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>I really can't call everyone who has a decent resume, its way too time consuming. Even if you have, say, 100 resumes you consider "decent" (which to me would

>I really can't call everyone who has a decent resume, its way too time consuming. Even if you have, say, 100 resumes you consider "decent" (which to me would be an impossibly high number) then you need to be able to rank them, so you can pick, say, the top 10, and invest some followup time in those.

TheGRS 8y ago
Totally, by the time we have a phone interview I'm pretty seriously considering that candidate and I want to get to know their personality better to see if they're a good fit, so whatever I can do to shrink that pool in a way that's fair to everyone is necessary.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I love trying to square these conversations about needing to shrink the candidate pool to something manageable with the widely claimed “shortage of engineers”.
  - TheGRS 8y ago
    That's easy, there is a vast chasm between people who say they can do things and people who actually can do things. This is precisely why these filters exist!
    - rhapsodic 8y ago
      >That's easy, there is a vast chasm between people who say they can do things and people who actually can do things. This is precisely why these filters exist! Amen. There is no shortage of applicants. But there is a shortage of competent, qualified ones. In fact, I find it frightening the degree to which blatantly incompetent people can skate by in our industry. I recently interviewed someone who rated themselves as a "professional level" Java programmer. (The highest level he could have rated himself is Expert, one above professional level.) The first technical question I asked was, "OK, please write a Hello World program in Java for me.". He totally bombed. It was painful to witness. He had no clue what he was doing, but yet, there he was, asking for a six-figure salary and deeming himself worthy of it.
      - ryandrake 8y ago
        Supply and demand. Whether there is an actual shortage of a good depends on price. The extremes: Is there a shortage of talented engineers willing to work for minimum wage? Of course! Is there a shortage of talented engineers at a price of, say, $5M a year? I guarantee not. So there exists a market wage somewhere in between at which supply of talented engineers must equal demand. If you think there is a shortage of real talent you might not be at market rate for that talent. Using your example, there exists a market rate for an engineer who doesn’t know how to program Hello World. You might be surprised how much that is!

TheGRS 8y ago

Totally, by the time we have a phone interview I'm pretty seriously considering that candidate and I want to get to know their personality better to see if they're a good fit, so whatever I can do to shrink that pool in a way that's fair to everyone is necessary.

ryandrake 8y ago
I love trying to square these conversations about needing to shrink the candidate pool to something manageable with the widely claimed “shortage of engineers”.
- TheGRS 8y ago
  That's easy, there is a vast chasm between people who say they can do things and people who actually can do things. This is precisely why these filters exist!
  - rhapsodic 8y ago
    >That's easy, there is a vast chasm between people who say they can do things and people who actually can do things. This is precisely why these filters exist! Amen. There is no shortage of applicants. But there is a shortage of competent, qualified ones. In fact, I find it frightening the degree to which blatantly incompetent people can skate by in our industry. I recently interviewed someone who rated themselves as a "professional level" Java programmer. (The highest level he could have rated himself is Expert, one above professional level.) The first technical question I asked was, "OK, please write a Hello World program in Java for me.". He totally bombed. It was painful to witness. He had no clue what he was doing, but yet, there he was, asking for a six-figure salary and deeming himself worthy of it.
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      Supply and demand. Whether there is an actual shortage of a good depends on price. The extremes: Is there a shortage of talented engineers willing to work for minimum wage? Of course! Is there a shortage of talented engineers at a price of, say, $5M a year? I guarantee not. So there exists a market wage somewhere in between at which supply of talented engineers must equal demand. If you think there is a shortage of real talent you might not be at market rate for that talent. Using your example, there exists a market rate for an engineer who doesn’t know how to program Hello World. You might be surprised how much that is!