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You say that and I’ve seen several companies in practice echo what you’re saying. However, I fail to understand why they don’t simply make better use of contrac

You say that and I’ve seen several companies in practice echo what you’re saying. However, I fail to understand why they don’t simply make better use of contracts and probationary periods to solve that specific problem.

kinkrtyavimoodh 5y ago
Contacts in what sense? Probationary periods could work but it's a coordination problem. Such periods are the norm in Europe (coz it's very hard to fire someone) but for an at-will place like the US, given that the industry doesn't really do probationary periods in general, any employer who starts doing it would be at a disadvantage.
- xcambar 5y ago
  I think GP meant "reference check"
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    I meant “contract” but you’ve brought up another good idea.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  *contracts In the sense of offering signing bonuses for term lengths that get repo’d if the contract length is broken.
danjac 5y ago
The problem of a probationary period is that it pushes all the risk to the employee. While I agree interviewing has gotten ridiculous with all the leetcoding and ten rounds of interviews and FAANG cargo-culting and whatnot, one small advantage - assuming I'm not desperate for a paycheck - is that it gives me, as a prospective employee, time to consider and withdraw my application if I see too many red flags or I just prefer the devil I know. A short interview process with a probation period on the other hand is a big roll of the dice. Maybe I'm not able to ramp up on time, or make a silly mistake due to unfamiliarity with the codebase or underlying business logic. Maybe I don't get on with the team or manager. Maybe I'm going to be dumped into a doomed death march project on day 1. I could find myself unemployed a month later with an embarrassing gap in the resume. Perhaps on the other hand a better interview process (not longer, just have properly trained people and constantly improve the process with feedback) would save us all that pain.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  In a world where short, high-risk interviews dominated, you could just go roll the dice again. It would be a negative signal (why is @foo interviewing after only 60 days?), but nowhere near as bad as “why is @foo still interviewing after 6 months in this job market?!”.

kinkrtyavimoodh 5y ago

Contacts in what sense? Probationary periods could work but it's a coordination problem. Such periods are the norm in Europe (coz it's very hard to fire someone) but for an at-will place like the US, given that the industry doesn't really do probationary periods in general, any employer who starts doing it would be at a disadvantage.

xcambar 5y ago
I think GP meant "reference check"
- jimbob45 5y ago
  I meant “contract” but you’ve brought up another good idea.
jimbob45 5y ago
*contracts In the sense of offering signing bonuses for term lengths that get repo’d if the contract length is broken.

danjac 5y ago

The problem of a probationary period is that it pushes all the risk to the employee. While I agree interviewing has gotten ridiculous with all the leetcoding and ten rounds of interviews and FAANG cargo-culting and whatnot, one small advantage - assuming I'm not desperate for a paycheck - is that it gives me, as a prospective employee, time to consider and withdraw my application if I see too many red flags or I just prefer the devil I know. A short interview process with a probation period on the other hand is a big roll of the dice. Maybe I'm not able to ramp up on time, or make a silly mistake due to unfamiliarity with the codebase or underlying business logic. Maybe I don't get on with the team or manager. Maybe I'm going to be dumped into a doomed death march project on day 1. I could find myself unemployed a month later with an embarrassing gap in the resume. Perhaps on the other hand a better interview process (not longer, just have properly trained people and constantly improve the process with feedback) would save us all that pain.

sokoloff 5y ago
In a world where short, high-risk interviews dominated, you could just go roll the dice again. It would be a negative signal (why is @foo interviewing after only 60 days?), but nowhere near as bad as “why is @foo still interviewing after 6 months in this job market?!”.