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> Most companies want malleable, fungible engineers. Most companies are not stable, something is usually in flux -- projects, teams, organizations, business mod

> Most companies want malleable, fungible engineers. Most companies are not stable, something is usually in flux -- projects, teams, organizations, business models. Most managers would rather have someone who can write a binary tree insertion in 30 minutes. Okay well that's a bit surprising. > But that is not how I personally hire, it's just reality. I'd rather have someone I can work with. In my experience, a lot of big open source contributors are not good colleagues. Are they going to focus on their job or spend their hours in the office working on their passion? Are they going to put their head down and get the work done or write essays debating in a mailing list? Interesting point that I hadn't really considered because I get paid to do what I want with Linux. That said, I'm not here to argue that open source developers are wonderful or this recruiter should have known who I was or been kissing my feet. > If we can't even have a conversation about algorithm complexity then there are better ways I can spend my time. You can in the right setting. I happen to think some companies probably take these to absurd levels that can't be a particularly good filter. But they have millions of applicants and have to filter somehow, so as long as they're up front about the process and treat applicants respectfully as you would any other human, they can do what they like. That's not what I'm complaining about either. > I really don't think this is true contempt, at least not usually. Recruiters, for better or for worse, vary widely. They are rarely good representations of the rest of the business. They're usually just sharks. A good recruiter is worth their weight in gold. But mostly they're ignorant, greedy, and have no care for you or the company you're interviewing for. The recruiter was not overtly rude and I'm sure they weren't intending to be contemptuous. I'm guessing the the practices and behaviors are so normalized that they might not even recognize there is any problem. So it's the industry as a whole which has some serious problems I think. > Look, I'll be honest. I've conducted nearly a thousand interviews. I've hired at FAANGs, unicorns, YC companies. I almost never look at a candidate's resume/CV. If I'm not doing a coding interview and I want you to go into detail about something you worked on, I might take a glance. But otherwise, I actually do not care. I don't have time to peruse your GitHub profile or past projects. I don't even have time. One in a hundred applicants even get interviews, and I'm often interviewing 2-3 times a week. If it's important to you, tell me about it! I'd rather talk to you than read about you! In my experience, the resume/CV/published work is not a strong signal for making a good hire. It sounds like it's already helped you get your foot in the door, I wouldn't recommend expecting it to do anything more. You don't even read the resumes of the 2-3 people per week you decide to interview? The resume is what the applicant wants to tell you about themselves. If I apply for a job, I would be sure to read the position description and read up a bit about the company, their work and people. But so long as you're honest and respectful of people, and don't think that your time is more valuable than theirs, each to their own. If you tell them not to spend any effort updating their resume because you prefer to cover it in the interview for example, I don't have a problem with not reading them if that's not how you like to do things. Honesty and respect is all I ask. > I'm sorry you had a shitty experience with this company, but I encourage you to be humble and give them the benefit of the doubt. Unless they're a tiny, boutique company with a lifestyle or OSS-focused culture, they are busy people. If they don't ask these questions, then more often than not, by the time we're in a room or on a call together it's a waste of both our time. It wasn't a huge ordeal for me that I'm bitter about. I was just flabbergasted that they thought nothing of taking an hour or so of my time without spending 2 minutes to read my email. They were willing to say anything to try hook me and get me into some process. It's not the right way to treat people even if it is a buyer's market, not even if they're a new graduate or have poor credentials.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
> You don't even read the resumes of the 2-3 people per week you decide to interview? The resume is what the applicant wants to tell you about themselves. If I apply for a job, I would be sure to read the position description and read up a bit about the company, their work and people. There's more here to unpack than I have time to so I'll be brief. The recruiter should screen your resume/background. If you're already being asked questions on a call or whatever then the resume has already done its job, in my opinion. I haven't used a resume in the last several jobs I've had, since I just connect through a former colleague and get fast tracked to a phone screen. Consider the power dynamics in applying for a job. Ideally you, as a candidate, want to exit with a mutually beneficial arrangement. Initially, the employer holds all the cards. You are relatively powerless. Consider if a resume holds information that helps a company hire fairly and hire well. (Beyond "do you work in this field" it does not, in my opinion.) You have to be a fit for them. Unless it's a two person startup, you're not going to change the company to meet your culture. You are the item being filtered for.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  I don't like to go here because I know very little about your methods from our discussion, I've easily misunderstood some things you've said, etc. and I'm certainly not talking about you as a person, you've obviously been completely polite and respectful of me and others here. (And the same goes for the recruiter in my story -- I'm sure he was not a horrible person either). And I don't want to throw out something you can't reasonably defend yourself against. So I'm talking entirely about my (surely incomplete and flawed) impression of what you've told me of your profession here. It comes across as being consistent with what workers dislike about the industry. Not reading people's resumes before you have them interview, preferring those who don't have obvious hobbies in the hope they will do more work, justifying this by talking about power dynamics and the applicant being powerless, they are "items" being filtered for, the love it or shove it attitude. So I'm sure outside the profession you don't think of people as numbers, and even in the profession you're having a side bar with me and my summary of impressions is probably uncharitable taken out of context. It could be that you are an unwitting or unwilling participant in the normalization of deviance in the HR industry regarding how to treat people -- this is just how things are done. And in what you say there are some kernels of difficult truth, for some companies and some applicants / employees. But it's not entirely and always true either. Firstly, no matter the power dynamics, people should be treated with politeness and respect. And personally I'm sure you do, but professionally I don't know that your industry does or necessarily even understands what that means. Secondly, that assertion about the power dynamic is not always true. I mean, if a company advertises an open position, then it's a signal that they want to buy (at least where I am I believe it's illegal to advertise for a position you have no intention of filling). So all else being equal, they're starting at a disadvantage right out of the gate if you make an adversarial analysis of it. It's true that FAANG companies have a power dynamic over 99.9% of their applicants because they have a huge oversupply. But for some fraction of that top 0.1% it is the opposite. They get head-hunted and fought over. Presumably the top talent in recruitment process are those who can find and sway and hire these people when the balance of power is not on their side. And down from FAANG and the top few companies in other industries, a lot of the time companies actually have much bigger problems attracting people. So the power dynamic can certainly fall the other way in any given hiring, as it was in my story. And the guy clearly didn't know how to cope with that. And I think that is also a symptom of this industry problem. I had the upper hand there. I was filtering him. Despite that, I was not rude, I was honest, didn't mislead him, I explained my position. And I read everything he wrote. It cost me very little to be polite and respectful.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago

> You don't even read the resumes of the 2-3 people per week you decide to interview? The resume is what the applicant wants to tell you about themselves. If I apply for a job, I would be sure to read the position description and read up a bit about the company, their work and people. There's more here to unpack than I have time to so I'll be brief. The recruiter should screen your resume/background. If you're already being asked questions on a call or whatever then the resume has already done its job, in my opinion. I haven't used a resume in the last several jobs I've had, since I just connect through a former colleague and get fast tracked to a phone screen. Consider the power dynamics in applying for a job. Ideally you, as a candidate, want to exit with a mutually beneficial arrangement. Initially, the employer holds all the cards. You are relatively powerless. Consider if a resume holds information that helps a company hire fairly and hire well. (Beyond "do you work in this field" it does not, in my opinion.) You have to be a fit for them. Unless it's a two person startup, you're not going to change the company to meet your culture. You are the item being filtered for.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
I don't like to go here because I know very little about your methods from our discussion, I've easily misunderstood some things you've said, etc. and I'm certainly not talking about you as a person, you've obviously been completely polite and respectful of me and others here. (And the same goes for the recruiter in my story -- I'm sure he was not a horrible person either). And I don't want to throw out something you can't reasonably defend yourself against. So I'm talking entirely about my (surely incomplete and flawed) impression of what you've told me of your profession here. It comes across as being consistent with what workers dislike about the industry. Not reading people's resumes before you have them interview, preferring those who don't have obvious hobbies in the hope they will do more work, justifying this by talking about power dynamics and the applicant being powerless, they are "items" being filtered for, the love it or shove it attitude. So I'm sure outside the profession you don't think of people as numbers, and even in the profession you're having a side bar with me and my summary of impressions is probably uncharitable taken out of context. It could be that you are an unwitting or unwilling participant in the normalization of deviance in the HR industry regarding how to treat people -- this is just how things are done. And in what you say there are some kernels of difficult truth, for some companies and some applicants / employees. But it's not entirely and always true either. Firstly, no matter the power dynamics, people should be treated with politeness and respect. And personally I'm sure you do, but professionally I don't know that your industry does or necessarily even understands what that means. Secondly, that assertion about the power dynamic is not always true. I mean, if a company advertises an open position, then it's a signal that they want to buy (at least where I am I believe it's illegal to advertise for a position you have no intention of filling). So all else being equal, they're starting at a disadvantage right out of the gate if you make an adversarial analysis of it. It's true that FAANG companies have a power dynamic over 99.9% of their applicants because they have a huge oversupply. But for some fraction of that top 0.1% it is the opposite. They get head-hunted and fought over. Presumably the top talent in recruitment process are those who can find and sway and hire these people when the balance of power is not on their side. And down from FAANG and the top few companies in other industries, a lot of the time companies actually have much bigger problems attracting people. So the power dynamic can certainly fall the other way in any given hiring, as it was in my story. And the guy clearly didn't know how to cope with that. And I think that is also a symptom of this industry problem. I had the upper hand there. I was filtering him. Despite that, I was not rude, I was honest, didn't mislead him, I explained my position. And I read everything he wrote. It cost me very little to be polite and respectful.