4 ms·

I'm a software engineer that's been involved in hiring decisions in the past. When we make a bad hire we do a post-mortem just like we would for a critical pro

by max76 8y ago

I'm a software engineer that's been involved in hiring decisions in the past. When we make a bad hire we do a post-mortem just like we would for a critical production bug. We adjust the interview process or evaluation criteria every time a bad hire is made. We also give the same interview for every role. We spend 80% of the time asking the same questions, and leave 20% of the time for the free flow conversation and interviewee questions.

SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
I've seen that kind of thing too. What I've never seen, and what the article is focused on, is a serious correction for failures to hire. It seems like most companies would rather slowly strangle their hiring pipeline than tell people "your dealbreakers are dumb and you're no longer allowed to use them".
itronitron 8y ago
Do you include the 'bad hire' in the post mortem as well?
- max76 8y ago
  We do exit interviews, which is reviewed in the post mortem. Failure is defined as a hire that lasts less than one year.
koonsolo 8y ago
Aren't you afraid that you focus too much on avoiding the bad ones, and not on trying to hire the top ones? You cannot do a postmortem for failing to hire top talent, because you will never know. What I want to say is that a bad hire is probably less important than missing out on a top candidate. Because you can always fire as soon as you find out. The other error cannot be corrected.
- max76 8y ago
  The problem is that there is no feedback for when we fail to hire top talent. How would I know that during a round of interviews I failed to give an offer to Top Talent? What can I do if someone I think is Top Talent gets another offer we cannot match? Sure, I can try my best to work against those very costly situations, but I never know how good someone is going to be until they are hired, so I don't have enough data to determine if I'm failing to hire the best. I can, and we do, determine which candidates we hired that we really like and talk to them about why they choose the company and try to appeal to and find more candidates like them.

by max76 8y ago

SpicyLemonZest 8y ago

I've seen that kind of thing too. What I've never seen, and what the article is focused on, is a serious correction for failures to hire. It seems like most companies would rather slowly strangle their hiring pipeline than tell people "your dealbreakers are dumb and you're no longer allowed to use them".

itronitron 8y ago

Do you include the 'bad hire' in the post mortem as well?

max76 8y ago
We do exit interviews, which is reviewed in the post mortem. Failure is defined as a hire that lasts less than one year.

koonsolo 8y ago

Aren't you afraid that you focus too much on avoiding the bad ones, and not on trying to hire the top ones? You cannot do a postmortem for failing to hire top talent, because you will never know. What I want to say is that a bad hire is probably less important than missing out on a top candidate. Because you can always fire as soon as you find out. The other error cannot be corrected.

max76 8y ago
The problem is that there is no feedback for when we fail to hire top talent. How would I know that during a round of interviews I failed to give an offer to Top Talent? What can I do if someone I think is Top Talent gets another offer we cannot match? Sure, I can try my best to work against those very costly situations, but I never know how good someone is going to be until they are hired, so I don't have enough data to determine if I'm failing to hire the best. I can, and we do, determine which candidates we hired that we really like and talk to them about why they choose the company and try to appeal to and find more candidates like them.