4 ms·

> HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who co

> HR gatekeepers (who don't have the knowledge to make accurate technical assessments) are effectively searching for a perfect match, rather than someone who could do the job well. IMO, that's just a symptom. The real problem is that the hiring managers/engineers find the job of "recruitment" beneath them. All of us know the recruiter might not really understand the difference between "java", "scripting" and "javascript". But then, why should that role exist? That role exists because the engineers/managers/leads/architects (generally, the tech folks) just don't want to do the grunt work (search and source candidates, co-ordinate and schedule interviews etc). The actual folks in need of teammates/additional people want a piece of the action alright, nobody wants to miss being an interviewer where one gets to go on a power trip asking the poor candidate to balance B+ trees or some such thing, while letting out tch-tch noises like a lizard watching the poor candidate struggle on the whiteboard. All that needs to be around is a tool/system that can make the job of searching/sourcing/co-ordination easier for the actual hiring managers/leads who are looking to add people to their teams and have got the necessary budgetary stuff covered already.

cheschire 7y ago
Have you ever had to sift through 300 resumes for an open position? Did you ever have to do it multiple times in a quarter? If you have time to do that, and do it well, and still hit your numbers, congrats.
- lordnacho 7y ago
  I've done that, and during peak hiring periods it does get a bit intense, but I think it's essential it's done by a coder, not an HR person. It's also something to give your day a bit of variety. And the big plus is you get to decide who you want to work with.
  - abledon 7y ago
    Do you think Resumes made in LaTeX get screwed by the HR robot screening programs that scan documents for keywords? I mean, if your document has some weird formatting going on, I could see the program miss some crucial keywords buried inside a nested table or something
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      And if this screwing is happening, would that make you more or less likely to use LaTeX to create your resume? It would make me more likely to use it...
      - hopler 7y ago
        Sure, if you enjoy being unemployed because you only want to work at a mythical company that tailors their HR processes to your obscure formatting preferences, or is so undesirable that they have time to read all resumes that come in.
        sokoloff 7y ago
        I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but prefer is certainly correct. Sending someone a resume as a PDF file generated from LaTeX is far from an obscure format.
        raghava 7y ago
        Now a days, pretty much everyone uses an automated resume parser.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Why should you get a say in who works with you? As a team lead I'm trying to find the right balance. If we hire only people the current devs like we endup having too many similiar developers with the same mindset and shortcomings. Trying to have a more diverse, balanced team means you don't get a say.
    - hopler 7y ago
      Why do you think your good people don't want to work with people that complement them? Why do you think you are so much better than them at balancing a team? I pity the team that has to work with such an egostistical openly hostile lead, but I imagine it must give you plenty of experience with recruiting and hiring.
      - wolco 7y ago
        You want someone as equally as good as you who complements your skillset. I want someone different than you who renforces areas where you are weak so the product is stronger overall. Getting along is good overall but being able to debate from different perspectives is important. What you think of the hire shouldn't matter because you are looking to perserve your place on the team and that taints your judgement. You shouldn't hire your own boss for similiar reasons. You should never hire your peer.
    - lordnacho 7y ago
      > Why should you get a say in who works with you? The feeling of autonomy is quite important for a lot of modern knowledge workers. There's more than one lever, but if you force enough of them, it becomes a crap place to work.
    - ddingus 7y ago
      Actually, doing that means everyone getting a balanced say. Two way street. If you make it one way, it is all on you, and when that team says that, you get all the credit. Good or bad, and the team knows it. Will definitely throw you under a bus, given cause. If you make it a balanced discussion, everyone taking shared ownership, then it is on everyone. The difference shows up in two places: One, bad call. The team can come together, own it, and letting the bad call go is not so rough. The follow on discussion is rational and productive. The other one is getting that different point of view. Having that discussion sets great expectations. Being challenged, getting better, all that is welcome. A team that does this successfully tends to congeal and do extremely well. Play it how you want to play it, but I definitely prefer to have it all on the table, open, team discussion, frank, high value. Mix in a reluctance to blame and shame, favor choices outcomes and data and you get a team that can weather the good and bad, everyone helping everyone too. The lead is responsible for cultivating that culture, empowering people, resolving conflicts, etc. Also owns team business meetings, data, all that. Just saying.
BonesJustice 7y ago
One of the best interview experiences I had was with a firm where nearly everyone participates in the hiring process. I don’t know any details beyond what I experienced as a candidate, but they interview tons of people, and everyone who makes it all the way through ends up interacting with at least a handful of would-be peers, managers, and a C-level officer. I imagine that everyone is expected to dedicate a significant chunk of their time to the recruiting process. I don’t see how else they could pull it off. I suspect the arrangement is something like “everyone must dedicate one day every (other?) week to recruitment efforts.” Moreover, they had a fixed set of well-thought-out questions and exercises. For programmers, you write code in an actual IDE with one of their programmers sitting beside you. You can bounce ideas off them, you can consult the interwebs (as you might in real life), etc. The questions and programming challenges were relevant, and reasonable. It was an extremely well oiled machine, and it showed.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  Where is this utopia? I want to work there.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Really that sounds terrible. Let the managers hire I need to finish my sprint.
    - hopler 7y ago
      If you want to be a static low level cog, that's fine, but don't expect go-getter leadership compensation.
  - BonesJustice 7y ago
    Two Sigma in Manhattan.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

cheschire 7y ago

Have you ever had to sift through 300 resumes for an open position? Did you ever have to do it multiple times in a quarter? If you have time to do that, and do it well, and still hit your numbers, congrats.

lordnacho 7y ago
I've done that, and during peak hiring periods it does get a bit intense, but I think it's essential it's done by a coder, not an HR person. It's also something to give your day a bit of variety. And the big plus is you get to decide who you want to work with.
- abledon 7y ago
  Do you think Resumes made in LaTeX get screwed by the HR robot screening programs that scan documents for keywords? I mean, if your document has some weird formatting going on, I could see the program miss some crucial keywords buried inside a nested table or something
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    And if this screwing is happening, would that make you more or less likely to use LaTeX to create your resume? It would make me more likely to use it...
    - hopler 7y ago
      Sure, if you enjoy being unemployed because you only want to work at a mythical company that tailors their HR processes to your obscure formatting preferences, or is so undesirable that they have time to read all resumes that come in.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but prefer is certainly correct. Sending someone a resume as a PDF file generated from LaTeX is far from an obscure format.
        raghava 7y ago
        Now a days, pretty much everyone uses an automated resume parser.
- wolco 7y ago
  Why should you get a say in who works with you? As a team lead I'm trying to find the right balance. If we hire only people the current devs like we endup having too many similiar developers with the same mindset and shortcomings. Trying to have a more diverse, balanced team means you don't get a say.
  - hopler 7y ago
    Why do you think your good people don't want to work with people that complement them? Why do you think you are so much better than them at balancing a team? I pity the team that has to work with such an egostistical openly hostile lead, but I imagine it must give you plenty of experience with recruiting and hiring.
    - wolco 7y ago
      You want someone as equally as good as you who complements your skillset. I want someone different than you who renforces areas where you are weak so the product is stronger overall. Getting along is good overall but being able to debate from different perspectives is important. What you think of the hire shouldn't matter because you are looking to perserve your place on the team and that taints your judgement. You shouldn't hire your own boss for similiar reasons. You should never hire your peer.
  - lordnacho 7y ago
    > Why should you get a say in who works with you? The feeling of autonomy is quite important for a lot of modern knowledge workers. There's more than one lever, but if you force enough of them, it becomes a crap place to work.
  - ddingus 7y ago
    Actually, doing that means everyone getting a balanced say. Two way street. If you make it one way, it is all on you, and when that team says that, you get all the credit. Good or bad, and the team knows it. Will definitely throw you under a bus, given cause. If you make it a balanced discussion, everyone taking shared ownership, then it is on everyone. The difference shows up in two places: One, bad call. The team can come together, own it, and letting the bad call go is not so rough. The follow on discussion is rational and productive. The other one is getting that different point of view. Having that discussion sets great expectations. Being challenged, getting better, all that is welcome. A team that does this successfully tends to congeal and do extremely well. Play it how you want to play it, but I definitely prefer to have it all on the table, open, team discussion, frank, high value. Mix in a reluctance to blame and shame, favor choices outcomes and data and you get a team that can weather the good and bad, everyone helping everyone too. The lead is responsible for cultivating that culture, empowering people, resolving conflicts, etc. Also owns team business meetings, data, all that. Just saying.

BonesJustice 7y ago

One of the best interview experiences I had was with a firm where nearly everyone participates in the hiring process. I don’t know any details beyond what I experienced as a candidate, but they interview tons of people, and everyone who makes it all the way through ends up interacting with at least a handful of would-be peers, managers, and a C-level officer. I imagine that everyone is expected to dedicate a significant chunk of their time to the recruiting process. I don’t see how else they could pull it off. I suspect the arrangement is something like “everyone must dedicate one day every (other?) week to recruitment efforts.” Moreover, they had a fixed set of well-thought-out questions and exercises. For programmers, you write code in an actual IDE with one of their programmers sitting beside you. You can bounce ideas off them, you can consult the interwebs (as you might in real life), etc. The questions and programming challenges were relevant, and reasonable. It was an extremely well oiled machine, and it showed.

Frost1x 7y ago
Where is this utopia? I want to work there.
- wolco 7y ago
  Really that sounds terrible. Let the managers hire I need to finish my sprint.
  - hopler 7y ago
    If you want to be a static low level cog, that's fine, but don't expect go-getter leadership compensation.
- BonesJustice 7y ago
  Two Sigma in Manhattan.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]