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I worry a lot about this. I don't think it's distrust so much as thoughtlessness. From what I can tell, Google (and other companies) started using these kinds

by aristus 16y ago

I worry a lot about this. I don't think it's distrust so much as thoughtlessness. From what I can tell, Google (and other companies) started using these kinds of questions as a way to cheaply filter sudden floods of applicants, not because this is the way to find the greatest geniuses of our time. Policies implemented under the gun have two unfortunate properties: they are wasteful and hard to change after the fact. As the tactics of successful companies percolate through the rest of the industry, they take on a third unfortunate property: cargo-cult foolishness. Google asks binary search questions and they have great engineers. I want only the best engineers, therefore I will ask binary search questions. I don't know what else to do so I shall grade strictly on style points, because points are scientific, right? Bleh. Put it another way: if there are a large number of productive creative people shut out by a culture of thoughtless interview checklisting, that's an opportunity for some smarter company to snap them up. Such a company would by necessity have an outlaw air about them. Who else would hire misfits? But gangs of talented misfits can be a powerful force.

Natsu 16y ago
> Policies implemented under the gun have two unfortunate properties: they are wasteful and hard to change after the fact. You've just described how we ended up with many of our problems in the government, military, education & private industry all in one sentence. A single upvote doesn't seem like enough.
sokoloff 16y ago
Thoughtful comment, but there's a practical problem with your last point: how can YOU (as a hiring manager at this "some smarter company") effectively filter through the enormous set of screened-out candidates that Google rejected and find those productive, creative misfits that you want to interview/hire out of the teeming throng of vocational misfits? Of the people actively applying for jobs at any given point in time, the "truly excellent" are under-represented as compared to the total population of programmers. I'm not a Joel fan boy, but I think http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html states this problem more clearly than I can in a few paragraphs on HN.
- Retric 16y ago
  Remember the goal is to find high quality candidates not shift though all of the incoming resumes. So if you have 2 open positions and 10,000 resumes just stop when you find enough high quality candidates.
  - Xurinos 16y ago
    I agree. Resumes are not as useful as a lot of employers want to believe. They represent what the candidate wants you to see of their history, and you get only one thing from that: Talking Points. Resumes put you both on the same page, bringing up topics the candidate is interested in talking about. A poor salesman will have a hard time coming up with good or enough talking points. This alone is a reason resumes are mis-filtered. I want to say that you should avoid filtering candidates based on their resumes, thanks to the holes, but that would be wrong: Sometimes, based on what they write down, you can make a reasonable judgment. For example, if you are looking for a software developer and the resume mentions NOTHING about that field, that is an easy filter. Not quite so easy a filter: "I know C/C#/C++." but I always find that one amusing.
- tgflynn 16y ago
  If I were looking to hire a developer I would do the following : 1) Select a set of candidates based on their resumes making the assumption at this point that their resumes are honest. Good candidates should have at least worked on some interesting projects so their resumes should look interesting. Most lame candidates wouldn't even be able to invent a credible interesting project. 2) Do phone interviews where I would ask knowledge based (ie not problem solving based) questions related to their resumes. The goal here is mainly to filter out fake/exaggerated resumes. 3) Invite the selected candidates to give a presentation on a topic of their choice related to work they've done that is at least marginally relevant to the job. I think you can learn a lot about someone by seeing how they present their work and respond to questions (though it doesn't tell you if they're good coders, that's for the next step). The presentations could probably be done remotely. 4) Hire the selected candidates for short-term contract work. Set things up so they can work remotely. Assign them real tasks that you would expect them to perform in the job. Make final selection based on evaluation of the candidate's work on step 4 and offer positions to the best.

by aristus 16y ago

Natsu 16y ago

> Policies implemented under the gun have two unfortunate properties: they are wasteful and hard to change after the fact. You've just described how we ended up with many of our problems in the government, military, education & private industry all in one sentence. A single upvote doesn't seem like enough.

sokoloff 16y ago

Thoughtful comment, but there's a practical problem with your last point: how can YOU (as a hiring manager at this "some smarter company") effectively filter through the enormous set of screened-out candidates that Google rejected and find those productive, creative misfits that you want to interview/hire out of the teeming throng of vocational misfits? Of the people actively applying for jobs at any given point in time, the "truly excellent" are under-represented as compared to the total population of programmers. I'm not a Joel fan boy, but I think http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html states this problem more clearly than I can in a few paragraphs on HN.

Retric 16y ago
Remember the goal is to find high quality candidates not shift though all of the incoming resumes. So if you have 2 open positions and 10,000 resumes just stop when you find enough high quality candidates.
- Xurinos 16y ago
  I agree. Resumes are not as useful as a lot of employers want to believe. They represent what the candidate wants you to see of their history, and you get only one thing from that: Talking Points. Resumes put you both on the same page, bringing up topics the candidate is interested in talking about. A poor salesman will have a hard time coming up with good or enough talking points. This alone is a reason resumes are mis-filtered. I want to say that you should avoid filtering candidates based on their resumes, thanks to the holes, but that would be wrong: Sometimes, based on what they write down, you can make a reasonable judgment. For example, if you are looking for a software developer and the resume mentions NOTHING about that field, that is an easy filter. Not quite so easy a filter: "I know C/C#/C++." but I always find that one amusing.
tgflynn 16y ago
If I were looking to hire a developer I would do the following : 1) Select a set of candidates based on their resumes making the assumption at this point that their resumes are honest. Good candidates should have at least worked on some interesting projects so their resumes should look interesting. Most lame candidates wouldn't even be able to invent a credible interesting project. 2) Do phone interviews where I would ask knowledge based (ie not problem solving based) questions related to their resumes. The goal here is mainly to filter out fake/exaggerated resumes. 3) Invite the selected candidates to give a presentation on a topic of their choice related to work they've done that is at least marginally relevant to the job. I think you can learn a lot about someone by seeing how they present their work and respond to questions (though it doesn't tell you if they're good coders, that's for the next step). The presentations could probably be done remotely. 4) Hire the selected candidates for short-term contract work. Set things up so they can work remotely. Assign them real tasks that you would expect them to perform in the job. Make final selection based on evaluation of the candidate's work on step 4 and offer positions to the best.