5 ms·

I'm a web developer who has been thinking about engineering hiring and culture a LOT over the last 6 months. I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide

I'm a web developer who has been thinking about engineering hiring and culture a LOT over the last 6 months. I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. Instead, why don't engineering teams save time and energy by articulating their specific engineering values, and sharing that information up front? Be honest. Say divisive things. This will allow job-seekers to self-filter. Your goal is not to attract every software engineer. Your goal is to attract the people you are most likely to hire. (Career pages can be fluff, and job descriptions are dry and uninformative beyond a list of technologies.) I've been working on Key Values (https://www.keyvalues.io https://www.keyvalues.io) for many months now trying to do just this: surface details about actual team members, day-to-day processes, and a team's engineering culture. At least this way, we as engineers can be more informed when deciding where to apply, where we'll devote hours/energy interviewing. Of course engineers might be skeptical or have questions, but at least we have something to respond to. Ultimately, neither job-seekers nor employers want to waste time and energy interviewing people they aren't culturally aligned w/. Maybe the lesson here is that engineers should seek out the teams that care about what they care about, whether it's mentorship, high quality code, or work/life balance. I know it's controversial (especially here in HN), but is salary really more important than doing work that is exciting/challenging/energizing/stimulating or feeling valued/appreciated/respected/passionate?

teen 9y ago
> This will allow job-seekers to self-filter ?? The problem is not employers casting a wide net, but everyone applying for the job.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  There are two problems: For employers, it's casting a wide net and then struggling to filter out "noise" quickly. Employers will use pass on great engineers and interview not-so great ones (see parent comment). Instead of saying, "Work for us, we're the best!" why don't engineering teams say, "We prioritize speed over quality, are great for individual contributors, and prefer asynchronous comms over lots of meetings. Work for us if this sounds like you." For job-seekers, the problem is applying to dozens to companies that you don't even want to work for (and just don't know it yet). If I value quality over speed, prefer working in teams rather than independently, and believe in-person meetings are incredibly valuable, then I would know not to even both applying to the company above.
  - ltrcola 9y ago
    Again, I think the problem is bad devs that will apply for any job regardless of your stated values.
    - TrinaryWorksToo 9y ago
      Better framed as, hungry devs who want to start working so they can eat.
lr4444lr 9y ago
> Be honest. Say divisive things ... get sued or prosecuted by the EEOC. There are reasons things are stated in a certain way and the net has to be cast wider than necessary. First fix the landscape of U.S. labor law, and then a discussion of efficiency and values can be productive
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Mmmm not quite sure what you're thinking of, but I'm talking about starting w/ baby steps. "Do exciting work that has real impact, learn a lot, and have fun doing it." Do you know how many companies say that on their job descriptions?! All of them. Here are some examples of being (mildly) divisive and using strong language: - "We consider it a disqualifier if a candidate does not value our mission to grow and sustain local food systems" (Good Eggs) - "All of our communications are out in the open, and we have a rule that you cannot send emails to a fellow Remixer and instead must communicate over Slack where everyone can see. (Emails are only used for people externally.)" (Remix) - "We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." (Amplitude) All of these things will either resonate w/ an individual and make them really excited about applying/joining, or turn them off because it doesn't quite align w/ their personal values/preferences/goals.
  - yongjik 9y ago
    It seems that your example will filter candidates based on how much they like the company, not how good they are. The distribution of candidates will largely be the same or even worse, because a few good candidates may be put off by such rhetoric ("Why do I have to believe in local food systems, when they want me to write an Android app?"), but mediocre candidates will apply anyway. So you still have to go through the same number of candidates until you can find a good one.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    ""We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." - Amplitude" I must say, this would give me pause. That kind of language tells me that they don't value testing, and likely don't value quality requirements capturing either.
kafkaesq 9y ago
I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. What's to be confused about? They don't give a fuck - about you, or your time. Why? Because they perceive (rightly or wrongly) that there's no business incentive for them to do so. Either way... if they leave you dangling, or make you answer just a few silly questions too many, and/or sign up for (nearly) unlimited numbers of whiteboarding or hacker ranks sessions, or "take-home projects" they never (or at best only barely) look at, it's because... look, do you think these people have time to think about what they're doing, let alone how it affects the time and patience of those candidates they don't necessarily want to hire... or even, in some abstract sense, their long-term reputation as a company that makes at least some kind of effort to create a not entirely-unpleasant interview process? Of course not. It's much easier to just throw shit at the wall -- or as it were, at the whiteboard -- and see what sticks. So that's what they do.
- dhimes 9y ago
  there's no business incentive for them to do so. But there is one: to save the precious time of valuable people. I think it's an interesting suggestion.
  - shanusmagnus 9y ago
    Even more important than that is to get people who really are aligned with what the company actually is, instead of just the standard bullshit that everybody says. I, too, really like the idea, but I wonder if, in practice, it wouldn't work because companies don't introspect deeply enough to understand what makes them distinct? For instance, if what's remarkable about your company is that you have a great culture where people goof off a lot and have a lot of fun, and still manage to get a passable amount of work done, would anyone dare to self-identify that way?
    - lynnetye 9y ago
      You're so spot on. Some companies do not introspect deeply enough, nor do they have the desire! I've met some of them and guess what –– they don't end up creating a profile on Key Values. Honestly, I think it says a lot about team who put in the time and care to create a profile. The exercise of selecting 8 values and qualifying them signals a real desire to invest in people, culture, and to make sure values actually translate into behaviors. Re: your example, I see it as my job to encourage them to communicate who they are loudly and proudly! There's pressure on both sides (job-seekers and employers) to check all of the boxes. It doesn't make sense to do that at all though.
cwyers 9y ago
Applicants do not self-filter. If you've ever read resumes for a job listing that haven't been prescreened, you'll be blown away by how many people refuse to self-filter even for basic fitness for the job. Put out a job listing asking for a college degree, and you'll get applicants who are still in school with their graduation date two years in the future looking for an internship. That's an extreme, but people will apply for jobs they are very much not fit for. Frustrated job seekers will often submit things under the assumption that "the worst they can do is tell me no" (they're not wrong). If someone is receiving unemployment benefits, they may have to apply to X number of jobs every week/month in order to qualify. The incentive of the applicant is to apply to as many jobs as possible and get one.
- na85 9y ago
  Applicants don't self filter because they are conditioned by job postings that bear little relation, if any, to the actual job.
  - cwyers 9y ago
    Applicants don't self-filter because they need a job. They like to eat, they like to wear clothes, they like to sleep indoors. They often have other people in their lives that also like to do those things and rely on the income of the applicant to do so. They also aren't very able to pool risk. Most people have between one and two wageearners paying towards "household" expenses. There's not a lot of redundancy here. Contrast that with the average amount of employees at an employer. When you're hiring, having a position vacant for weeks or months is something you can work around much, much easier than you can work around being unemployed for weeks or months.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Most people are told to apply anyway, because most employers are setting the requirements ridiculously too high.
  - JesseOfner 9y ago
    That's why job descriptions should not be authored by hiring managers alone. Most of the time, it's not the employer, it's the hiring manager who has unreal expectations. This is driven in my opinion by multiple factors including but not limited to: Unreasonable expectations created by hyperspecialization and role blending as part of corporate restructuring, or as pushed by the investors/stakeholders that follows economic recessions. The expansionary period that follows provide people opportunity to leave, providing more liquidity in the labor market. So talent leaves for greener pastures and now you have a hiring manager who's direct report has left them with a gaping hole and finance dictates that you have 1:1 for this spot. So you type of the list of roles and responsibilities and send your requisition to HR to help find candidates. Meanwhile you assign out duties to remaining team members because work must get done. The search lingers because the hiring manager looking for the proverbial purple squirrel, meanwhile the team seems to be handling the workload with no measurable impact on quality. This then just repeats itself over and over, at companies large and small. This is only one use case, there are many, but I think one that plays a big part in the problem of job search and matching talent with opportunity.
flaque 9y ago
This is quite cool. I'm adding this to Gonzaga University's CS student career guide: https://github.com/gu-app-club/lets-learn-jobs/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/gu-app-club/lets-learn-jobs/blob/master/R...
- lynnetye 9y ago
  I support this ;) Thanks!
beat 9y ago
A bigger problem in many cases isn't casting too wide a net in terms of corporate culture... it's big companies that need to hire quickly, using cheap mass-market recruiting companies that aren't picky about what they're sending over. And, in the enterprise, the elaborate rules for recruiters, created by too many layers of HR (process is the scar tissue of organizations), means that small, boutique recruiters that are more careful about fit can't even get in the door. A large pile of crap resumes is the result.
tnolet 9y ago
This sounds nice, but is very far away from actual reality. Sadly, almost 25%-30% of applicants, in my experience, don't even read the full job description or ignore key parts that are listed in bold text, some examples based on actual real life: - "You need to be based in <European country>, we don't do remote" -- applies from US/Pakistan/Russia, wants remote work. - "Make clear what attracts you in our business/industry" -- ignores any mention of industry, business or such. - "Don't repeat your CV in the cover letter" -- guess what? Cover letter is repetition of his/her CV... I wish I was lying, but this is daily routine when hiring.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  The first example because they hope your desperate enough. For the second example, because most engineers value honesty because a lack of complete transparency cost time/money or worst kills people. And frankly, most engineers like technology and could care less about the company and/or the industry. And that's why they are horrible at sales. And what your asking for is a kind of sales. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-ignition-switch-death-toll/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-ign... Btw, I'm not saying you shouldn't look for engineers that have people skills, just why your having a hard time finding them... :)

teen 9y ago

> This will allow job-seekers to self-filter ?? The problem is not employers casting a wide net, but everyone applying for the job.

lynnetye 9y ago
There are two problems: For employers, it's casting a wide net and then struggling to filter out "noise" quickly. Employers will use pass on great engineers and interview not-so great ones (see parent comment). Instead of saying, "Work for us, we're the best!" why don't engineering teams say, "We prioritize speed over quality, are great for individual contributors, and prefer asynchronous comms over lots of meetings. Work for us if this sounds like you." For job-seekers, the problem is applying to dozens to companies that you don't even want to work for (and just don't know it yet). If I value quality over speed, prefer working in teams rather than independently, and believe in-person meetings are incredibly valuable, then I would know not to even both applying to the company above.
- ltrcola 9y ago
  Again, I think the problem is bad devs that will apply for any job regardless of your stated values.
  - TrinaryWorksToo 9y ago
    Better framed as, hungry devs who want to start working so they can eat.

lr4444lr 9y ago

> Be honest. Say divisive things ... get sued or prosecuted by the EEOC. There are reasons things are stated in a certain way and the net has to be cast wider than necessary. First fix the landscape of U.S. labor law, and then a discussion of efficiency and values can be productive

lynnetye 9y ago
Mmmm not quite sure what you're thinking of, but I'm talking about starting w/ baby steps. "Do exciting work that has real impact, learn a lot, and have fun doing it." Do you know how many companies say that on their job descriptions?! All of them. Here are some examples of being (mildly) divisive and using strong language: - "We consider it a disqualifier if a candidate does not value our mission to grow and sustain local food systems" (Good Eggs) - "All of our communications are out in the open, and we have a rule that you cannot send emails to a fellow Remixer and instead must communicate over Slack where everyone can see. (Emails are only used for people externally.)" (Remix) - "We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." (Amplitude) All of these things will either resonate w/ an individual and make them really excited about applying/joining, or turn them off because it doesn't quite align w/ their personal values/preferences/goals.
- yongjik 9y ago
  It seems that your example will filter candidates based on how much they like the company, not how good they are. The distribution of candidates will largely be the same or even worse, because a few good candidates may be put off by such rhetoric ("Why do I have to believe in local food systems, when they want me to write an Android app?"), but mediocre candidates will apply anyway. So you still have to go through the same number of candidates until you can find a good one.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  ""We advocate that everyone leans towards releasing and reverting. It is better to revert small changes than to spend time perfecting code. While this might rub some people the wrong way, we believe that the best way to learn is by doing." - Amplitude" I must say, this would give me pause. That kind of language tells me that they don't value testing, and likely don't value quality requirements capturing either.

kafkaesq 9y ago

I'm confused about employers' desire to cast a wide net, only to filter through applicants thoughtlessly. What's to be confused about? They don't give a fuck - about you, or your time. Why? Because they perceive (rightly or wrongly) that there's no business incentive for them to do so. Either way... if they leave you dangling, or make you answer just a few silly questions too many, and/or sign up for (nearly) unlimited numbers of whiteboarding or hacker ranks sessions, or "take-home projects" they never (or at best only barely) look at, it's because... look, do you think these people have time to think about what they're doing, let alone how it affects the time and patience of those candidates they don't necessarily want to hire... or even, in some abstract sense, their long-term reputation as a company that makes at least some kind of effort to create a not entirely-unpleasant interview process? Of course not. It's much easier to just throw shit at the wall -- or as it were, at the whiteboard -- and see what sticks. So that's what they do.

dhimes 9y ago
there's no business incentive for them to do so. But there is one: to save the precious time of valuable people. I think it's an interesting suggestion.
- shanusmagnus 9y ago
  Even more important than that is to get people who really are aligned with what the company actually is, instead of just the standard bullshit that everybody says. I, too, really like the idea, but I wonder if, in practice, it wouldn't work because companies don't introspect deeply enough to understand what makes them distinct? For instance, if what's remarkable about your company is that you have a great culture where people goof off a lot and have a lot of fun, and still manage to get a passable amount of work done, would anyone dare to self-identify that way?
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    You're so spot on. Some companies do not introspect deeply enough, nor do they have the desire! I've met some of them and guess what –– they don't end up creating a profile on Key Values. Honestly, I think it says a lot about team who put in the time and care to create a profile. The exercise of selecting 8 values and qualifying them signals a real desire to invest in people, culture, and to make sure values actually translate into behaviors. Re: your example, I see it as my job to encourage them to communicate who they are loudly and proudly! There's pressure on both sides (job-seekers and employers) to check all of the boxes. It doesn't make sense to do that at all though.

cwyers 9y ago

Applicants do not self-filter. If you've ever read resumes for a job listing that haven't been prescreened, you'll be blown away by how many people refuse to self-filter even for basic fitness for the job. Put out a job listing asking for a college degree, and you'll get applicants who are still in school with their graduation date two years in the future looking for an internship. That's an extreme, but people will apply for jobs they are very much not fit for. Frustrated job seekers will often submit things under the assumption that "the worst they can do is tell me no" (they're not wrong). If someone is receiving unemployment benefits, they may have to apply to X number of jobs every week/month in order to qualify. The incentive of the applicant is to apply to as many jobs as possible and get one.

na85 9y ago
Applicants don't self filter because they are conditioned by job postings that bear little relation, if any, to the actual job.
- cwyers 9y ago
  Applicants don't self-filter because they need a job. They like to eat, they like to wear clothes, they like to sleep indoors. They often have other people in their lives that also like to do those things and rely on the income of the applicant to do so. They also aren't very able to pool risk. Most people have between one and two wageearners paying towards "household" expenses. There's not a lot of redundancy here. Contrast that with the average amount of employees at an employer. When you're hiring, having a position vacant for weeks or months is something you can work around much, much easier than you can work around being unemployed for weeks or months.
s73ver_ 9y ago
Most people are told to apply anyway, because most employers are setting the requirements ridiculously too high.
- JesseOfner 9y ago
  That's why job descriptions should not be authored by hiring managers alone. Most of the time, it's not the employer, it's the hiring manager who has unreal expectations. This is driven in my opinion by multiple factors including but not limited to: Unreasonable expectations created by hyperspecialization and role blending as part of corporate restructuring, or as pushed by the investors/stakeholders that follows economic recessions. The expansionary period that follows provide people opportunity to leave, providing more liquidity in the labor market. So talent leaves for greener pastures and now you have a hiring manager who's direct report has left them with a gaping hole and finance dictates that you have 1:1 for this spot. So you type of the list of roles and responsibilities and send your requisition to HR to help find candidates. Meanwhile you assign out duties to remaining team members because work must get done. The search lingers because the hiring manager looking for the proverbial purple squirrel, meanwhile the team seems to be handling the workload with no measurable impact on quality. This then just repeats itself over and over, at companies large and small. This is only one use case, there are many, but I think one that plays a big part in the problem of job search and matching talent with opportunity.

flaque 9y ago

This is quite cool. I'm adding this to Gonzaga University's CS student career guide: https://github.com/gu-app-club/lets-learn-jobs/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/gu-app-club/lets-learn-jobs/blob/master/R...

lynnetye 9y ago
I support this ;) Thanks!

beat 9y ago

A bigger problem in many cases isn't casting too wide a net in terms of corporate culture... it's big companies that need to hire quickly, using cheap mass-market recruiting companies that aren't picky about what they're sending over. And, in the enterprise, the elaborate rules for recruiters, created by too many layers of HR (process is the scar tissue of organizations), means that small, boutique recruiters that are more careful about fit can't even get in the door. A large pile of crap resumes is the result.

tnolet 9y ago

This sounds nice, but is very far away from actual reality. Sadly, almost 25%-30% of applicants, in my experience, don't even read the full job description or ignore key parts that are listed in bold text, some examples based on actual real life: - "You need to be based in <European country>, we don't do remote" -- applies from US/Pakistan/Russia, wants remote work. - "Make clear what attracts you in our business/industry" -- ignores any mention of industry, business or such. - "Don't repeat your CV in the cover letter" -- guess what? Cover letter is repetition of his/her CV... I wish I was lying, but this is daily routine when hiring.

sharemywin 9y ago
The first example because they hope your desperate enough. For the second example, because most engineers value honesty because a lack of complete transparency cost time/money or worst kills people. And frankly, most engineers like technology and could care less about the company and/or the industry. And that's why they are horrible at sales. And what your asking for is a kind of sales. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-ignition-switch-death-toll/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-ign... Btw, I'm not saying you shouldn't look for engineers that have people skills, just why your having a hard time finding them... :)