4 ms·

This is a fact. A false positive is much more costly to a company than a false negative (this is also why we allow candidates to reapply).

justin_oaks 6y ago
How do you measure the cost of a false negative?
- theptip 6y ago
  The highest-order term is the opportunity cost of not having a developer now, and having to wait until the next one to pass the interview process.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  It's not explicitly quantifiable. Imagine you're a team of 2 top performers. Your workload is increasing, so your manager gets approval to hire a 3rd person so you can take on more work. Unfortunately, your manager is fooled by a charismatic person who greatly exaggerated their experience on their resume, to the point that they work about 1/4 as fast as the rest of the team and tend to code by trial-and-error. Suddenly, the expectations for your team's output have increased by 50%, but the 3rd person can only really contribute another 10-20% at most. By extension, your job just got harder. Worse yet, the average talent of the team has now gone down significantly. You spend more time fixing bugs and chasing bad work. You're also faced with the fact that you're probably getting paid the same as the over-leveled person next to you. This breeds resentment, wastes time, and ultimately leads to good people quitting for other jobs. Alternatively, imagine if the company hired quickly and fired quickly. Every time a new person showed up, you had no idea if they were actually good or if they were just rushed through the interview process. You also don't know if they're going to be around after the 3 month probationary period, so why bother building a relationship? High turnover like this tends to destroy morale.
pseudalopex 6y ago
Depends on the company. Google can afford to reject great candidates. A small company might have to settle for a mediocre candidate 6 months after rejecting a good candidate.
deleted 6y ago
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justin_oaks 6y ago

How do you measure the cost of a false negative?

theptip 6y ago
The highest-order term is the opportunity cost of not having a developer now, and having to wait until the next one to pass the interview process.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It's not explicitly quantifiable. Imagine you're a team of 2 top performers. Your workload is increasing, so your manager gets approval to hire a 3rd person so you can take on more work. Unfortunately, your manager is fooled by a charismatic person who greatly exaggerated their experience on their resume, to the point that they work about 1/4 as fast as the rest of the team and tend to code by trial-and-error. Suddenly, the expectations for your team's output have increased by 50%, but the 3rd person can only really contribute another 10-20% at most. By extension, your job just got harder. Worse yet, the average talent of the team has now gone down significantly. You spend more time fixing bugs and chasing bad work. You're also faced with the fact that you're probably getting paid the same as the over-leveled person next to you. This breeds resentment, wastes time, and ultimately leads to good people quitting for other jobs. Alternatively, imagine if the company hired quickly and fired quickly. Every time a new person showed up, you had no idea if they were actually good or if they were just rushed through the interview process. You also don't know if they're going to be around after the 3 month probationary period, so why bother building a relationship? High turnover like this tends to destroy morale.

pseudalopex 6y ago

Depends on the company. Google can afford to reject great candidates. A small company might have to settle for a mediocre candidate 6 months after rejecting a good candidate.

deleted 6y ago

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