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Pretend you’re hiring in this landscape. If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do

Pretend you’re hiring in this landscape. If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do, and if you feel like it’s required to stay competitive, why wouldn’t you? (To be clear: I don’t condone the practice at all, but I at least can understand possible rationales)

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
>If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do I agree with the general premise (this wouldn't happen if people finally stood up against it), but this has yet to be proven. Hiring absolutely isn't grounded in reality as much as it likes to think it is, even if the arguments sound rational beyond surface level. Additionally I feel most companies severely underestimate the costs of this entire circus, and overestimate the risks and cost of bad hires. But that's not something I can back up with numbers.
bluGill 4y ago
> if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do Does it though? Has anyone done any form of analysis to show it works? I know my boss a few years back asked about asking technical questions and HR said we had to run a real scientific experiment to prove it works, basically a round of technical interviews, but the technical interviewers write down a score but are not invited to the actual decision process, then after 6 months we open the score and see if it correlates at all to on the job performance. When we interview there is a set of questions we are allowed to ask/score on (HR says they have run the data to prove those results make a difference) Most companies could get just as good results if they put all resumes in a box and do a random drawing to figure out who to hire.
- mattcwilson 4y ago
  In my experience, just having a degree at all (in CS, Eng, IT/MIS, but even math, music, languages) isn’t a terribly strong predictor within the field. It’s mostly used, by those who do, again ime, to filter out against lack of commitment/perseverance/grit. Personally I feel I get much more signal talking to people about their particular passions, accomplishments, struggles, and ideas.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

>If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do I agree with the general premise (this wouldn't happen if people finally stood up against it), but this has yet to be proven. Hiring absolutely isn't grounded in reality as much as it likes to think it is, even if the arguments sound rational beyond surface level. Additionally I feel most companies severely underestimate the costs of this entire circus, and overestimate the risks and cost of bad hires. But that's not something I can back up with numbers.

bluGill 4y ago

> if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do Does it though? Has anyone done any form of analysis to show it works? I know my boss a few years back asked about asking technical questions and HR said we had to run a real scientific experiment to prove it works, basically a round of technical interviews, but the technical interviewers write down a score but are not invited to the actual decision process, then after 6 months we open the score and see if it correlates at all to on the job performance. When we interview there is a set of questions we are allowed to ask/score on (HR says they have run the data to prove those results make a difference) Most companies could get just as good results if they put all resumes in a box and do a random drawing to figure out who to hire.

mattcwilson 4y ago
In my experience, just having a degree at all (in CS, Eng, IT/MIS, but even math, music, languages) isn’t a terribly strong predictor within the field. It’s mostly used, by those who do, again ime, to filter out against lack of commitment/perseverance/grit. Personally I feel I get much more signal talking to people about their particular passions, accomplishments, struggles, and ideas.