6 ms·

We made the interview process very simple and traditional in our current organisation. 30 minute chat, judge whether the person can do the job or is a good fit,

We made the interview process very simple and traditional in our current organisation. 30 minute chat, judge whether the person can do the job or is a good fit, if yes then offer a year contract with 1-3 months of evaluation period. Changing a job is risky also from the candidate's perspective so if the person is pretending, the lies will catch up. Most of the scenario it has worked pretty well. Sometimes, people who you think are not capable to do the job, often outperform expectations too. It is all about taking a risk on a person and giving them respect and a chance. We could have done leetcode, or pair programming session. It takes more energy and effort to do it from both sides and probability of finding a good candidate is more or less the same.

c4m 5y ago
This is super interesting! With a traditional interview and job offer process, a new employee can ramp up without worrying their job is on the line. And I think this is important, because it can take awhile to ramp up to full productivity, which can be stressful if the new employee feels like they're being evaluated already. Where I've worked, my new manager told me "Hey, welcome to the company. Please feel relaxed and take your time ramping up, you've already passed the interview and we're happy to have you here." With your process, how do you deal with people getting stressed out during ramp up or feeling imposter syndrome?
- dannyw 5y ago
  If you are a semi-experienced software engineer and haven't been deliberately lying during your interview, you shouldn't really worry about getting fired.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Wouldn't people go from stages similar to culture shock? 1) Wow, very interesting company. I didn't know so many things can be done in different ways than I'm used to. Very smart ideas out there. 2) OMG, this company is full with idiots. Everything is done the wrong way but somehow it has not collapsed yet. 3) Yeah okay, some stuff is the way it is because it would't be feasible any other way due to the quirks of the business. Other things are the way it is because of historical reasons and it doesn't make sense to re-do it at the moment. 4) You know what, I think I understand what this company is all about. It's not perfect but people are actually doing great things here. 5) OMG, this business is crime against humanity. It shouldn't exist, I don't know how I'm supposed to do this anymore. Money can't buy me. 6) Well, the world is not perfect and I understand the imperfections and I can function. It's not like they are doing it any better anywhere else. I grew to appreciate upper management, now I understand our business and I'm happy to do my part. 3 months should be enough for a nice honeymoon stage. Both sides can know that longterm relationship is achievable if they have a nice honeymoon stage.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
30 minutes? Not even an hour? I'm a senior and I need an hour to work my way through deep questions (not just technical) to see what real-world experience the candidate has while simultaneously judging cultural fit. I prefer an hour and a half to allow time for the candidate to feel more comfortable and come up with their own questions. I definitely agree with the taking risks part. Hiring should not be about the most talent or experience, but the best mix of qualities (including their own personal goals) to fit what you're hiring for.
- zoomablemind 5y ago
  > ...to see what real-world experience the candidate has while simultaneously judging cultural fit. Could you expand on how do you evaluate the cultural fit?
  - bonestamp2 5y ago
    Not OP but I often ask people their opinion on things (work/project related of course). I'm hoping to find some part of our domain where we disagree, to see how well they can have a civil discussion about something where we don't agree. To fit in on our team, everyone needs to be able to have mature discussions when we don't agree because disagreements happen a lot (and we end up with a better solution when we talk through them).
- debarshri 5y ago
  Generally it is 30 minutes meeting. If the we and candidate have a click we extend the meeting. I think works different for different organisations.
hogFeast 5y ago
This is something that I have never quite understood. In most of the places where software engineering is big, you have very loose labour laws. But companies treat hiring as if employees are signing on for life (compare this to how they treat downsizing). It is very strange, particularly given: the fact that almost no-one thinks current hiring practices are perfect, and the difficulty in producing a process that actually works (again, it seems odd that people hiring are engineers but take an approach to hiring that is very precisely wrong, rather than roughly correct...this confusion between precision and correctness seems common with engineer backgrounds).
- addicted 5y ago
  The cost of a bad hire is extremely high. It's not their salary or bonus, etc. It's how they can affect a team, the product, and the deliverables.
  - hogFeast 5y ago
    That makes no sense because, presumably, the alternative is to have no-one. If you don't hire someone because you are worried about the team, you don't need to hire anyone (this risk is, also, not avoidable anyway...if your product is so fragile, the risk isn't making a hiring mistake).
    - jaaron 5y ago
      Most small to midsized organizations would prefer to deal with false-negatives during hiring (missing out on good talent) than the issues of false-positives (bad hires). Often times (not always) no one is preferable to a bad hire. A bad hire can set everything back significantly more. Not only do you have to deal with new missed deadlines or poor quality work, but you often have to deal with the fallout with team members. Plus you're using up a lot of management/leadership hours dealing with it. The impact is even more important the more senior the role. Hiring a bad manager or lead can impact way more than hiring a bad fresh-out-of-school grad.
      - 5y ago
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> if yes then offer a year contract with 1-3 months of evaluation period Contract work is a great way to find good talent, but it's a different candidate pool. Lots of good candidates can't or won't give up their full time jobs to take a time-limited contract job. Those who can take contract work are often more talented and more in demand, meaning they're less worried about finding another job if the contract isn't renewed. Contract work (without benefits) is not an option for a large number of developers.
- debarshri 5y ago
  When I mean contract, here in Netherlands it refers to the offer. It is not a hourly contract position. It is position with all the benefits.
  - deanclatworthy 5y ago
    Except job security. If you join a company in Finland on a permanent contract, once you have passed the trial period (6 months nowadays), it's quite difficult to get rid of you. Changing jobs can be a hassle. It means learning new names, potentially changing private healthcare provider, getting new equipment and setup, learning new company politics.
    - debarshri 5y ago
      True, but here in Netherland, you can give out 3, 1 year offers before you forced to give a permanent contract.
      - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
        >True, but here in Netherland, you can give out 3, 1 year offers before you forced to give a permanent contract. I guess this just sounds weird to me. I would have to be pretty desperate to take a 1 year contract from a company that only paid me full-time wage as opposed to a contractors wage. I have to assume the Netherlands has a lot of developers seeking employment for this to work.
anonuser123456 5y ago
> Sometimes, people who you think are not capable to do the job, often outperform expectations too. I think everyone, employers and employees get too caught up in requirements and forget that humans are very general purpose. And in particular, highly capable and intelligent humans can rapidly acquire skills. In particular, if you are hiring someone for a potentially lengthy career, capacity for change seems incredibly more important than immediate skill.
- debarshri 5y ago
  Key problem is software engineers are generally bad at hiring. Hiring is a skillset of it's own. For example, you are technical writer for writing user facing docs, similarly I think it is specialized job where you use cognitive abilities to make a judgement, use psychology to see how the person will be in various situation.
  - nsgi 5y ago
    Unfortunately, the people who make a career out of recruiting people into jobs are even worse
mrtksn 5y ago
Trying to measure people is a very hard thing, especially people who are not at senior levels. IMHO, top talent can show some signs but other than that it is all about the motivation. Given the chance, motivated people can improve at great rates. The other thing that could matter is deep knowledge. I think I heard it from Steve Jobs, in one speech he was talking about hiring people with deep knowledge in a topic and not only because you can leverage that but because the person will know what it takes to acquire deep knowledge.
Sutanreyu 5y ago
Can I get a job? I've been on multiple stages of interviews, of which, some are 2+ hours of coding and even if it seems promising and that everyone's happy... I still end up getting looked over. Even programs like returnships that are specifically for people who've been out of the game for 1+ year, despite showing them that I can code and architect software... I'm still kept waiting and don't get in. I feeling pretty dispirited at this point.
- debarshri 5y ago
  What would be the best way to get in touch with you? Would love to have that "30 minute" chat with you?
da39a3ee 5y ago
That's completely irrelevant to the discussion. We're talking about positions for which many people will apply. You're not going to be able to eliminate enough with a 30 minute informal "chat". Honestly, I think your comment says more about how programming still isn't taken seriously in Europe to a large extent (just look at the salary gap vs US).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
webmobdev 5y ago
If I remember right, Google found something similar too. Everyone knows Google makes the candidates jumps through a lot of hoops to evaluate them and hire the "best and the brightest". But an internal study showed that apart from the really top talent (the rare few), all that technical knowledge doesn't matter much in the long run: > "Google originally set its hiring algorithms to sort for computer science students with top grades from elite science universities. In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills ..." > "Project Aristotle analyzes data on inventive and productive teams. Google takes pride in its A-teams, assembled with top scientists, each with the most specialized knowledge and able to throw down one cutting-edge idea after another. Its data analysis revealed, however, that the company’s most important and productive new ideas come from B-teams comprised of employees who don’t always have to be the smartest people in the room. Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills ..." Source: The surprising thing Google learned about its employees — and what it means for today’s students - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/20/the-surprising-thing-google-learned-about-its-employees-and-what-it-means-for-todays-students/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/...
- bsder 5y ago
  All that tells me is that Google is a big company and, like all big companies, "success" is dominated by politics. Politics never goes away unless you're the only employee, but the ratio of politics to technical ability that defines success changes drastically the smaller the company.
ndesaulniers 5y ago
How do I as a candidate compare job offers between an offer in hand vs a 1-3 contract that may or may not result in an offer?
stronglikedan 5y ago
Same. Except, we actually hire them as a full employee, with a 90 day "probation" period. That's just the 90 days we get where we can let them go for any reason without having to pay them unemployment. It's worked out well so far, especially for those tasked with doing the hiring.
lostapathy 5y ago
We tried similar in my last job. Interviews were often in the 45 minute range, but similar idea. We didn't get into deep technical questions. Rather, we asked questions meant to figure out if the person excited about the work or not. I can bring somebody up to speed on our language, but I can't train my way into curiosity or interest. For example, we asked what source control software they'd use if they were starting a project. Ultimately I don't care what they're into, so much as that they have used something and see enough value to have an opinion to offer - even if they've only ever used one tool.
InvOfSmallC 5y ago
Are you using this contract with juniors? Maybe this is a cultural difference but I would never accept a one year contract. Especially because In EU a permanent contract has a trial period in it.
- debarshri 5y ago
  One year contract is pretty normal in netherlands.
lmilcin 5y ago
Some people that don't have ability just "surf" projects. They try to stay as long as possible without contributing anything, then they find another one. I worked with people like that. They do it because they can't do honest work that will pay comparably to their scheme. The only way to deal with them is to not let them in.
m0llusk 5y ago
This reminds me of this historian's theory that WWII generals were unusually successful because of the dynamic way they were assigned and potentially reassigned within weeks: (US Berkeley Events 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE

c4m 5y ago

This is super interesting! With a traditional interview and job offer process, a new employee can ramp up without worrying their job is on the line. And I think this is important, because it can take awhile to ramp up to full productivity, which can be stressful if the new employee feels like they're being evaluated already. Where I've worked, my new manager told me "Hey, welcome to the company. Please feel relaxed and take your time ramping up, you've already passed the interview and we're happy to have you here." With your process, how do you deal with people getting stressed out during ramp up or feeling imposter syndrome?

dannyw 5y ago
If you are a semi-experienced software engineer and haven't been deliberately lying during your interview, you shouldn't really worry about getting fired.
mrtksn 5y ago
Wouldn't people go from stages similar to culture shock? 1) Wow, very interesting company. I didn't know so many things can be done in different ways than I'm used to. Very smart ideas out there. 2) OMG, this company is full with idiots. Everything is done the wrong way but somehow it has not collapsed yet. 3) Yeah okay, some stuff is the way it is because it would't be feasible any other way due to the quirks of the business. Other things are the way it is because of historical reasons and it doesn't make sense to re-do it at the moment. 4) You know what, I think I understand what this company is all about. It's not perfect but people are actually doing great things here. 5) OMG, this business is crime against humanity. It shouldn't exist, I don't know how I'm supposed to do this anymore. Money can't buy me. 6) Well, the world is not perfect and I understand the imperfections and I can function. It's not like they are doing it any better anywhere else. I grew to appreciate upper management, now I understand our business and I'm happy to do my part. 3 months should be enough for a nice honeymoon stage. Both sides can know that longterm relationship is achievable if they have a nice honeymoon stage.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

30 minutes? Not even an hour? I'm a senior and I need an hour to work my way through deep questions (not just technical) to see what real-world experience the candidate has while simultaneously judging cultural fit. I prefer an hour and a half to allow time for the candidate to feel more comfortable and come up with their own questions. I definitely agree with the taking risks part. Hiring should not be about the most talent or experience, but the best mix of qualities (including their own personal goals) to fit what you're hiring for.

zoomablemind 5y ago
> ...to see what real-world experience the candidate has while simultaneously judging cultural fit. Could you expand on how do you evaluate the cultural fit?
- bonestamp2 5y ago
  Not OP but I often ask people their opinion on things (work/project related of course). I'm hoping to find some part of our domain where we disagree, to see how well they can have a civil discussion about something where we don't agree. To fit in on our team, everyone needs to be able to have mature discussions when we don't agree because disagreements happen a lot (and we end up with a better solution when we talk through them).
debarshri 5y ago
Generally it is 30 minutes meeting. If the we and candidate have a click we extend the meeting. I think works different for different organisations.

hogFeast 5y ago

This is something that I have never quite understood. In most of the places where software engineering is big, you have very loose labour laws. But companies treat hiring as if employees are signing on for life (compare this to how they treat downsizing). It is very strange, particularly given: the fact that almost no-one thinks current hiring practices are perfect, and the difficulty in producing a process that actually works (again, it seems odd that people hiring are engineers but take an approach to hiring that is very precisely wrong, rather than roughly correct...this confusion between precision and correctness seems common with engineer backgrounds).

addicted 5y ago
The cost of a bad hire is extremely high. It's not their salary or bonus, etc. It's how they can affect a team, the product, and the deliverables.
- hogFeast 5y ago
  That makes no sense because, presumably, the alternative is to have no-one. If you don't hire someone because you are worried about the team, you don't need to hire anyone (this risk is, also, not avoidable anyway...if your product is so fragile, the risk isn't making a hiring mistake).
  - jaaron 5y ago
    Most small to midsized organizations would prefer to deal with false-negatives during hiring (missing out on good talent) than the issues of false-positives (bad hires). Often times (not always) no one is preferable to a bad hire. A bad hire can set everything back significantly more. Not only do you have to deal with new missed deadlines or poor quality work, but you often have to deal with the fallout with team members. Plus you're using up a lot of management/leadership hours dealing with it. The impact is even more important the more senior the role. Hiring a bad manager or lead can impact way more than hiring a bad fresh-out-of-school grad.
    - 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> if yes then offer a year contract with 1-3 months of evaluation period Contract work is a great way to find good talent, but it's a different candidate pool. Lots of good candidates can't or won't give up their full time jobs to take a time-limited contract job. Those who can take contract work are often more talented and more in demand, meaning they're less worried about finding another job if the contract isn't renewed. Contract work (without benefits) is not an option for a large number of developers.

debarshri 5y ago
When I mean contract, here in Netherlands it refers to the offer. It is not a hourly contract position. It is position with all the benefits.
- deanclatworthy 5y ago
  Except job security. If you join a company in Finland on a permanent contract, once you have passed the trial period (6 months nowadays), it's quite difficult to get rid of you. Changing jobs can be a hassle. It means learning new names, potentially changing private healthcare provider, getting new equipment and setup, learning new company politics.
  - debarshri 5y ago
    True, but here in Netherland, you can give out 3, 1 year offers before you forced to give a permanent contract.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      >True, but here in Netherland, you can give out 3, 1 year offers before you forced to give a permanent contract. I guess this just sounds weird to me. I would have to be pretty desperate to take a 1 year contract from a company that only paid me full-time wage as opposed to a contractors wage. I have to assume the Netherlands has a lot of developers seeking employment for this to work.

anonuser123456 5y ago

> Sometimes, people who you think are not capable to do the job, often outperform expectations too. I think everyone, employers and employees get too caught up in requirements and forget that humans are very general purpose. And in particular, highly capable and intelligent humans can rapidly acquire skills. In particular, if you are hiring someone for a potentially lengthy career, capacity for change seems incredibly more important than immediate skill.

debarshri 5y ago
Key problem is software engineers are generally bad at hiring. Hiring is a skillset of it's own. For example, you are technical writer for writing user facing docs, similarly I think it is specialized job where you use cognitive abilities to make a judgement, use psychology to see how the person will be in various situation.
- nsgi 5y ago
  Unfortunately, the people who make a career out of recruiting people into jobs are even worse

mrtksn 5y ago

Trying to measure people is a very hard thing, especially people who are not at senior levels. IMHO, top talent can show some signs but other than that it is all about the motivation. Given the chance, motivated people can improve at great rates. The other thing that could matter is deep knowledge. I think I heard it from Steve Jobs, in one speech he was talking about hiring people with deep knowledge in a topic and not only because you can leverage that but because the person will know what it takes to acquire deep knowledge.

Sutanreyu 5y ago

Can I get a job? I've been on multiple stages of interviews, of which, some are 2+ hours of coding and even if it seems promising and that everyone's happy... I still end up getting looked over. Even programs like returnships that are specifically for people who've been out of the game for 1+ year, despite showing them that I can code and architect software... I'm still kept waiting and don't get in. I feeling pretty dispirited at this point.

debarshri 5y ago
What would be the best way to get in touch with you? Would love to have that "30 minute" chat with you?

da39a3ee 5y ago

That's completely irrelevant to the discussion. We're talking about positions for which many people will apply. You're not going to be able to eliminate enough with a 30 minute informal "chat". Honestly, I think your comment says more about how programming still isn't taken seriously in Europe to a large extent (just look at the salary gap vs US).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

webmobdev 5y ago

If I remember right, Google found something similar too. Everyone knows Google makes the candidates jumps through a lot of hoops to evaluate them and hire the "best and the brightest". But an internal study showed that apart from the really top talent (the rare few), all that technical knowledge doesn't matter much in the long run: > "Google originally set its hiring algorithms to sort for computer science students with top grades from elite science universities. In 2013, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills ..." > "Project Aristotle analyzes data on inventive and productive teams. Google takes pride in its A-teams, assembled with top scientists, each with the most specialized knowledge and able to throw down one cutting-edge idea after another. Its data analysis revealed, however, that the company’s most important and productive new ideas come from B-teams comprised of employees who don’t always have to be the smartest people in the room. Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills ..." Source: The surprising thing Google learned about its employees — and what it means for today’s students - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/20/the-surprising-thing-google-learned-about-its-employees-and-what-it-means-for-todays-students/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/...

bsder 5y ago
All that tells me is that Google is a big company and, like all big companies, "success" is dominated by politics. Politics never goes away unless you're the only employee, but the ratio of politics to technical ability that defines success changes drastically the smaller the company.

ndesaulniers 5y ago

How do I as a candidate compare job offers between an offer in hand vs a 1-3 contract that may or may not result in an offer?

stronglikedan 5y ago

Same. Except, we actually hire them as a full employee, with a 90 day "probation" period. That's just the 90 days we get where we can let them go for any reason without having to pay them unemployment. It's worked out well so far, especially for those tasked with doing the hiring.

lostapathy 5y ago

We tried similar in my last job. Interviews were often in the 45 minute range, but similar idea. We didn't get into deep technical questions. Rather, we asked questions meant to figure out if the person excited about the work or not. I can bring somebody up to speed on our language, but I can't train my way into curiosity or interest. For example, we asked what source control software they'd use if they were starting a project. Ultimately I don't care what they're into, so much as that they have used something and see enough value to have an opinion to offer - even if they've only ever used one tool.

InvOfSmallC 5y ago

Are you using this contract with juniors? Maybe this is a cultural difference but I would never accept a one year contract. Especially because In EU a permanent contract has a trial period in it.

debarshri 5y ago
One year contract is pretty normal in netherlands.

lmilcin 5y ago

Some people that don't have ability just "surf" projects. They try to stay as long as possible without contributing anything, then they find another one. I worked with people like that. They do it because they can't do honest work that will pay comparably to their scheme. The only way to deal with them is to not let them in.

m0llusk 5y ago

This reminds me of this historian's theory that WWII generals were unusually successful because of the dynamic way they were assigned and potentially reassigned within weeks: (US Berkeley Events 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE