5 ms·

“it's time to start considering that the apparently broken thing actually serves a purpose you can't see to someone you don't know.” That sounds a little like

“it's time to start considering that the apparently broken thing actually serves a purpose you can't see to someone you don't know.” That sounds a little like conspiracy theory. My theory is that hiring is just really hard and it’s difficult to do that at scale. I know people who are really good at interviewing. I think I myself can interview reasonably for people who have to work with me. But that takes a lot of time and energy. So “specialists” from HR take over. But they don’t understand the real requirements for the job so they have to come up with a lot standardized indirect measures which don’t work well.

blacksqr 6y ago
> My theory is that hiring is just really hard Not that hard. Talk to people like human beings and examine their previous work and employment history.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  You conveniently cut off the important part: > hiring is just really hard and it’s difficult to do that at scale Yes, talking to people about their previous work and employment history is a good way to judge their fit for a position. It also takes about half a working day of 2-3 people each time to do it properly.
  - blacksqr 6y ago
    Like Soylent Green, a software company is people. If you have hiring authority and you don't think it's worth your time to spend half a day a couple of times a week to get the right people into your organization, you have the wrong job.
    - MauranKilom 6y ago
      I can confirm that putting in this time is imperative to getting the right people hired. But if you require that any engineer involved should spend a quarter to half of their week on hiring, and that you yourself consider anyone with less commitment unsuitable, don't you agree that scalability becomes a problem? How many half-recruiters, half-engineers do you think are available, compared to the overall need for engineers with hiring authority? I don't have data on the former, but it's apparent to me that, if you hire people to do this full-time instead, you're hiring a recruiter. That's what gets you exactly the system everybody seems to complain about.

blacksqr 6y ago

> My theory is that hiring is just really hard Not that hard. Talk to people like human beings and examine their previous work and employment history.

MauranKilom 6y ago
You conveniently cut off the important part: > hiring is just really hard and it’s difficult to do that at scale Yes, talking to people about their previous work and employment history is a good way to judge their fit for a position. It also takes about half a working day of 2-3 people each time to do it properly.
- blacksqr 6y ago
  Like Soylent Green, a software company is people. If you have hiring authority and you don't think it's worth your time to spend half a day a couple of times a week to get the right people into your organization, you have the wrong job.
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    I can confirm that putting in this time is imperative to getting the right people hired. But if you require that any engineer involved should spend a quarter to half of their week on hiring, and that you yourself consider anyone with less commitment unsuitable, don't you agree that scalability becomes a problem? How many half-recruiters, half-engineers do you think are available, compared to the overall need for engineers with hiring authority? I don't have data on the former, but it's apparent to me that, if you hire people to do this full-time instead, you're hiring a recruiter. That's what gets you exactly the system everybody seems to complain about.