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> "get the best people for the job" Absolutely I want the best person for the job. How do you measure that? What's the metric? Years of experience, years of re

by keanzu 7y ago

> "get the best people for the job" Absolutely I want the best person for the job. How do you measure that? What's the metric? Years of experience, years of relevant experience, whether or not it says "Google" somewhere on their resume, height, attractiveness? Sure some of my examples seem crazy but studies show that taller, attractive people are generally more successful. There's no accurate measure you can use to assess "best" reliably. A lot of hiring is rather a lot more subjective than anyone admits. Not my employer though, we only hire "the best".

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
Height may be genetic, but attractiveness is associated with discipline. You've got to have the discipline to diet, exercise, and consistently ignore marketing that makes you want to eat more.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Wrong on both counts. A significant factor for height is nutrition, which is why average/median height increases often accompany increases in prosperity. It's only among the already-prosperous that genetic factors come to the fore. Let's look at attractiveness. Of course diet and exercise help Does everyone have the same dietary freedom or metabolism? Does everyone have the same capacity for exercise? Of course not. There are literally thousands of medical conditions that can have an effect here, as well as social factors. Is a particular color/texture of hair or skin more attractive? Both genetics (including race) and medical conditions can render someone "less attractive" by those measures. Then there's makeup, clothing, social norms (of which "thin is in" is a particularly pernicious example), etc. Implying that attractiveness can be a proxy for discipline is absurd. Why would anyone try to excuse "pretty people" bias?
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    If you compare across, say, Google employees in their 20's, the difference between fat people and healthy people is 99% discipline.
    - notacoward 7y ago
      This has been a rough day. Thanks for the laugh.
- ykevinator 7y ago
  Sounds self elevating
nscalf 7y ago
No one reasonably hires without deciding what traits are important for a role. Building a whole new division? You probably want someone with experience in the field, preferably building divisions. Working on maintaining legacy code in a specific language? A domain expert would go far for that. It's not too hard to measure what is valuable for many roles. Beyond all that, best is relative, and an aggregate of all of your skills. This isn't about hiring "the best", it's about hiring the best that you can find. And evaluating that is totally subjective. But you know what isn't an objective measure of "the best"? If your skin looks different than mine. That's a measure of almost nothing about the quality of your character, work ethic, or intelligence.

by keanzu 7y ago

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago

Height may be genetic, but attractiveness is associated with discipline. You've got to have the discipline to diet, exercise, and consistently ignore marketing that makes you want to eat more.

notacoward 7y ago
Wrong on both counts. A significant factor for height is nutrition, which is why average/median height increases often accompany increases in prosperity. It's only among the already-prosperous that genetic factors come to the fore. Let's look at attractiveness. Of course diet and exercise help Does everyone have the same dietary freedom or metabolism? Does everyone have the same capacity for exercise? Of course not. There are literally thousands of medical conditions that can have an effect here, as well as social factors. Is a particular color/texture of hair or skin more attractive? Both genetics (including race) and medical conditions can render someone "less attractive" by those measures. Then there's makeup, clothing, social norms (of which "thin is in" is a particularly pernicious example), etc. Implying that attractiveness can be a proxy for discipline is absurd. Why would anyone try to excuse "pretty people" bias?
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  If you compare across, say, Google employees in their 20's, the difference between fat people and healthy people is 99% discipline.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    This has been a rough day. Thanks for the laugh.
ykevinator 7y ago
Sounds self elevating

nscalf 7y ago

No one reasonably hires without deciding what traits are important for a role. Building a whole new division? You probably want someone with experience in the field, preferably building divisions. Working on maintaining legacy code in a specific language? A domain expert would go far for that. It's not too hard to measure what is valuable for many roles. Beyond all that, best is relative, and an aggregate of all of your skills. This isn't about hiring "the best", it's about hiring the best that you can find. And evaluating that is totally subjective. But you know what isn't an objective measure of "the best"? If your skin looks different than mine. That's a measure of almost nothing about the quality of your character, work ethic, or intelligence.