4 ms·
I love this. I think evaluating/interviewing is hard, should be much more about experience and past projects but so what if the industry has got it wrong, so wh
by wellpast 7y ago
I love this. I think evaluating/interviewing is hard, should be much more about experience and past projects but so what if the industry has got it wrong, so what you have to study a little to get the job? The world is what it is. I think criticizing this from a ‘we could do better as an industry’ perspective is productive but from a personal perspective — today — what is going to get you hired is playing the game as it is.
- uoaei 7y ago"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the software engineer's great stumbling block in his stride toward hiring fairness is not the Genius Asshole or the Bullshitter Who Can't Code, but the anonymous internet commenter, who is more devoted to 'pragmatism' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of reform to a positive peace which is the presence of fairness..."
- wellpast 7y agoNobody is striving toward ‘hiring fairness’ ... don’t believe any person who says that’s what they are after. Better outcomes, better industry productivity, sure. But ‘hiring fairness’?
- Youcandothis 7y agoHiring fairness sounds to me like the same as hiring for better outcomes and industry productivity.
- pmiller2 7y agoI agree. Fairness in the sense of “equal ability to do the job results in the same outcome” would, indeed, get us there. The problem is that interviews don’t actually represent ability to do the job, not in this industry, at least.
- wellpast 7y agoThey must to a significant degree or businesses would tank. The (open) question is, can we do better?
- pmiller2 7y agoI’m on a team with 8 other people right now. All 9 of us are quite capable at our jobs. We all got through some sort of interview process to get there, of course, but that just means we weren’t weeded out. We weren’t false positives, in other words. But, why did we get through? Maybe the process really is capable of separating wheat from the chaff. Maybe the process works 85% of the time, and the 1 time it didn’t work in recent memory is someone who has already left the company. Maybe only capable people self select into the process for some reason. Maybe we’ve been phenomenally lucky. The point is, just because a filter allows the right people through doesn’t mean it’s necessarily any good.
- wellpast 7y ago> The point is, just because a filter allows the right people through doesn’t mean it’s necessarily any good. I define “good” and “right people” to be that which produces efficiency, quality, innovation in the business. So a good filter to me is good wrt these outcomes. The industry is starving for ‘good people’ and ‘good outcomes’ and we should work to optimize this imo. Any other measure divorced from outcome to me seems... weird.
- pmiller2 7y agoI wish I could talk about our recruiting funnel numbers. It is the farthest thing from efficient. Triplebyte claims the industry average onsite pass rate is in the neighborhood of 30% (https://triplebyte.com/blog/12-000-engineers-evaluated https://triplebyte.com/blog/12-000-engineers-evaluated). I suspect that the huge majority of those who fail onsites get jobs. Is that efficient?
- 7y ago
- goatlover 7y agoSo anonymous internet comments are inhibiting the fair hiring practices of software engineers? Is there a study establishing the causal link between these two, because it sounds like spurious BS.
- perfmode 7y agoAmen.
- s_m_t 7y agoDude, really?
- aiisjustanif 7y agoYes