5 ms·

Although maybe not as strongly, I sympathize with your comment because of the feeling that we are moving away from indirect reputation (like certificates, diplo

by gota 8y ago

Although maybe not as strongly, I sympathize with your comment because of the feeling that we are moving away from indirect reputation (like certificates, diplomas, etc) and towards direct reputation. I've posted about it before: "The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates. The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort?" I still think we (broadly, the folks who seem to be the core audience of HN) are the ones most likely to make this transition first. CSPA looks like a step in the complete opposite direction. Personally, I too hope it fails as I think that if it ever becomes the norm the best case scenario is no better on my end; and in the worst case scenario, it can be a living nightmare.

ankit219 8y ago
Agree with the degree part. Having hired a few software engineers, a question I am asked a lot (not by the engineers themselves, but a lot of other, some even non-tech friends) is that why do I use college and degree as a filtering criteria. My explanation is that, one we do not have the resources of Google to access the candidate in that depth. Two, even if we were to do that, it would mean a candidate going through 7-8-10 rounds, given the kind of things that need to be tested. If you could end up in a good program/college, it tells me that you have some ability and saves me on a few tests. Then, I can take 2-3 tests/interviews and make the decision quickly. This is not to say that other person without the degree is less talented, but that the talent isnt demonstrated yet and it would take more tests to maybe see that. Moreover, its not an exact process, we are as likely to fail with a good degree hire as we are with not so good degree. So, does not seem fair to take a candidate through 8-10 tests. (it also has a cost for us, given we are a small team and everyone's time is important)
- ttty 8y ago
  > 7-8-10 rounds If you need 7-8-10 rounds you got something very wrong.
  - ankit219 8y ago
    I was counting all the assignments, interactions and written rounds I would need to take to have confidence I have a good hire. FYI, google themselves take that many rounds iirc. We currently take 3 rounds - one initial interview, one assignment, and then a final interview for the fit. Hence given the weightage to the college.
komali2 8y ago
The thing is that the gap between "is (probably) good at computer science" and "can program our website for us" is so large and diverse... When I was a recruiter the university degree was only important because they had to be a certified engineer (mech e chem e etc), beyond that I still had to make reference calls, the hiring manager still had to check their technical skills etc. When we did hiring interviews for programmers at my current job I didn't even look at the degree. My boss is the API engineer here and he's got a degree in literature. The lead frontend guy doesn't have a degree, he's just been doing it since before JavaScript existed. Basically, whether or not people filter on degree, or even this cspa thing, they're still going to have to do all the tests they did before. I guess the hope is that they'll have a higher apply-to-hire ratio? But I think that'll only last as long as it takes people to figure out how to specialize to pass this test.

by gota 8y ago

ankit219 8y ago

Agree with the degree part. Having hired a few software engineers, a question I am asked a lot (not by the engineers themselves, but a lot of other, some even non-tech friends) is that why do I use college and degree as a filtering criteria. My explanation is that, one we do not have the resources of Google to access the candidate in that depth. Two, even if we were to do that, it would mean a candidate going through 7-8-10 rounds, given the kind of things that need to be tested. If you could end up in a good program/college, it tells me that you have some ability and saves me on a few tests. Then, I can take 2-3 tests/interviews and make the decision quickly. This is not to say that other person without the degree is less talented, but that the talent isnt demonstrated yet and it would take more tests to maybe see that. Moreover, its not an exact process, we are as likely to fail with a good degree hire as we are with not so good degree. So, does not seem fair to take a candidate through 8-10 tests. (it also has a cost for us, given we are a small team and everyone's time is important)

ttty 8y ago
> 7-8-10 rounds If you need 7-8-10 rounds you got something very wrong.
- ankit219 8y ago
  I was counting all the assignments, interactions and written rounds I would need to take to have confidence I have a good hire. FYI, google themselves take that many rounds iirc. We currently take 3 rounds - one initial interview, one assignment, and then a final interview for the fit. Hence given the weightage to the college.

komali2 8y ago

The thing is that the gap between "is (probably) good at computer science" and "can program our website for us" is so large and diverse... When I was a recruiter the university degree was only important because they had to be a certified engineer (mech e chem e etc), beyond that I still had to make reference calls, the hiring manager still had to check their technical skills etc. When we did hiring interviews for programmers at my current job I didn't even look at the degree. My boss is the API engineer here and he's got a degree in literature. The lead frontend guy doesn't have a degree, he's just been doing it since before JavaScript existed. Basically, whether or not people filter on degree, or even this cspa thing, they're still going to have to do all the tests they did before. I guess the hope is that they'll have a higher apply-to-hire ratio? But I think that'll only last as long as it takes people to figure out how to specialize to pass this test.