "mba-type" with a "chip on his shoulder". However, the basic point that we should consider all available information when looking for a new hire is a good one. The resume contains many useful data points, and it is ludicrous not to take it into account. Should I base me entire decision on it, or even a large part of it? Maybe not. But to completely disregard it? That makes little sense. While "Stanford vs. State School" might not be the best argument, the point still holds. It is useful information, and all else being equal the Stanford kid probably has a track record of a harder work ethic. Make a decision solely based upon it? Absolutely not. But it would be poor business sense not to take it into account.
• ahpeeyem 16y ago
  37Signals' philosophy and their business practices ARE different to a 'normal' business or startup's - their advice goes against the conventional wisdom. That's what makes what they have to say worthwhile and valuable for discussion. I Googled around a little bit for an example here, here goes. Nobody is gathered around arguing the soundness of the approach or the appropriateness of the attitude of Ben Angel, founder of Nationwide Networking, what seems at a glance to be a somewhat successful business consulting and entrepreneur coaching business. Why? Presumably because Ben's advice is conventional, safe and mostly like everyone else's. It may be more likely to be suited to your business, but it's not new and it's not interesting, is it? 37Signals built a very different, opinionated business. It worked because either they got all their opinions exactly right (not likely...), or because building a business that way makes people like you - and makes you successful.
  • djtpomi 16y ago
    Have you ever explored EOS, the Entrpreneurial Operating System? If you haven't read TRACTION by Gino Wickman, I stongly recommend it for anyone trying to grow an entrepreneurial business.
• martinc 16y ago
  Advice is advice. You're free to take it or leave it.
• shareme 16y ago
  I think both the original article author and the rebuttal get it wrong.. Hiring is process and much like any engineering adventure you are attempting to find tools and sub-processes that control this human adventure for a desired outcome. There is no one magical one right way to combine those subprocesses and tools into one magical hiring process. Its like any engineering process, you measure, verify and measure again and than make changes on those inputs.
• harscoat 16y ago
  no mention of Groupon Chicago based?