5 ms·

I'm not sure what the point of this is. I can get 1000 resumes and 10 geeks in a week advertising on hotjobs but in the end it is the quality of the person that

by carson 16y ago

I'm not sure what the point of this is. I can get 1000 resumes and 10 geeks in a week advertising on hotjobs but in the end it is the quality of the person that matters. I would rather see the result of this a year from now.

jreposa 16y ago
We've had a hard time finding quality candidates. In my experience, the Craigslist job board seems to be dying out. Is hotjobs your first stop in the hiring process?
- euroclydon 16y ago
  I think savvy developers will increasingly want to dispense with the commitment that being hired entails. If there are so many companies in such dire need of talent, why can't talented developers become highly skilled migrant workers? I just think it's too difficult to keep a talented person satisfied, in one job, for years on end -- the ability to ramp-up and ramp-down without the overhead of a full-time employment relationship or sleazy middle-men, is the future of software employment, I hope.
  - jreposa 16y ago
    We realize that. I was an employee not too long ago. Every few years I would jump to a new exciting and challenging job. It allowed me to build out a solid skill set enough to start my own company. I want to hire people that have genuine passion for what they do. If they're passionate about my company, that's just icing on the cake. I expect that they'll move on. I want it to be on good terms. True engineers will always want to learn more. My goal is to provide an environment for a massive amount of learning.
    - euroclydon 16y ago
      My goal is to provide an environment for a massive amount of learning. It seems that the only way you can do that is to solve really hard problems, otherwise learning just becomes some academic exercise, unrelated to your core mission.
      - jreposa 16y ago
        I don't agree. Not every developer is an super genius who only solves problems using incredible feats of intelligence. I learn something new everyday. For a learning experience we launched a new site using only HTML5. That was a fun learning experience, but it wasn't a really hard problem. And yes, it is part of our core mission. Another example is how our company is always looking at new technologies. The concepts can be challenging and fun to learn for a developer. A couple of the more recent ones we've used are MongoDB, Node.js, PhoneGap... I'm sure there's more. Oh, right... we're building our first Rails 3 site. Now that's fun!
  - grammaton 16y ago
    Not to mention I think this sort of scheme would go a long way towards correcting a lot of the excesses with regard to how developers are treated in a lot of places. Boss is a total douche? Move on...
  - cageface 16y ago
    Generally speaking, I agree with this but there's a downside too. Don't be surprised if you get tossed out on the trash heap the minute you turn 40 or 50 and are no longer perceived as a young, alpha engineer. Things like blogs and github are great learning resources but I think they're also starting to skew people's expectations of the average programmer.
    - euroclydon 16y ago
      Things like blogs and github are great learning resources but I think they're also starting to skew people's expectations of the average programmer. What? Care to elaborate?
      - gaius 16y ago
        The demographics of the typical programmer-blogger are not representative of the typical programmer. And writing a blog is not correlated in any way with talent or productivity. Probably the vast majority of working programmers either don't write a blog, or don't blog about programming (but about their cats, kids, and steam-engine building hobby).
        euroclydon 16y ago
        I see where you guys are going with this, and that's a fine place to be, if you're comfortable there. But blogging and putting code up on GitHub IS directly correlated with letting people know who the heck you are, and not just sitting behind the corporate firewall, being a good little human-resource, hoping that your dedication gets noticed and yields good marks on your personnel file, so that you will continue to be employed, and be able to afford a new model steam engine. If you don't blog or use GitHub, or do something similar, then when that mid-life layoff happens, you'll may be at the mercy of recruiters and whatnot, to spice up your resume try to sell you.
        gaius 16y ago
        I really, really doubt anyone's blog is ever a deciding factor in a hiring situation. Really. Maybe this is different in very web-oriented specialities. Also I am very amused that you think anyone without a blog is a "good little human resource", as if writing a blog was some great accomplishment of individuality. People who don't do it don't do it because they're simply not interested. Doesn't mean blogs are a waste of time or anything, but they are just a hobby. Like stamp collecting. FWIW I have my name on the cover of a book, that was in actual real bookstores, about the main technology I use. I mention it on my CV. Hasn't resulted in any more than a minute's conversation in the (admittedly very few) interview's I've done since then. And as an interviewer and hiring manager, I've never taken a blog into consideration. Apart from for the author him or herself, blogs just aren't important. The bloke I'm thinking of with the steam engines, BTW, is pretty talented. He built his first one with electric tools and his second with tools powered by the first. And he's a great developer. Hiring some blogger over him would be a serious mistake for any organization...
pierrefar 16y ago
I know some people who got through and some who got rejected very early on. Regardless of volume, my very limited sample tells me they were very strict in choosing.
ctb 16y ago
Agree.
byoung2 16y ago
It would be cool to try somthing like Zappos, and offer them the free iPad only if they walk away right then and there, or turn down the iPad and stay for the interview.

by carson 16y ago

jreposa 16y ago

We've had a hard time finding quality candidates. In my experience, the Craigslist job board seems to be dying out. Is hotjobs your first stop in the hiring process?

euroclydon 16y ago
I think savvy developers will increasingly want to dispense with the commitment that being hired entails. If there are so many companies in such dire need of talent, why can't talented developers become highly skilled migrant workers? I just think it's too difficult to keep a talented person satisfied, in one job, for years on end -- the ability to ramp-up and ramp-down without the overhead of a full-time employment relationship or sleazy middle-men, is the future of software employment, I hope.
- jreposa 16y ago
  We realize that. I was an employee not too long ago. Every few years I would jump to a new exciting and challenging job. It allowed me to build out a solid skill set enough to start my own company. I want to hire people that have genuine passion for what they do. If they're passionate about my company, that's just icing on the cake. I expect that they'll move on. I want it to be on good terms. True engineers will always want to learn more. My goal is to provide an environment for a massive amount of learning.
  - euroclydon 16y ago
    My goal is to provide an environment for a massive amount of learning. It seems that the only way you can do that is to solve really hard problems, otherwise learning just becomes some academic exercise, unrelated to your core mission.
    - jreposa 16y ago
      I don't agree. Not every developer is an super genius who only solves problems using incredible feats of intelligence. I learn something new everyday. For a learning experience we launched a new site using only HTML5. That was a fun learning experience, but it wasn't a really hard problem. And yes, it is part of our core mission. Another example is how our company is always looking at new technologies. The concepts can be challenging and fun to learn for a developer. A couple of the more recent ones we've used are MongoDB, Node.js, PhoneGap... I'm sure there's more. Oh, right... we're building our first Rails 3 site. Now that's fun!
- grammaton 16y ago
  Not to mention I think this sort of scheme would go a long way towards correcting a lot of the excesses with regard to how developers are treated in a lot of places. Boss is a total douche? Move on...
- cageface 16y ago
  Generally speaking, I agree with this but there's a downside too. Don't be surprised if you get tossed out on the trash heap the minute you turn 40 or 50 and are no longer perceived as a young, alpha engineer. Things like blogs and github are great learning resources but I think they're also starting to skew people's expectations of the average programmer.
  - euroclydon 16y ago
    Things like blogs and github are great learning resources but I think they're also starting to skew people's expectations of the average programmer. What? Care to elaborate?
    - gaius 16y ago
      The demographics of the typical programmer-blogger are not representative of the typical programmer. And writing a blog is not correlated in any way with talent or productivity. Probably the vast majority of working programmers either don't write a blog, or don't blog about programming (but about their cats, kids, and steam-engine building hobby).
      - euroclydon 16y ago
        I see where you guys are going with this, and that's a fine place to be, if you're comfortable there. But blogging and putting code up on GitHub IS directly correlated with letting people know who the heck you are, and not just sitting behind the corporate firewall, being a good little human-resource, hoping that your dedication gets noticed and yields good marks on your personnel file, so that you will continue to be employed, and be able to afford a new model steam engine. If you don't blog or use GitHub, or do something similar, then when that mid-life layoff happens, you'll may be at the mercy of recruiters and whatnot, to spice up your resume try to sell you.
        gaius 16y ago
        I really, really doubt anyone's blog is ever a deciding factor in a hiring situation. Really. Maybe this is different in very web-oriented specialities. Also I am very amused that you think anyone without a blog is a "good little human resource", as if writing a blog was some great accomplishment of individuality. People who don't do it don't do it because they're simply not interested. Doesn't mean blogs are a waste of time or anything, but they are just a hobby. Like stamp collecting. FWIW I have my name on the cover of a book, that was in actual real bookstores, about the main technology I use. I mention it on my CV. Hasn't resulted in any more than a minute's conversation in the (admittedly very few) interview's I've done since then. And as an interviewer and hiring manager, I've never taken a blog into consideration. Apart from for the author him or herself, blogs just aren't important. The bloke I'm thinking of with the steam engines, BTW, is pretty talented. He built his first one with electric tools and his second with tools powered by the first. And he's a great developer. Hiring some blogger over him would be a serious mistake for any organization...

pierrefar 16y ago

I know some people who got through and some who got rejected very early on. Regardless of volume, my very limited sample tells me they were very strict in choosing.

ctb 16y ago

Agree.

byoung2 16y ago

It would be cool to try somthing like Zappos, and offer them the free iPad only if they walk away right then and there, or turn down the iPad and stay for the interview.