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It's not like we don't talk to people. We do that too. Most interviews I've been a part of, on either side of the table, have involved coding questions, design

It's not like we don't talk to people. We do that too. Most interviews I've been a part of, on either side of the table, have involved coding questions, design questions, and conversation. However, to get to that point you need to get past the phone screen and that's usually a coding exercise. I'm not mad about that because I have seen firsthand that companies need to filter out all the ridiculously unqualified people who come their way, to ensure that time spent on interviewing (including conversation) is not wasted. If you list a decent software job right now you will get hundreds, maybe even thousands, of applicants. Many will be outright liars, many will be junior people pretending to be senior, and many will be very good. You can't spend time on all of them. You need to have a way to decide who is worth your time, or you'll never have time to do anything else.

usrbinbash 5y ago
> You need to have a way to decide who is worth your time The "first filter" is what we have HR departments for. As you say, decent jobs get thousands of applicants. Whos going to do the phone interview on a thousand people? The first filter is skimming the applications and checking basic credentials. Filter out resumes that don't check out, and looking for red flags. This already brings down the candidate pool to a manageable size.
- dnissley 5y ago
  There are lots of talented people in our industry who don't have formal credentials. We're kind of known for that. So if you insist on credentialism you risk eliminating a significant number of perfectly fine candidates.
  - usrbinbash 5y ago
    I am absolutely aware of that. I used "credentials" in the above post in a very broad sense of the word, because "something that shows on paper that you know how to program" is a bit of a handful to type. Work Experience, Involvement in projects, a degree, a github link, code-camp certificate, reference to prior training, all of these can be credentials. The better the position, the better whatever someone puts in needs to be in Order to consider the candidate. If it's a beginners position even a short paragraph about when, how and why someone started self-teaching would be acceptable, if I am looking for a senior database engineer I want to see more. Writing something tangible in a resume about ones skills is a prerequisite. If a candidate doesn't do that, his application is eliminated before it even gets past the desk of the first HR person. This is not "credentialism", it's normal procedure for basically every single job-that-requires-some-form-of-expertise on the planet. "credentialism" would be to only consider candidates with, say, a CS degree. That would be bad in our industry, for the exact reason you outlined.
    - dnissley 5y ago
      The problem is "something that shows on paper that you know how to program" is so easy to fake that this amounts to basically no filter at all. Literally anyone could go on linked in and copy+paste blurbs from other people's job histories and nobody would know the difference between them and a viable candidate.
      - usrbinbash 5y ago
        The thing is, in smaller companies, where there are few applicants, this can be solved by interviewing people (as in "talking to them", not with LC puzzles which can just be memorized). In larger companies, and for well paid positions, where there can be hundreds of applicants for each job, that just isn't feasible, so HR has no choice but to apply some sort of filtering.

usrbinbash 5y ago

> You need to have a way to decide who is worth your time The "first filter" is what we have HR departments for. As you say, decent jobs get thousands of applicants. Whos going to do the phone interview on a thousand people? The first filter is skimming the applications and checking basic credentials. Filter out resumes that don't check out, and looking for red flags. This already brings down the candidate pool to a manageable size.

dnissley 5y ago
There are lots of talented people in our industry who don't have formal credentials. We're kind of known for that. So if you insist on credentialism you risk eliminating a significant number of perfectly fine candidates.
- usrbinbash 5y ago
  I am absolutely aware of that. I used "credentials" in the above post in a very broad sense of the word, because "something that shows on paper that you know how to program" is a bit of a handful to type. Work Experience, Involvement in projects, a degree, a github link, code-camp certificate, reference to prior training, all of these can be credentials. The better the position, the better whatever someone puts in needs to be in Order to consider the candidate. If it's a beginners position even a short paragraph about when, how and why someone started self-teaching would be acceptable, if I am looking for a senior database engineer I want to see more. Writing something tangible in a resume about ones skills is a prerequisite. If a candidate doesn't do that, his application is eliminated before it even gets past the desk of the first HR person. This is not "credentialism", it's normal procedure for basically every single job-that-requires-some-form-of-expertise on the planet. "credentialism" would be to only consider candidates with, say, a CS degree. That would be bad in our industry, for the exact reason you outlined.
  - dnissley 5y ago
    The problem is "something that shows on paper that you know how to program" is so easy to fake that this amounts to basically no filter at all. Literally anyone could go on linked in and copy+paste blurbs from other people's job histories and nobody would know the difference between them and a viable candidate.
    - usrbinbash 5y ago
      The thing is, in smaller companies, where there are few applicants, this can be solved by interviewing people (as in "talking to them", not with LC puzzles which can just be memorized). In larger companies, and for well paid positions, where there can be hundreds of applicants for each job, that just isn't feasible, so HR has no choice but to apply some sort of filtering.