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It's hard to get meaningful answers to these really general properties you're after: > communicate well This has so many elements and is really only fully vis

by Jach 5y ago

It's hard to get meaningful answers to these really general properties you're after: > communicate well This has so many elements and is really only fully visible after you work with someone for a while. Sure you'll catch some red flag issues, but such issues likely to be caught are also likely to be caught no matter what you're talking about, so this can't be the primary purpose of the screen. > motivations for looking for work Is not wanting to trade services in exchange for money in a valued environment enough? But sure, aspects of this for most people can be an important subgoal, it's just important to set expectations on how easy it is to game and how unreliable the signals will be. I've sometimes found it useful to probe seriousness and a sense of longevity commitment (if that matters, and can be incentivized without needing to probe), and some of their values, and whether their idea of your actual environment matches your reality and how much that matters (the candidate should be actively participating in this with their own questions though), but again reliable signals are hard. Once I helped screen a manager who was thinking of coming back (he had previously left a couple years prior) to the company to manage a new project, and got out of him when asking what might stop him from leaving again in a year the vague (if true and agreeable) "you never know what opportunities life will bring" and concluded he wasn't that committed for the role I felt needed someone willing to put at least a few years at it. It surprised another guy who talked to him, but he hadn't probed into that. > logistical Seems this could be handled before any conversation takes place by clear communication about whether the role is remote or not, how much office time is required, whether relocation support is offered, and so on. > compensation Also can be handled before any conversation by having salary ranges for the role. If they're too low, a good candidate might go through with things anyway and try to negotiate beyond the range. > getting all the deal-killers out of the way is the point of the phone screen Ultimately I agree with you on this, but I think the biggest deal-killer for a technical role is: the candidate cannot actually program at a level you require. I'm a fan of Yegge's process (https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-phone-screen-questions https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-pho...) and warnings and have used my own variant for what we cared about more, but frankly if your screening doesn't require some level of coding at least on the level of fizzbuzz or easier (but adjust to requirements/expectations), sooner or later you're going to bring someone in for a full round and discover they can't program, wasting possibly considerable time (more than five hours when adding it up for everyone involved) as well as the opportunity cost.

codingdave 5y ago
I think you and I probably agree on much of, this so take all this as discussion, not argument... that being said -- Wanting to trade services for money is not enough. Everyone wants that. But good candidates want more nuance to it. More autonomy, more meaningful work, more leadership. Or less of all those things. If I just need a code monkey who will crank out the tasks, I don't want a visionary tech lead. I may want a code monkey who aspires to be a visionary tech lead as we grow. And vice-versa. If I need someone to come in, lead, and build a team, I don't want a code monkey who is looking to just coast doing easy corporate CRUD apps. Software dev roles have a massive variety in their levels of autonomy, leadership, and growth. So do the candidates. The phone screen may miss many things, but you can at least match up on those factors. > If they're too low, a good candidate might go through with things anyway and try to negotiate beyond the range. This struck me as an interesting take. I tend to envision good candidates as the one who command enough market value to simply filter low salary ranges out. Why bother negotiating past their range, instead of finding a role that is in my range. There is no lack of job opps out there right now. I've even done that just in the last few months - found jobs that sounded ideal, but declined to continue once I realized the salary was too low. I did so politely, and invited them to call me if they ever have roles at a higher salary. I also agree that more could be done in emails and phone calls, making the phone screen less critical and better for all involved. But I believe the key to making that world is to fully lose the concept of a "full round" of interviews. Especially now that everyone has remote work experience, lets make the process more fluid - more calls and emails, less massive half-day interview marathons.
- Jach 5y ago
  Right, I think we're probably in agreement on a lot too. I do think if you're looking for a specific thing (whether it's a code monkey, or a visionary, or someone that seems to have the potential to grow into someone amazing, or a Postgres expert who can help you solve your particular scaling issues right now and then go away) you should try and purpose your interviews for figuring out whether those things are present to sufficient degree, and ignore/deprioritize getting data on other things. Though I also think even with the large variety of roles that exist, they all need an ability to program and solve the types of problems that the business is working on and is likely to encounter, so this should be tested/verified as early as possible, and that a lot of people are fooling themselves in thinking they need much more than that or that the other things they claim to care about actually matter. Consulting gigs (like the postgres expert) avoid a lot of the crazy interview nonsense, and a large part of that I think is that wanting to trade services for money is more than enough, but sure their limited tenure is another big factor and helps them from needing to buy into the company culture or whatever. But this precludes that the business knows what services they want to receive in exchange for money. And repeating myself, often businesses aren't even sure, or don't actually need much more beyond "can program competently for our use cases" (which doesn't mean code monkey). So much of the extra stuff that retrospectively becomes valuable and maybe even worth trying to find in the interview process is nevertheless so hard to find. Some companies claim to have found ways, e.g. here's tptacek's hiring post: https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ Quoting the relevant part: > A few years ago, Matasano couldn’t have hired Alex, because we relied on interviews and resumes to hire. Then we made some changes, and became a machine that spotted and recruited people like Alex: line of business .NET developers at insurance companies who pulled Rails core CVEs out of their first hour looking at the code. Sysadmins who hardware-reversed assembly firmware for phone chipsets. Epiphany: the talent is out there, but you can’t find it on a resume. You also won't typically find those really bonus qualities on a phone screen. The approach of work-sample tests goes in a rather different direction than what we've been discussing, though it can also get rid of full-round interviews. On the salary bit, I did say might, because you're right that if the compensation ranges are known upfront, and the candidate finds them too low, then it's typical they will filter themselves out before anything. So if that range is known before the phone screen, you don't really need to bring it up then. For those who don't filter themselves out, then they either don't have a compensation issue, again making it pointless to include in the phone screen time, or they do have an issue to some extent but have reason to try and go through the process anyway. The first reason I listed was because they think they can negotiate high enough beyond the range once they've secured a "we want you" spot, and they might try to further amplify this by mentioning a competing offer(s) from somewhere else. Obviously the greater the gap the less likely they are to actually entertain this, however they still might if they just plan to use you as the 'competing offer' to gain leverage elsewhere. I don't think this sort of thing can be reliably detected at phone screen time, so it's pointless to ask about it, but sure, it doesn't take much time to ask a probe like "are you interviewing elsewhere now?" which might help you be ready for some negotiation games later. But I think you should always be ready for those regardless. For more depth into one mentality that might do this: there are all sorts of desires someone can have that aren't necessarily abundant in the broader opportunities out there (like specific niche technologies, or specific people you get to call coworkers (there's only one [insert programming idol]), or the product itself (there's only one [insert video game franchise]), or having a preference for non-remote and this being the main/only good opportunity in an unusual place you want to live). So if asked at some point before an offer is extended "is this salary range acceptable?", you might honestly answer "instant yes if it can reach higher by this much, I'll reallllly have to think about it if all I can get is the top of the range, but at the middle or low end it'd definitely be no even though I really want this rare property I can't easily find elsewhere." Such an honest answer is unwise strategically to give, though, precisely because the other side may consider such uncertainty as an immediate deal-breaker, and in the end after learning even more through the process your revealed preferences might lead you to saying yes even at the lower end of the range.

by Jach 5y ago

codingdave 5y ago

I think you and I probably agree on much of, this so take all this as discussion, not argument... that being said -- Wanting to trade services for money is not enough. Everyone wants that. But good candidates want more nuance to it. More autonomy, more meaningful work, more leadership. Or less of all those things. If I just need a code monkey who will crank out the tasks, I don't want a visionary tech lead. I may want a code monkey who aspires to be a visionary tech lead as we grow. And vice-versa. If I need someone to come in, lead, and build a team, I don't want a code monkey who is looking to just coast doing easy corporate CRUD apps. Software dev roles have a massive variety in their levels of autonomy, leadership, and growth. So do the candidates. The phone screen may miss many things, but you can at least match up on those factors. > If they're too low, a good candidate might go through with things anyway and try to negotiate beyond the range. This struck me as an interesting take. I tend to envision good candidates as the one who command enough market value to simply filter low salary ranges out. Why bother negotiating past their range, instead of finding a role that is in my range. There is no lack of job opps out there right now. I've even done that just in the last few months - found jobs that sounded ideal, but declined to continue once I realized the salary was too low. I did so politely, and invited them to call me if they ever have roles at a higher salary. I also agree that more could be done in emails and phone calls, making the phone screen less critical and better for all involved. But I believe the key to making that world is to fully lose the concept of a "full round" of interviews. Especially now that everyone has remote work experience, lets make the process more fluid - more calls and emails, less massive half-day interview marathons.

Jach 5y ago
Right, I think we're probably in agreement on a lot too. I do think if you're looking for a specific thing (whether it's a code monkey, or a visionary, or someone that seems to have the potential to grow into someone amazing, or a Postgres expert who can help you solve your particular scaling issues right now and then go away) you should try and purpose your interviews for figuring out whether those things are present to sufficient degree, and ignore/deprioritize getting data on other things. Though I also think even with the large variety of roles that exist, they all need an ability to program and solve the types of problems that the business is working on and is likely to encounter, so this should be tested/verified as early as possible, and that a lot of people are fooling themselves in thinking they need much more than that or that the other things they claim to care about actually matter. Consulting gigs (like the postgres expert) avoid a lot of the crazy interview nonsense, and a large part of that I think is that wanting to trade services for money is more than enough, but sure their limited tenure is another big factor and helps them from needing to buy into the company culture or whatever. But this precludes that the business knows what services they want to receive in exchange for money. And repeating myself, often businesses aren't even sure, or don't actually need much more beyond "can program competently for our use cases" (which doesn't mean code monkey). So much of the extra stuff that retrospectively becomes valuable and maybe even worth trying to find in the interview process is nevertheless so hard to find. Some companies claim to have found ways, e.g. here's tptacek's hiring post: https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/ Quoting the relevant part: > A few years ago, Matasano couldn’t have hired Alex, because we relied on interviews and resumes to hire. Then we made some changes, and became a machine that spotted and recruited people like Alex: line of business .NET developers at insurance companies who pulled Rails core CVEs out of their first hour looking at the code. Sysadmins who hardware-reversed assembly firmware for phone chipsets. Epiphany: the talent is out there, but you can’t find it on a resume. You also won't typically find those really bonus qualities on a phone screen. The approach of work-sample tests goes in a rather different direction than what we've been discussing, though it can also get rid of full-round interviews. On the salary bit, I did say might, because you're right that if the compensation ranges are known upfront, and the candidate finds them too low, then it's typical they will filter themselves out before anything. So if that range is known before the phone screen, you don't really need to bring it up then. For those who don't filter themselves out, then they either don't have a compensation issue, again making it pointless to include in the phone screen time, or they do have an issue to some extent but have reason to try and go through the process anyway. The first reason I listed was because they think they can negotiate high enough beyond the range once they've secured a "we want you" spot, and they might try to further amplify this by mentioning a competing offer(s) from somewhere else. Obviously the greater the gap the less likely they are to actually entertain this, however they still might if they just plan to use you as the 'competing offer' to gain leverage elsewhere. I don't think this sort of thing can be reliably detected at phone screen time, so it's pointless to ask about it, but sure, it doesn't take much time to ask a probe like "are you interviewing elsewhere now?" which might help you be ready for some negotiation games later. But I think you should always be ready for those regardless. For more depth into one mentality that might do this: there are all sorts of desires someone can have that aren't necessarily abundant in the broader opportunities out there (like specific niche technologies, or specific people you get to call coworkers (there's only one [insert programming idol]), or the product itself (there's only one [insert video game franchise]), or having a preference for non-remote and this being the main/only good opportunity in an unusual place you want to live). So if asked at some point before an offer is extended "is this salary range acceptable?", you might honestly answer "instant yes if it can reach higher by this much, I'll reallllly have to think about it if all I can get is the top of the range, but at the middle or low end it'd definitely be no even though I really want this rare property I can't easily find elsewhere." Such an honest answer is unwise strategically to give, though, precisely because the other side may consider such uncertainty as an immediate deal-breaker, and in the end after learning even more through the process your revealed preferences might lead you to saying yes even at the lower end of the range.