4 ms·

Number 1 wouldn't have to be a problem if we changed the social contract. The literal contract (nearly always) states your employment is at will. You can be let

Number 1 wouldn't have to be a problem if we changed the social contract. The literal contract (nearly always) states your employment is at will. You can be let go at any time, for any reason or no reason at all. Employers should be more willing to (1) take a risk on a hire, and (2) let them go if it doesn't work out. Then, hiring doesn't have to be this grandiose, talk to 20 people over 2 days in 20 30-minute session, but actually the VP has a final call, sort of decisions.

xyzelement 6y ago
JMTQp8lwXL, LOL. So your proposal is instead of thoroughly interviewing, just give jobs out randomly and then fire people? That works aside for the fact that it's horrible for everyone: - The employee: they presumably quit another job to take this one and now they are out on their ass because the employer didn't bother to test for proper fit. - The team: they invest in training the new person, get to like them, only to have them fired. Meanwhile they are short a person as hiring effort has to be restarted so they lose a ton of time understaffed. - The company: dealing with all this terrible churn, stopping and starting the hiring effort, is there still severance in this world? How does unemployment work? This is just the craziest proposal I've ever heard. It's like saying "dating is too onerous, people should just marry randos and not hesitate to get divorced if it turns out the other person brushes their teeth in an annoying way."
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I certainly don't think this is the craziest proposal I've ever heard. Netflix, for example, is quite transparent that they have a "hire and fire" culture, and I for one wish that many tech companies would be more willing to have open, honest conversations with their employees and ensure everyone is up to whatever bar they set. I've seen it become incredibly demoralizing for the rest of the team when subpar performers don't get let go, and I've also seen rather disingenuous uses of "layoffs" as an excuse to finally cut people who should have been cut long ago. Still, there are practicalities that can make "hire fast, fire fast" difficult in the real world. First, many countries outside the US have much more onerous requirements to fire someone. Even in the US, it's quite trivial for any employee to take legal action if they think they've been let go unfairly, so most HR departments will require many months of detailed documentation (e.g. email conversation, performance reviews, PIPs) before someone can be let go.
  - xyzelement 6y ago
    I by no means advocate for keeping bad employees around. quite the opposite. My point is that there's no reason to somehow induce your company to have more bad employees by watering down interviewing. Literally no upside.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  I think you may be mis-representing what I am saying. You can generally sense if someone could be a possibly good fit in 20 minutes of conversation. The ROI of an additional 500 minutes of conversation doesn't change the error bars. They could be great leetcoders, but not a good colleague. Hopefully the first 20 minutes gave you a sense of their soft skills, but even those can be mis-represented in small bursts that are un-representative of how the individual typically communicates on the job. You're saying I am saying we should randomly give jobs. I am not. I am saying it should be, at max, a 1 hour phone call. Background checks can verify past employment and job titles. Just talk to them about work matters. Ask a fizzbuzz if you must. No additional data will meaningfully tell you much more anyways.
  - ternaryoperator 6y ago
    In this and your previous post, you greatly under-appreciate the cost and disruption of a bad hire. Not to mention the time lost bringing a new hire up-to-speed on the company's way of doing things. A bad hire can be very expensive and disruptive. If a few more hours of interviews can avoid a bad hire, I think almost all experienced managers would opt for the extra interviews.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > If a few more hours of interviews can avoid a bad hire Can it, though? I'm sure it can increase the manager subjective feeling of confidence, but does it verifiably, objectively produce better results?
      - ternaryoperator 6y ago
        I've uncovered craziness in candidates late in the process when they are no longer guarded about what they're saying. So, for myself, it has indeed produced objectively better results. I expect that most seasoned managers have had similar experiences.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      If your work culture allowed you to remove bad hires, then the company would not experience the 'cost and disruption'. The problem isn't the time invested getting employees up to speed: you'll do that with good or bad employees. The problem is, bad employees stay, and often for long periods of time. Have you experienced the bureaucratic nightmare of formally dismissing someone? It's something we all would like to avoid, but clearly today's filtering is ineffective if our organizations are filled with dead weight.

xyzelement 6y ago

JMTQp8lwXL, LOL. So your proposal is instead of thoroughly interviewing, just give jobs out randomly and then fire people? That works aside for the fact that it's horrible for everyone: - The employee: they presumably quit another job to take this one and now they are out on their ass because the employer didn't bother to test for proper fit. - The team: they invest in training the new person, get to like them, only to have them fired. Meanwhile they are short a person as hiring effort has to be restarted so they lose a ton of time understaffed. - The company: dealing with all this terrible churn, stopping and starting the hiring effort, is there still severance in this world? How does unemployment work? This is just the craziest proposal I've ever heard. It's like saying "dating is too onerous, people should just marry randos and not hesitate to get divorced if it turns out the other person brushes their teeth in an annoying way."

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I certainly don't think this is the craziest proposal I've ever heard. Netflix, for example, is quite transparent that they have a "hire and fire" culture, and I for one wish that many tech companies would be more willing to have open, honest conversations with their employees and ensure everyone is up to whatever bar they set. I've seen it become incredibly demoralizing for the rest of the team when subpar performers don't get let go, and I've also seen rather disingenuous uses of "layoffs" as an excuse to finally cut people who should have been cut long ago. Still, there are practicalities that can make "hire fast, fire fast" difficult in the real world. First, many countries outside the US have much more onerous requirements to fire someone. Even in the US, it's quite trivial for any employee to take legal action if they think they've been let go unfairly, so most HR departments will require many months of detailed documentation (e.g. email conversation, performance reviews, PIPs) before someone can be let go.
- xyzelement 6y ago
  I by no means advocate for keeping bad employees around. quite the opposite. My point is that there's no reason to somehow induce your company to have more bad employees by watering down interviewing. Literally no upside.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
I think you may be mis-representing what I am saying. You can generally sense if someone could be a possibly good fit in 20 minutes of conversation. The ROI of an additional 500 minutes of conversation doesn't change the error bars. They could be great leetcoders, but not a good colleague. Hopefully the first 20 minutes gave you a sense of their soft skills, but even those can be mis-represented in small bursts that are un-representative of how the individual typically communicates on the job. You're saying I am saying we should randomly give jobs. I am not. I am saying it should be, at max, a 1 hour phone call. Background checks can verify past employment and job titles. Just talk to them about work matters. Ask a fizzbuzz if you must. No additional data will meaningfully tell you much more anyways.
- ternaryoperator 6y ago
  In this and your previous post, you greatly under-appreciate the cost and disruption of a bad hire. Not to mention the time lost bringing a new hire up-to-speed on the company's way of doing things. A bad hire can be very expensive and disruptive. If a few more hours of interviews can avoid a bad hire, I think almost all experienced managers would opt for the extra interviews.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > If a few more hours of interviews can avoid a bad hire Can it, though? I'm sure it can increase the manager subjective feeling of confidence, but does it verifiably, objectively produce better results?
    - ternaryoperator 6y ago
      I've uncovered craziness in candidates late in the process when they are no longer guarded about what they're saying. So, for myself, it has indeed produced objectively better results. I expect that most seasoned managers have had similar experiences.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    If your work culture allowed you to remove bad hires, then the company would not experience the 'cost and disruption'. The problem isn't the time invested getting employees up to speed: you'll do that with good or bad employees. The problem is, bad employees stay, and often for long periods of time. Have you experienced the bureaucratic nightmare of formally dismissing someone? It's something we all would like to avoid, but clearly today's filtering is ineffective if our organizations are filled with dead weight.