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> Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python inste

> Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python instead of Java, or had been working on a C++ project one year less than the person leaving the team. Companies paying top dollar for the best engineering talent aren’t having inexperienced HR drones or automated software filter resumes. They have dedicated recruiters who have a proven track record of being able to properly interpret resumes and work with candidates to accurately understand their backgrounds. They’re also very good at working with engineering hiring managers to understand the actual requirements of the job. That’s more or less what John Carmack is trying to say here: The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass/fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position. I’ve only worked for one company that had inexperienced HR people screen resumes. It was standard practice among engineering hiring managers at that company to use external recruiters for this reason. Hiring managers aren’t dumb. Companies paying high six figures or more for engineers aren’t dumb. We don’t want to miss out on good candidates. I personally read every single resume that comes through applications to my job postings, and I know I’m not alone. Hiring is hard, and it’s not worth letting someone else screw it up just to save a little bit of time. On the other hand, if you’re applying to a local dinosaur of a tech company that pays below-average compensation and takes 3 months to respond to candidates, all bets are off. You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes. But you also don’t want to work there if you can avoid it.

ipaddr 5y ago
Companies paying top dollar for the best engineering talent aren’t having inexperienced HR drones or automated software filter resumes. They have dedicated recruiters who have a proven track record of being able to properly interpret resumes and work with candidates to accurately understand their backgrounds. Like using Leetcode popular at these top places you mentioned.
srvmshr 5y ago
>You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes. I was interviewed by MedTronics in 2015 by a HR fellow who asked me if I used 'C++11'. He had trouble believing that the 'C++11' was a language standard (adding features to the language) & not a language by itself.
- dtech 5y ago
  Why did you feel the need to be pedantic about that? It's not a strange question to ask if someone has experience in Blub 7 or its popular framework Blubbimate.
ctvo 5y ago
> That’s more or less what John Carmack is trying to say here: The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass/fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position. Then remove them? It says “Minimum Requirements”. It’s already proven that women, minorities and others on the outside don’t apply when they don’t meet these qualifications. You thinking that recruiters know what they’re doing at these companies, then we can only conclude they’re doing it on purpose.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Incredibly cynical. What if we helped minorities, women, and others on the outside meet the qualifications instead of lowering the standards? And yes that also includes rewriting some of the qualifications to be more realistic, I am not discounting that. This comment is coming off as incendiary, judging by the quick clapback style of response to simply the first clause. I want to emphasis I also believe requirements should be rewritten to be more realistic and pertinent to the job. The solution in my view is to cater to the people who do take job requirements seriously (which to my understanding is the reason why women for example are excluded more) rather than just throw your hands up and say "job requirements are a joke"
  - ctvo 5y ago
    Hello. Rewriting the requirements to be more realistic is lowering the “standard”. No one, anywhere has said we shouldn’t be doing more. This conversation is around gatekeeping by listing unrealistic minimum requirements.
  - whymauri 5y ago
    >instead of lowering the standards? If John Carmack doesn't meet the standards, then you probably shouldn't worry about 'lowering them.' As if making tech more accessible requires lowering any standards, anyways.
    - addingnumbers 5y ago
      If John Carmack doesn't meet the standards, then you probably SHOULD think about 'lowering them.'
mycall 5y ago
> On the other hand, if you’re applying to a local dinosaur of a tech company that pays below-average compensation and takes 3 months to respond to candidates, all bets are off. The key word here is tech company. There are many other sectors that employee below average labor for HR recruitment but the work an engineer can do there can be quite amazing, especially when the engineer realizes there is lots of room to innovate and optimize their workforce and what/how they output.
Wildgoose 5y ago
My brother has a very senior role (non-IT). Probably in the top 5 in the UK, possibly even top 3, out of perhaps 30-35 jobs? Proven long-term record. He was going to transfer to a different company and was told that company rules meant he had to go through HR "as a formality". He was blocked by his HR interviewer on the grounds that he was too successful and therefore wouldn't be "hungry" enough for such a competitive position. He couldn't believe it. They didn't want someone with a proven record of repeated long-term success? The person who was trying to recruit him was furious, but as my brother said, this was indicative of a wider problem, and so he declined to move there. Instead he won his Industry Award for the following year at the company he did move to....
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- javajosh 5y ago
  I would interpret that as a face-saving way for the HR person to say: you're too good to work here, and will feel alienated and alone surrounded by comparative mediocrity and incompetence. Then, as a cherry on top, they demonstrated the truth of the implicit assertion. In the end, I'd say that HR person did your brother a solid.
  - michaelbuckbee 5y ago
    I'd interpret it differently as well - that the HR person realized that the compensation they could pay would not match what was required and they didn't want to deal with woo'ing the candidate only to offer a lowball offer they would refuse.
  - yellowstuff 5y ago
    Based on the story it's also entirely possible that the HR person just disliked the guy for some unrelated reason, or had someone else in mind for the role, and came up a plausible excuse for the rejection.
  - watwut 5y ago
    I would interpret it as HR excluding him due to something else, possibly for random reason and then making rationalization/excuse.
qez 5y ago
> The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass/fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position. Then they are mislabeled as "minimum requirements." They must be relabeled as "preferred requirements."
michaelt 5y ago
> Hiring managers aren’t dumb. Companies paying high six figures or more for engineers aren’t dumb. Are you looking at the same Facebook job advert as me?
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
I think where things fall down is on hiring junior candidates, or people re-entering the job market after years out of it (like my wife). "Minimum requirements" in those cases actually have a very deleterious impact because they filter out people with intrinsic motivation or talent but slightly different experience backgrounds. Either by the HR person themselves (who usually doesn't care much because it's a junior position, etc.) or the candidate (who gets put off by the min requirements label).

ipaddr 5y ago

Companies paying top dollar for the best engineering talent aren’t having inexperienced HR drones or automated software filter resumes. They have dedicated recruiters who have a proven track record of being able to properly interpret resumes and work with candidates to accurately understand their backgrounds. Like using Leetcode popular at these top places you mentioned.

srvmshr 5y ago

>You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes. I was interviewed by MedTronics in 2015 by a HR fellow who asked me if I used 'C++11'. He had trouble believing that the 'C++11' was a language standard (adding features to the language) & not a language by itself.

dtech 5y ago
Why did you feel the need to be pedantic about that? It's not a strange question to ask if someone has experience in Blub 7 or its popular framework Blubbimate.

ctvo 5y ago

> That’s more or less what John Carmack is trying to say here: The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass/fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position. Then remove them? It says “Minimum Requirements”. It’s already proven that women, minorities and others on the outside don’t apply when they don’t meet these qualifications. You thinking that recruiters know what they’re doing at these companies, then we can only conclude they’re doing it on purpose.

dimitrios1 5y ago
Incredibly cynical. What if we helped minorities, women, and others on the outside meet the qualifications instead of lowering the standards? And yes that also includes rewriting some of the qualifications to be more realistic, I am not discounting that. This comment is coming off as incendiary, judging by the quick clapback style of response to simply the first clause. I want to emphasis I also believe requirements should be rewritten to be more realistic and pertinent to the job. The solution in my view is to cater to the people who do take job requirements seriously (which to my understanding is the reason why women for example are excluded more) rather than just throw your hands up and say "job requirements are a joke"
- ctvo 5y ago
  Hello. Rewriting the requirements to be more realistic is lowering the “standard”. No one, anywhere has said we shouldn’t be doing more. This conversation is around gatekeeping by listing unrealistic minimum requirements.
- whymauri 5y ago
  >instead of lowering the standards? If John Carmack doesn't meet the standards, then you probably shouldn't worry about 'lowering them.' As if making tech more accessible requires lowering any standards, anyways.
  - addingnumbers 5y ago
    If John Carmack doesn't meet the standards, then you probably SHOULD think about 'lowering them.'

mycall 5y ago

> On the other hand, if you’re applying to a local dinosaur of a tech company that pays below-average compensation and takes 3 months to respond to candidates, all bets are off. The key word here is tech company. There are many other sectors that employee below average labor for HR recruitment but the work an engineer can do there can be quite amazing, especially when the engineer realizes there is lots of room to innovate and optimize their workforce and what/how they output.

Wildgoose 5y ago

My brother has a very senior role (non-IT). Probably in the top 5 in the UK, possibly even top 3, out of perhaps 30-35 jobs? Proven long-term record. He was going to transfer to a different company and was told that company rules meant he had to go through HR "as a formality". He was blocked by his HR interviewer on the grounds that he was too successful and therefore wouldn't be "hungry" enough for such a competitive position. He couldn't believe it. They didn't want someone with a proven record of repeated long-term success? The person who was trying to recruit him was furious, but as my brother said, this was indicative of a wider problem, and so he declined to move there. Instead he won his Industry Award for the following year at the company he did move to....

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
javajosh 5y ago
I would interpret that as a face-saving way for the HR person to say: you're too good to work here, and will feel alienated and alone surrounded by comparative mediocrity and incompetence. Then, as a cherry on top, they demonstrated the truth of the implicit assertion. In the end, I'd say that HR person did your brother a solid.
- michaelbuckbee 5y ago
  I'd interpret it differently as well - that the HR person realized that the compensation they could pay would not match what was required and they didn't want to deal with woo'ing the candidate only to offer a lowball offer they would refuse.
- yellowstuff 5y ago
  Based on the story it's also entirely possible that the HR person just disliked the guy for some unrelated reason, or had someone else in mind for the role, and came up a plausible excuse for the rejection.
- watwut 5y ago
  I would interpret it as HR excluding him due to something else, possibly for random reason and then making rationalization/excuse.

qez 5y ago

> The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass/fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position. Then they are mislabeled as "minimum requirements." They must be relabeled as "preferred requirements."

michaelt 5y ago

> Hiring managers aren’t dumb. Companies paying high six figures or more for engineers aren’t dumb. Are you looking at the same Facebook job advert as me?

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

I think where things fall down is on hiring junior candidates, or people re-entering the job market after years out of it (like my wife). "Minimum requirements" in those cases actually have a very deleterious impact because they filter out people with intrinsic motivation or talent but slightly different experience backgrounds. Either by the HR person themselves (who usually doesn't care much because it's a junior position, etc.) or the candidate (who gets put off by the min requirements label).