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So... smart and gets things done. Honestly that's all I look for on a resume. You also have to talk about it in an interview. I couldn't care less if you can i

So... smart and gets things done. Honestly that's all I look for on a resume. You also have to talk about it in an interview. I couldn't care less if you can invert a binary tree. One of the greatest developers I've ever worked with, I hired straight out of college. He graduated with an electrical engineering degree but his senior year he took a course in Java and liked it and decided to be a programmer. Couldn't tell me the first thing about programming but I could tell he had the chops to figure things out and that he had a passion for things getting done.

sdoering 5y ago
I just came of a call with a a potential hire. I recommended her to a second round because of three things: * She would culturally fit while still bringing something new to the tam * She doesn't know Web Analytics, but has done market research, built html prototypes and has basic knowledge in JS, python, html, SPSS and some other things * She is self motivated and shows this because she actually learned all these skills in her last job because she wanted to and it made her job more easy. I strongly believe she would learn the technical ins and outs of Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics quite fast. The rest is not important. I don't care that she has not worked with AA oder GA. If it were my decision I would have hired her on the spot.
- stuff4ben 5y ago
  The self-motivation aspect you mentioned is also critical. It's these soft questions that reveal so much about a person's character that speak to me as much as or sometimes greater than certifications or degrees do. It's also why resume screening done by HR drones or worse, AI, are so problematic. Unless I need someone to do an exact thing extremely fast, I'd much prefer a generalist with a sharp mind, proven "gets shit done" attitude and experience, and is motivated to do the right thing.
- jasonpeacock 5y ago
  > She would culturally fit What does this mean? This is a very loaded term, and without qualitative data it results in biased hiring. Usually, it means "she's young, white, and college educated, just like the rest of us". People don't need to culturally fit to excel at a role.
  - mediaman 5y ago
    I agree, "cultural fit" often has biased results. But "cultural fit" is still necessary but must be defined carefully. If a company doesn't care about culture fit when hiring people, it will become a very bad place to work. Questions to address when determining cultural fit: - How does this person resolve conflict with peers? With managers? - How does this person advocate for change in the workplace? - Does this person share credit, and praise others? - How does this person take responsibility when something bad happens? - How does this person respond to something they heard but don't quite understand? Do they pretend to understand and go on, or stop and clarify at the risk of sounding unknowledgeable? Questions that sometimes get confused for cultural fit: - Does this person watch the same television shows as me? - Will this person understand the same cultural in-jokes as me? - Did this person go to the same college as me? - Did this person have a similar life journey as me (religion, or where they grew up, etc)?
    - bawolff 5y ago
      > Questions that sometimes get confused for cultural fit I think the reason it gets confused is because you're saying "cultural fit" but what you really mean is "is this person an asshole"
    - sdoering 5y ago
      > How does this person respond to something they heard but don't quite understand? Do they pretend to understand and go on, or stop and clarify at the risk of sounding unknowledgeable? This. I would additionally also say, how does this person react when shown they misunderstood/misinterpreted something. How do they deal with being wrong about something.
    - cromka 5y ago
      What you described is what used to be (still is?) called “soft skills”. This is not, from my experience, what people understand by “cultural fit”. At least in NYC it really meant exactly all that you mentioned on your second list.
  - sdoering 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
strgcmc 5y ago
The trouble is, this "je ne sais quoi" that you speak of, that you "could tell he had the chops to figure things out", is unquantifiable and almost totally subjective. To be a bit blunt and cynical, this way of evaluating candidates basically boils down to, "do I like this candidate?" Your criteria for liking someone happens to be that you look for these nebulous "chops for figuring things out". What about the other interviewers at your company? What kind of stuff would they like? Would they evaluate "chops" the same way you do? Or, just imagine that you're interviewing a hypothetically equivalent candidate who also had the same drive and "chops to figure things out", but who happened to be less fluent in conversational English. Are you so sure that you'd be able to pick up on the same underlying "signal" about their chops, if it was obscured by some language fluency noise? Hiring is a Hard Problem, and there's a big gap between well-intentioned intuition and translating that into robust processes.
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  There is something to be said about the value of human intuition, though. While it may be fallible, part of what makes hiring a hard problem is that many of the things that distinguish good candidates just aren’t objectively measurable.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > There is something to be said about the value of human intuition, IMO, the something to be said about it is that people have a good intuition about people who remind them of their family, friends, and celebrities they admire; and a bad intuition about people who don't, and remind them of people seen as criminals or bad guys. Obliquely related: http://www.skinema.com/evil/ http://www.skinema.com/evil/
- Rd6n6 5y ago
  > unquantifiable and almost totally subjective That’s what intuition and judgment calls are for. What does your intuition say is a good way to approach hiring? Does it maybe tell you to figure out relevant skills and ask the candidate about those? Yet if you ignore that voice, you end up timing how long it takes them to invert binary trees from memory instead Everybody on earth who is good at what they do relies utterly on their carefully trained intuition
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>So... smart and gets things done. So... young and has no family or other important time-consuming commitments. That's what we're looking for!
- stuff4ben 5y ago
  So by your reckoning, old people with families and a life outside of work are... stupid and don't do anything? Are you serious? Being smart and showing you have great motivation to get things done in NO WAY relates to how old you are, if you have a family, or a life outside of work.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Most places I've seen want people to work extra hours consistently. Or at a bare minimum reward people working extra to the detriment of those working the normal hours. For example, Bob works 8 hours per day and completes 80 units of work but Steve works 10 hours per day and completes 90 units of work. If you get enough 'Steves' in the organization then the remaining 'Bobs' look like slackers. If you can't work 10 hours per day because you have a family, then it puts you at a disadvantage. I've seen it happen. I was told that if I wanted a 7% raise/promotion that I needed to increase my working hours by 13%. Why would I take a rate cut for a position with more expectations and longer hours? My conclusion is that many managers do not think, or that they like to play dumb.
    - stuff4ben 5y ago
      Sorry you've had that experience. Most places I've worked at, actually -every place- I've worked at, has rewarded me for doing the job and doing it well. Do I occasionally work a few hours extra here and there? Sure, but that's the exception not the rule. I'm mid-40s and have kids and a life outside of work. I don't do extra unless I'm self-motivated to do it or it's a rare requirement from the boss to get something done.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    if you had read the article the guy worked 11 hour days and then came home and learned to program. >As a commercial and residential plumber in metro Atlanta, he pulled 11-hour days working some of the dirtiest, stinkiest problems in the country. from third paragraph. later on >Over the weeks that followed, Daniel forced himself to sit down at his computer after those 11-hour days. He grappled with Python and Javascript in the back of his work truck. One minute he was wrangling sewer pipelines - the next minute, CI/CD pipelines. So I don't know, are you serious?
kcplate 5y ago
Frankly I’m not surprised at all that a plumber that is an effective troubleshooter could port that skill to the digital realm in a short period. Being an adept troubleshooter is pretty much the top requirement for the trade (that and a strong resistance to malodorous work environments). I’d have been much more impressed and surprised to read an article profiling a programmer that became an effective plumber in the same amount of time. Yep, I’m saying it—y’all just ain’t as smart as the plumbers out there…and most of you are kind of…”soft” in the physical department and probably would run screaming from the physical demands of the gig. (I am including myself in the negative assessment above)

sdoering 5y ago

I just came of a call with a a potential hire. I recommended her to a second round because of three things: * She would culturally fit while still bringing something new to the tam * She doesn't know Web Analytics, but has done market research, built html prototypes and has basic knowledge in JS, python, html, SPSS and some other things * She is self motivated and shows this because she actually learned all these skills in her last job because she wanted to and it made her job more easy. I strongly believe she would learn the technical ins and outs of Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics quite fast. The rest is not important. I don't care that she has not worked with AA oder GA. If it were my decision I would have hired her on the spot.

stuff4ben 5y ago
The self-motivation aspect you mentioned is also critical. It's these soft questions that reveal so much about a person's character that speak to me as much as or sometimes greater than certifications or degrees do. It's also why resume screening done by HR drones or worse, AI, are so problematic. Unless I need someone to do an exact thing extremely fast, I'd much prefer a generalist with a sharp mind, proven "gets shit done" attitude and experience, and is motivated to do the right thing.
jasonpeacock 5y ago
> She would culturally fit What does this mean? This is a very loaded term, and without qualitative data it results in biased hiring. Usually, it means "she's young, white, and college educated, just like the rest of us". People don't need to culturally fit to excel at a role.
- mediaman 5y ago
  I agree, "cultural fit" often has biased results. But "cultural fit" is still necessary but must be defined carefully. If a company doesn't care about culture fit when hiring people, it will become a very bad place to work. Questions to address when determining cultural fit: - How does this person resolve conflict with peers? With managers? - How does this person advocate for change in the workplace? - Does this person share credit, and praise others? - How does this person take responsibility when something bad happens? - How does this person respond to something they heard but don't quite understand? Do they pretend to understand and go on, or stop and clarify at the risk of sounding unknowledgeable? Questions that sometimes get confused for cultural fit: - Does this person watch the same television shows as me? - Will this person understand the same cultural in-jokes as me? - Did this person go to the same college as me? - Did this person have a similar life journey as me (religion, or where they grew up, etc)?
  - bawolff 5y ago
    > Questions that sometimes get confused for cultural fit I think the reason it gets confused is because you're saying "cultural fit" but what you really mean is "is this person an asshole"
  - sdoering 5y ago
    > How does this person respond to something they heard but don't quite understand? Do they pretend to understand and go on, or stop and clarify at the risk of sounding unknowledgeable? This. I would additionally also say, how does this person react when shown they misunderstood/misinterpreted something. How do they deal with being wrong about something.
  - cromka 5y ago
    What you described is what used to be (still is?) called “soft skills”. This is not, from my experience, what people understand by “cultural fit”. At least in NYC it really meant exactly all that you mentioned on your second list.
- sdoering 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

strgcmc 5y ago

The trouble is, this "je ne sais quoi" that you speak of, that you "could tell he had the chops to figure things out", is unquantifiable and almost totally subjective. To be a bit blunt and cynical, this way of evaluating candidates basically boils down to, "do I like this candidate?" Your criteria for liking someone happens to be that you look for these nebulous "chops for figuring things out". What about the other interviewers at your company? What kind of stuff would they like? Would they evaluate "chops" the same way you do? Or, just imagine that you're interviewing a hypothetically equivalent candidate who also had the same drive and "chops to figure things out", but who happened to be less fluent in conversational English. Are you so sure that you'd be able to pick up on the same underlying "signal" about their chops, if it was obscured by some language fluency noise? Hiring is a Hard Problem, and there's a big gap between well-intentioned intuition and translating that into robust processes.

wbsss4412 5y ago
There is something to be said about the value of human intuition, though. While it may be fallible, part of what makes hiring a hard problem is that many of the things that distinguish good candidates just aren’t objectively measurable.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > There is something to be said about the value of human intuition, IMO, the something to be said about it is that people have a good intuition about people who remind them of their family, friends, and celebrities they admire; and a bad intuition about people who don't, and remind them of people seen as criminals or bad guys. Obliquely related: http://www.skinema.com/evil/ http://www.skinema.com/evil/
Rd6n6 5y ago
> unquantifiable and almost totally subjective That’s what intuition and judgment calls are for. What does your intuition say is a good way to approach hiring? Does it maybe tell you to figure out relevant skills and ask the candidate about those? Yet if you ignore that voice, you end up timing how long it takes them to invert binary trees from memory instead Everybody on earth who is good at what they do relies utterly on their carefully trained intuition

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>So... smart and gets things done. So... young and has no family or other important time-consuming commitments. That's what we're looking for!

stuff4ben 5y ago
So by your reckoning, old people with families and a life outside of work are... stupid and don't do anything? Are you serious? Being smart and showing you have great motivation to get things done in NO WAY relates to how old you are, if you have a family, or a life outside of work.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Most places I've seen want people to work extra hours consistently. Or at a bare minimum reward people working extra to the detriment of those working the normal hours. For example, Bob works 8 hours per day and completes 80 units of work but Steve works 10 hours per day and completes 90 units of work. If you get enough 'Steves' in the organization then the remaining 'Bobs' look like slackers. If you can't work 10 hours per day because you have a family, then it puts you at a disadvantage. I've seen it happen. I was told that if I wanted a 7% raise/promotion that I needed to increase my working hours by 13%. Why would I take a rate cut for a position with more expectations and longer hours? My conclusion is that many managers do not think, or that they like to play dumb.
  - stuff4ben 5y ago
    Sorry you've had that experience. Most places I've worked at, actually -every place- I've worked at, has rewarded me for doing the job and doing it well. Do I occasionally work a few hours extra here and there? Sure, but that's the exception not the rule. I'm mid-40s and have kids and a life outside of work. I don't do extra unless I'm self-motivated to do it or it's a rare requirement from the boss to get something done.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  if you had read the article the guy worked 11 hour days and then came home and learned to program. >As a commercial and residential plumber in metro Atlanta, he pulled 11-hour days working some of the dirtiest, stinkiest problems in the country. from third paragraph. later on >Over the weeks that followed, Daniel forced himself to sit down at his computer after those 11-hour days. He grappled with Python and Javascript in the back of his work truck. One minute he was wrangling sewer pipelines - the next minute, CI/CD pipelines. So I don't know, are you serious?

kcplate 5y ago

Frankly I’m not surprised at all that a plumber that is an effective troubleshooter could port that skill to the digital realm in a short period. Being an adept troubleshooter is pretty much the top requirement for the trade (that and a strong resistance to malodorous work environments). I’d have been much more impressed and surprised to read an article profiling a programmer that became an effective plumber in the same amount of time. Yep, I’m saying it—y’all just ain’t as smart as the plumbers out there…and most of you are kind of…”soft” in the physical department and probably would run screaming from the physical demands of the gig. (I am including myself in the negative assessment above)