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Then why the heck would you say that on your job postings, or not pitch that it be changed to whomever runs HR? As a hiring manager you probably dream of findi

Then why the heck would you say that on your job postings, or not pitch that it be changed to whomever runs HR? As a hiring manager you probably dream of finding more people like your best performers, yet this makes it harder. I agree there is value in a theoretical foundation and would also encourage people to pursue it. However it seems like a separate point from the reality of the market today. Even historically, could you have lost out on a chance to hire Faraday or Ramanujan because they were scared off from applying by boilerplate text?

wvenable 7y ago
On the other side, the vast majority of applicants are completely unqualified. Do I want to increase that problem? Not at all. To be fair, I may have lost people with lower confidence in their abilities and a greater fear of failure. That doesn't sound like a great loss. I'd rather encourage people to have confidence and get over their fear than lower the requirements. It's not as if these aren't important requirements; everyone in the department has a CS degree right now. If we put background in a technology, it's because we use that technology. But I'd open to the possibility that an applicant who isn't a perfect match might still be a great candidate. That's all. I suspect most hiring managers feel the same way.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  It sounds like the best way to land a job is to talk directly to you and show you what (a candidate) is capable of, filters and applications be damned!
- WhitneyLand 7y ago
  Are you not conflating two related but separate hiring issues here? 1) Are there diamonds to be found in the hiring pool of candidates without a CS degree? 2) Whats the most efficient way to hire people in an era where a hiring managers or company HR can receive thousands of resumes for a position? You're refuting my point on the basis of (2) for which I made no claim. To that point, yes obviously any process chosen has to be practical and take into account many requirements. However (2) is an issue whether or not you screen based on CS degree. Moreover, it doesn't necessarily get worse. Any major change to evaluation process should be holistic and take into account number of evaluations, time and money invested to evaluate, and where resources are spent in the process. You could come out the same or better in time and complexity, hence "process optimization". Lots of approaches have been tried and some are anecdotally successful. The biggest obstacle I've seen to improving process is scaling it up to large numbers. What's optimal for organizations of every size and requirement set can't be written in stone. I would just hope that whatever the policy at my organization would have been, still someone would have whispered Faraday's name to me, along with countless other folks who wont be famous but who we've all seen make great contributions.
- samstokes 7y ago
  I may have lost people with lower confidence in their abilities and a greater fear of failure. That HBR article I linked in the other thread actually addresses that. Their survey indicates that people are deterred less by lack of confidence in their abilities, and more by lack of confidence in your process to assess their abilities in the absence of a credential. The top-given reason (from both women and men) for not applying was “I didn’t think they would hire me since I didn’t meet the qualifications, and I didn’t want to waste my time and energy.” Now maybe you're actively looking for people who hustle and won't take no for an answer (which isn't quite the same thing as "confident in their abilities"). Maybe that's your team culture, or your company culture. That's certainly your choice if so.
  - wvenable 7y ago
    There is a lot of projection going on here. The simple statement that the requirements are not always (or even often) hard factors that can never be overridden should not be controversial in the least. That's true in all aspects of life. So if you don't have a degree, you probably shouldn't let that hold you back. And maybe because you don't have a degree you should hustle a bit more than those who do. Again, that shouldn't be controversial.

wvenable 7y ago

On the other side, the vast majority of applicants are completely unqualified. Do I want to increase that problem? Not at all. To be fair, I may have lost people with lower confidence in their abilities and a greater fear of failure. That doesn't sound like a great loss. I'd rather encourage people to have confidence and get over their fear than lower the requirements. It's not as if these aren't important requirements; everyone in the department has a CS degree right now. If we put background in a technology, it's because we use that technology. But I'd open to the possibility that an applicant who isn't a perfect match might still be a great candidate. That's all. I suspect most hiring managers feel the same way.

quaquaqua1 7y ago
It sounds like the best way to land a job is to talk directly to you and show you what (a candidate) is capable of, filters and applications be damned!
WhitneyLand 7y ago
Are you not conflating two related but separate hiring issues here? 1) Are there diamonds to be found in the hiring pool of candidates without a CS degree? 2) Whats the most efficient way to hire people in an era where a hiring managers or company HR can receive thousands of resumes for a position? You're refuting my point on the basis of (2) for which I made no claim. To that point, yes obviously any process chosen has to be practical and take into account many requirements. However (2) is an issue whether or not you screen based on CS degree. Moreover, it doesn't necessarily get worse. Any major change to evaluation process should be holistic and take into account number of evaluations, time and money invested to evaluate, and where resources are spent in the process. You could come out the same or better in time and complexity, hence "process optimization". Lots of approaches have been tried and some are anecdotally successful. The biggest obstacle I've seen to improving process is scaling it up to large numbers. What's optimal for organizations of every size and requirement set can't be written in stone. I would just hope that whatever the policy at my organization would have been, still someone would have whispered Faraday's name to me, along with countless other folks who wont be famous but who we've all seen make great contributions.
samstokes 7y ago
I may have lost people with lower confidence in their abilities and a greater fear of failure. That HBR article I linked in the other thread actually addresses that. Their survey indicates that people are deterred less by lack of confidence in their abilities, and more by lack of confidence in your process to assess their abilities in the absence of a credential. The top-given reason (from both women and men) for not applying was “I didn’t think they would hire me since I didn’t meet the qualifications, and I didn’t want to waste my time and energy.” Now maybe you're actively looking for people who hustle and won't take no for an answer (which isn't quite the same thing as "confident in their abilities"). Maybe that's your team culture, or your company culture. That's certainly your choice if so.
- wvenable 7y ago
  There is a lot of projection going on here. The simple statement that the requirements are not always (or even often) hard factors that can never be overridden should not be controversial in the least. That's true in all aspects of life. So if you don't have a degree, you probably shouldn't let that hold you back. And maybe because you don't have a degree you should hustle a bit more than those who do. Again, that shouldn't be controversial.