4 ms·

Fred: "If they were fired or laid off, they would be a problem. Don't interview the unemployed." Wilma: "If they are currently working, they are disloyal. The

Fred: "If they were fired or laid off, they would be a problem. Don't interview the unemployed." Wilma: "If they are currently working, they are disloyal. The unemployed may have been laid off for no fault of their own. Don't interview the employed." Bjarne: "...Maybe instead of guessing, we should just interview the ones that seem qualified, and if they're unemployed we can ask what happened at their last job, and if they're employed we can ask why they're looking for a new job?"

alsocasey 16y ago
Most HR departments aren't burdened by an overabundance of common sense...
- ebiester 16y ago
  That's unfair. I know a few people who have worked HR, and they were largely of above average intelligence and aptitude. However, they are responsible for a wide variety of tasks, of which hiring and sourcing, from janitor to director to .NET programmer. They often lack the scope of the target domain, but that does not equate to a lack of common sense.
  - kujawa 16y ago
    That's funny. Just about every HR person I've ever worked with has (a) been convinced that they're Doing The Most Important Job In The World and (b) completely incompetent and unable to deal with geeks.
  - cema 16y ago
    they were largely of above average intelligence and aptitude From which pool? Certainly if you look at all people on this planet they may be above average, especially as related to computer technology. But if you take a sample from the technology-oriented people, they may well turn out to be at the bottom.
  - amorphid 16y ago
    Recruiting tools for HR people are typically designed by non-recruiters. Most HR department get overwhelmed by volume past a certain point but the tools don't eliminate bottlenecks.
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
If we take the "increasingly desperate" seriously, there's a simple explanation: lots of utterly unqualified jobless people applying. Sure, there are probably people who are both unemployed and good, but throwing all resumes from unemployed people in the trash may save a lot of time. I'm not saying this is morally right, or even smart; but it explains the observed behavior at least as well as "they would be a problem" (which, as you point out, isn't that strong an argument.)
- lutorm 16y ago
  I had a discussion with my friend who's in a tech hiring position, and he said exactly this: It's actually harder to hire now because all advertisements are flooded by less-qualified people. The recession may have increased the pool of qualified people, but it has decreased the S/N in the stack of applications far more.
- bartonfink 16y ago
  Isn't something akin to Fizzbuzz the obvious solution to this problem? An unemployed person whether skilled or unskilled is still unemployed and doesn't really have grounds for saying a test is beneath them. If we can filter out a large percentage of the unskilled with a litmus test like Fizzbuzz that should be a big win. Bigger, in fact, because we've stipulated that the unskilled are far more common than the skilled in today's labor market. I would think that this would be a much better solution than throwing out all resumes from the unemployed.
  - zumbojo 16y ago
    A barebones, 30-minute (5 minutes if you're good) FizzBuzz-esque puzzle given to candidates up front has drastically reduced the number phone interviews that leave me paralytically depressed at the state of CS education.
  - wccrawford 16y ago
    One of the companies I applied at recently required candidates to write a CRUD app from scratch. It was just 1 page, and really simple, but had to be done within 48 hours of receiving it. (Which obviously gives lots of time to still have a life and a job.) They also had a puzzle that you didn't have to code for, but had to tell HOW you could code for it. I think it took more time than you should ask of an applicant (they sure can't apply very many places!) but it definitely weeds out the unqualified. (And possibly the qualified that won't jump through hoops to work for average wages.)

alsocasey 16y ago

Most HR departments aren't burdened by an overabundance of common sense...

ebiester 16y ago
That's unfair. I know a few people who have worked HR, and they were largely of above average intelligence and aptitude. However, they are responsible for a wide variety of tasks, of which hiring and sourcing, from janitor to director to .NET programmer. They often lack the scope of the target domain, but that does not equate to a lack of common sense.
- kujawa 16y ago
  That's funny. Just about every HR person I've ever worked with has (a) been convinced that they're Doing The Most Important Job In The World and (b) completely incompetent and unable to deal with geeks.
- cema 16y ago
  they were largely of above average intelligence and aptitude From which pool? Certainly if you look at all people on this planet they may be above average, especially as related to computer technology. But if you take a sample from the technology-oriented people, they may well turn out to be at the bottom.
- amorphid 16y ago
  Recruiting tools for HR people are typically designed by non-recruiters. Most HR department get overwhelmed by volume past a certain point but the tools don't eliminate bottlenecks.

JoachimSchipper 16y ago

If we take the "increasingly desperate" seriously, there's a simple explanation: lots of utterly unqualified jobless people applying. Sure, there are probably people who are both unemployed and good, but throwing all resumes from unemployed people in the trash may save a lot of time. I'm not saying this is morally right, or even smart; but it explains the observed behavior at least as well as "they would be a problem" (which, as you point out, isn't that strong an argument.)

lutorm 16y ago
I had a discussion with my friend who's in a tech hiring position, and he said exactly this: It's actually harder to hire now because all advertisements are flooded by less-qualified people. The recession may have increased the pool of qualified people, but it has decreased the S/N in the stack of applications far more.
bartonfink 16y ago
Isn't something akin to Fizzbuzz the obvious solution to this problem? An unemployed person whether skilled or unskilled is still unemployed and doesn't really have grounds for saying a test is beneath them. If we can filter out a large percentage of the unskilled with a litmus test like Fizzbuzz that should be a big win. Bigger, in fact, because we've stipulated that the unskilled are far more common than the skilled in today's labor market. I would think that this would be a much better solution than throwing out all resumes from the unemployed.
- zumbojo 16y ago
  A barebones, 30-minute (5 minutes if you're good) FizzBuzz-esque puzzle given to candidates up front has drastically reduced the number phone interviews that leave me paralytically depressed at the state of CS education.
- wccrawford 16y ago
  One of the companies I applied at recently required candidates to write a CRUD app from scratch. It was just 1 page, and really simple, but had to be done within 48 hours of receiving it. (Which obviously gives lots of time to still have a life and a job.) They also had a puzzle that you didn't have to code for, but had to tell HOW you could code for it. I think it took more time than you should ask of an applicant (they sure can't apply very many places!) but it definitely weeds out the unqualified. (And possibly the qualified that won't jump through hoops to work for average wages.)