6 ms·

There's been many a discussion here about companies holding out for the perfect candidate, curious to see how many jobs go unfilled for how long.

by bojo 8y ago

PaulRobinson 8y ago
I got a new remote gig recently. Because I'm going to talk about recruitment process and I don't think it's relevant, I won't name my new employer here. My process had over a dozen stages, mostly 1+ hour video calls, one of them a 2-hour tech test. It took several months to complete. I wasn't in a rush (I actually walked away from it for about a month in the middle for personal reasons), and they were being a little cagey perhaps because it was a senior-ish hire into tech (Principal), and picking the wrong person at that level can do serious damage to a tech culture. I appreciated they took it that seriously. They then were prepared to wait for my notice on my existing role, which was 3 months (negotiated down to half that in the end). That shows commitment on both sides. This is going to be a stronger trend. There are a lot of people out there with a CV that says "senior developer" on it, asking for top-drawer contractor rates, feeling a little entitled because they know some React or Go, so it makes sense to take your time and really, really kick the tires. With a remote workforce, able to hire anybody in any country, it makes sense to really find the best you can: they can make or break your business. Makes sense to me. There is research - but I can't place where/when I read it right now - that says you should decide how many people you're prepared to interview, then discard your first third of that number. Then hire the first person you meet who is better than the best candidate in the first third.
- hyperknot 8y ago
  It's actually 1/e ~ 36.7%, the solution to the mathematical problem of how can you find the best sample in a sequence, if you cannot go "back" and pick one of the previous ones. As long as you can ask people to "wait a bit" this is not the best solution.
  - gknoy 8y ago
    For those interested in why, you can look for info on the "secretary problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  A dozen stages? Holy crap. I guess they weren't worried about you considering other offers.
  - PaulRobinson 8y ago
    I made it clear early on I had dismissed approaches from about 10-15 other companies, and that they were my first preference, and they made it clear they were going to take their time on this one. We're all happy.
- pm90 8y ago
  Personally taking so long to hire someone would be a big red flag. I agree that hiring someone wrong can be damaging, but you can usually screen out obvious incompetence pretty quickly for any level real fast in onsites. If I was the candidate I would assume they have a culture of waiting for perfection before shipping tomorrow rather than shipping something OK today and that is not the culture I want to be a part of. Please note that I'm only detailing what I personally would infer from their decision. They may very well have a totally different culture.
- drfuchs 8y ago
  The research problem you're thinking of is known as "The Secretary Problem" and Wikipedia has pretty comprehensive coverage on it (spoiler: it's N/e). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
- solipsism 8y ago
  they were being a little cagey perhaps because it was a senior-ish hire into tech (Principal) Slightly off topic perhaps, but it's been my experience that these sorts of titles are meaningful and comparable only within a company. Across companies they don't mean much. A "principal" engineer at one company may not even be a senior engineer at another, or may be comparable to the CTO at another. The terms are probably closer to being comparable within similar companies. e.g. the FAANG companies might have organically developed similar nomenclature to each other. But in general I find the terms are near-useless. I wonder if others have the same impression. It would be nice if we had some way to calibrate positions across companies.
  - gazarsgo 8y ago
    check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
- snarf21 8y ago
  It reminded me of the joke HR rule about hiring candidates. Take the top half of the resumes and throw them away because you don't want to hire unlucky people.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Were they offering significantly above market value? If not, I wouldn’t have been willing to go through all of the hoops.
  - PaulRobinson 8y ago
    They were offering San Francisco money, and I don't live in San Francisco. So, yes.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Yeah in that case with the opportunity to work remote and live in a cheaper part of the country, it would be well worth the extra effort on my part and I can understand the caution on theirs.
scardine 8y ago
In the end hiring is a lottery for both sides. It is like finding a good marriage in a speed date.
chatmasta 8y ago
It would probably hard to get accurate data on that, because a single job posting does not necessarily represent a single position. It represents a role that can be filled multiple times. For example, basically every company is always hiring for a "Software Engineer" role. No company is publishing a new job description every time they hire a new Software Engineer.
cottonseed 8y ago
I keep making the same posting but I've hired ~4 people and I'm still growing. One posting equals one job is a bad assumption.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Good to know. I have a half-finished project I was going to snarkily call “Who’s Not Hiring” that parses through HN Who’s Hiring archives and lists the companies who post the same ad month after month despite the so-called robust hiring market.
  - anothergoogler 8y ago
    Nice! If you analyze gaps, you could use it to identify companies experiencing consistent churn too, perpetually re-hiring their engineering org.
    - hobls 8y ago
      You'd also identify companies who are growing their teams slowly and adding more of the same role every N months.
      - anothergoogler 8y ago
        Job titles and descriptions could help in distinguishing between new and replaced roles. You'd want to look for fairly identical postings.
        hobls 8y ago
        I think you might be overestimating the consistency and reliability of how hiring is done. (For reference, I've worked as a hiring manager of software engineers for a few years.) I've seen departments just use the same description over and over for years, and share it between teams -- even when it's not even really correct at some point. Practices vary wildly between company, and even between hiring managers.
spraak 8y ago
Does anyone know linguistically more about this "many a <singular thing>" construction? I've seen many an instance of this and I find it curious
- eschutte2 8y ago
  My dictionary just says "used distributively with a singular noun, with an or a prefixed to the noun," and gives the earliest known example as "moni ane eærde" from Layamon's Brut (~1205): https://books.google.com/books?id=UFZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=%22moni+ane+e%C3%A6rde%22 https://books.google.com/books?id=UFZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218&lpg=...

There's been many a discussion here about companies holding out for the perfect candidate, curious to see how many jobs go unfilled for how long.

by bojo 8y ago

There's been many a discussion here about companies holding out for the perfect candidate, curious to see how many jobs go unfilled for how long.

PaulRobinson 8y ago

I got a new remote gig recently. Because I'm going to talk about recruitment process and I don't think it's relevant, I won't name my new employer here. My process had over a dozen stages, mostly 1+ hour video calls, one of them a 2-hour tech test. It took several months to complete. I wasn't in a rush (I actually walked away from it for about a month in the middle for personal reasons), and they were being a little cagey perhaps because it was a senior-ish hire into tech (Principal), and picking the wrong person at that level can do serious damage to a tech culture. I appreciated they took it that seriously. They then were prepared to wait for my notice on my existing role, which was 3 months (negotiated down to half that in the end). That shows commitment on both sides. This is going to be a stronger trend. There are a lot of people out there with a CV that says "senior developer" on it, asking for top-drawer contractor rates, feeling a little entitled because they know some React or Go, so it makes sense to take your time and really, really kick the tires. With a remote workforce, able to hire anybody in any country, it makes sense to really find the best you can: they can make or break your business. Makes sense to me. There is research - but I can't place where/when I read it right now - that says you should decide how many people you're prepared to interview, then discard your first third of that number. Then hire the first person you meet who is better than the best candidate in the first third.

hyperknot 8y ago
It's actually 1/e ~ 36.7%, the solution to the mathematical problem of how can you find the best sample in a sequence, if you cannot go "back" and pick one of the previous ones. As long as you can ask people to "wait a bit" this is not the best solution.
- gknoy 8y ago
  For those interested in why, you can look for info on the "secretary problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
anothergoogler 8y ago
A dozen stages? Holy crap. I guess they weren't worried about you considering other offers.
- PaulRobinson 8y ago
  I made it clear early on I had dismissed approaches from about 10-15 other companies, and that they were my first preference, and they made it clear they were going to take their time on this one. We're all happy.
pm90 8y ago
Personally taking so long to hire someone would be a big red flag. I agree that hiring someone wrong can be damaging, but you can usually screen out obvious incompetence pretty quickly for any level real fast in onsites. If I was the candidate I would assume they have a culture of waiting for perfection before shipping tomorrow rather than shipping something OK today and that is not the culture I want to be a part of. Please note that I'm only detailing what I personally would infer from their decision. They may very well have a totally different culture.
drfuchs 8y ago
The research problem you're thinking of is known as "The Secretary Problem" and Wikipedia has pretty comprehensive coverage on it (spoiler: it's N/e). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem
solipsism 8y ago
they were being a little cagey perhaps because it was a senior-ish hire into tech (Principal) Slightly off topic perhaps, but it's been my experience that these sorts of titles are meaningful and comparable only within a company. Across companies they don't mean much. A "principal" engineer at one company may not even be a senior engineer at another, or may be comparable to the CTO at another. The terms are probably closer to being comparable within similar companies. e.g. the FAANG companies might have organically developed similar nomenclature to each other. But in general I find the terms are near-useless. I wonder if others have the same impression. It would be nice if we had some way to calibrate positions across companies.
- gazarsgo 8y ago
  check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
snarf21 8y ago
It reminded me of the joke HR rule about hiring candidates. Take the top half of the resumes and throw them away because you don't want to hire unlucky people.
scarface74 8y ago
Were they offering significantly above market value? If not, I wouldn’t have been willing to go through all of the hoops.
- PaulRobinson 8y ago
  They were offering San Francisco money, and I don't live in San Francisco. So, yes.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Yeah in that case with the opportunity to work remote and live in a cheaper part of the country, it would be well worth the extra effort on my part and I can understand the caution on theirs.

scardine 8y ago

In the end hiring is a lottery for both sides. It is like finding a good marriage in a speed date.

chatmasta 8y ago

It would probably hard to get accurate data on that, because a single job posting does not necessarily represent a single position. It represents a role that can be filled multiple times. For example, basically every company is always hiring for a "Software Engineer" role. No company is publishing a new job description every time they hire a new Software Engineer.

cottonseed 8y ago

I keep making the same posting but I've hired ~4 people and I'm still growing. One posting equals one job is a bad assumption.

ryandrake 8y ago
Good to know. I have a half-finished project I was going to snarkily call “Who’s Not Hiring” that parses through HN Who’s Hiring archives and lists the companies who post the same ad month after month despite the so-called robust hiring market.
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  Nice! If you analyze gaps, you could use it to identify companies experiencing consistent churn too, perpetually re-hiring their engineering org.
  - hobls 8y ago
    You'd also identify companies who are growing their teams slowly and adding more of the same role every N months.
    - anothergoogler 8y ago
      Job titles and descriptions could help in distinguishing between new and replaced roles. You'd want to look for fairly identical postings.
      - hobls 8y ago
        I think you might be overestimating the consistency and reliability of how hiring is done. (For reference, I've worked as a hiring manager of software engineers for a few years.) I've seen departments just use the same description over and over for years, and share it between teams -- even when it's not even really correct at some point. Practices vary wildly between company, and even between hiring managers.

spraak 8y ago

Does anyone know linguistically more about this "many a <singular thing>" construction? I've seen many an instance of this and I find it curious

eschutte2 8y ago
My dictionary just says "used distributively with a singular noun, with an or a prefixed to the noun," and gives the earliest known example as "moni ane eærde" from Layamon's Brut (~1205): https://books.google.com/books?id=UFZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=%22moni+ane+e%C3%A6rde%22 https://books.google.com/books?id=UFZcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA218&lpg=...