4 ms·

I’ve been hiring for 15 years maybe and always read resumes. The skills bubble is critical for me personally - they need to have some stuff in there that match

I’ve been hiring for 15 years maybe and always read resumes. The skills bubble is critical for me personally - they need to have some stuff in there that matches what tech we use. I also don’t look at LinkedIn - doesn’t add anything to me not already on the resume. Currently hiring Java devs.

dijit 4y ago
if you’re hiring senior and above the number of radically different technologies is extremely small. what I mean is, a good Java dev will be able to code in Go in under a month. A developer who knows MySQL will learn postgresql just fine. I don’t tend to put much weight into specific technologies, more I try to figure out how exposed you've been to paradigms that are important (OOP, RDBMS).
jedberg 4y ago
You must not get a lot of applicants if you have time to read all the applications. But there’s no way I’m reading 100 resumes for one job. I’m skimming them at best. And if you’re not looking at LinkedIn in 2023 you’re probably missing out. My LinkedIn has far more detail than my resume because it’s not page limited and a lot easier for the reader to search and zero in on what they want.
- mquander 4y ago
  jedberg, I know you are a smart guy, so I wonder if you can explain this thing that has always mystified me. The difference between a good hire and a bad hire is really big, right? So why would you be like, there's no way I am reading 100 resumes? Suppose it takes you or someone like you (i.e. maybe you can get in a room and do all the resumes with a few people on the team in an hour or two) on average 10 minutes to reasonably critically evaluate a resume, maybe follow and read any interesting links on it. Then the pile of 100 resumes takes about 15 hours to evaluate. Suppose that the person you hire has an expected tenure of 2 years. That means they will be working for about 4000 hours. 15 hours represents less than 0.5% of their productivity. So can it really be that critically evaluating the resumes doesn't even give you a hire that is 0.5% better in expectation? I would have thought it was like, 50% better, if the resumes are your primary screening tool to decide who to bring in for an interview! I have been working for like 15 years, and all my coworkers are always just like you -- they don't read the whole resume, they don't go read the candidate's code, they don't read the candidate's blog, etc. But it seems self-evident to me that spending a few hours to try to hire better coworkers has a huge ROI for the team. The time I spend basically always finds stuff out about the candidates that my coworkers find interesting and important, and often prompts further interesting information in the interview. I always just figure that the explanation is: my coworkers don't enjoy doing hiring stuff, and nobody is making them do it, therefore they don't. Do you think differently?
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    An alternative explanation: even if they did spend more time on the resumes they wouldn't be selecting better, because they don't know what to look for Ah, the sheer ego size of hiring managers who go around saying stuff like "understanding how candidates think" or "assessing cultural fit" The brightest minds of psychology - with far, far more resources and time - can't replicate those results if they run the tests this Monday or this Wednesday... and then comes the hiring manager and they say they can do it with a CV, some technical assignment, and an hour of chat. After having spent less time properly studying the topic than highschoolers spend on their homework each week
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    I like this comment. At the end you wrote: <<my coworkers don't enjoy doing hiring stuff>> Can you clarify something for me? Are you a hiring manager? If yes, the "ROI" comment makes a lot of sense. And do "co-workers" mean other hiring managers... or non-managers? As a non-manager, putting effort into hiring doesn't have good ROI for me personally. My CV and LinkedIn profile had links to open source projects for more than 10 years. I am someone who interviews a lot -- I like to move from company to company for diverse experience. Only once in ten years has anyone asked about my open source work. They are generalist libraries (Java and Python) that I "import" at every new job. They give me a real edge over my teammates. My point: Interviewing seems like a total gamble. My best strategy is to figure out what the hiring manager wants and pretend to be that person. In most teams, the hiring manager calls the shots nearly 100%. If they like you, you will be hired. I've had crap tech interviews with the "teammates" and still gotten offers because I transformed (during the interview!) into exactly what the hiring manager wanted. Bizarre.
  - shagie 4y ago
    It isn't "critically evaluate" but rather "in this stack of 100 resumes, find four that stand out sufficiently to bring in for interviews." The "stand out significantly" check doesn't take 10 minutes per resume. Additionally, doing nothing but reading 100 resumes (no meetings, no development work, no trouble shooting issues, nothing else) is soul crushing. Going to blogs some HR departments will frown upon as it may introduce biases into the evaluation process that they'll get sued over. "The candidate recently wrote about her experience with pregnancy on her blog that the interviewer had looked at" - and you've got a discrimination suit on your hands.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  I think I’ve got over a hundred to go over for one of my positions right now. I take a half day a couple times a week to go over them. I just consider it a priority and make time for it. Training and then firing someone is such a massive waste.
- mcv 4y ago
  LinkedIn is my resume. It's how recruiters find me. I wouldn't know how else to find work except by having recruiters find me on LinkedIn. I sometimes notice people using LinkedIn for something else, but I don't get it. It's mostly a resume-hosting site for me.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Same here. I haven't updated my resume in 10 years, but I update my LinkedIn all the time.

dijit 4y ago

if you’re hiring senior and above the number of radically different technologies is extremely small. what I mean is, a good Java dev will be able to code in Go in under a month. A developer who knows MySQL will learn postgresql just fine. I don’t tend to put much weight into specific technologies, more I try to figure out how exposed you've been to paradigms that are important (OOP, RDBMS).

jedberg 4y ago

You must not get a lot of applicants if you have time to read all the applications. But there’s no way I’m reading 100 resumes for one job. I’m skimming them at best. And if you’re not looking at LinkedIn in 2023 you’re probably missing out. My LinkedIn has far more detail than my resume because it’s not page limited and a lot easier for the reader to search and zero in on what they want.

mquander 4y ago
jedberg, I know you are a smart guy, so I wonder if you can explain this thing that has always mystified me. The difference between a good hire and a bad hire is really big, right? So why would you be like, there's no way I am reading 100 resumes? Suppose it takes you or someone like you (i.e. maybe you can get in a room and do all the resumes with a few people on the team in an hour or two) on average 10 minutes to reasonably critically evaluate a resume, maybe follow and read any interesting links on it. Then the pile of 100 resumes takes about 15 hours to evaluate. Suppose that the person you hire has an expected tenure of 2 years. That means they will be working for about 4000 hours. 15 hours represents less than 0.5% of their productivity. So can it really be that critically evaluating the resumes doesn't even give you a hire that is 0.5% better in expectation? I would have thought it was like, 50% better, if the resumes are your primary screening tool to decide who to bring in for an interview! I have been working for like 15 years, and all my coworkers are always just like you -- they don't read the whole resume, they don't go read the candidate's code, they don't read the candidate's blog, etc. But it seems self-evident to me that spending a few hours to try to hire better coworkers has a huge ROI for the team. The time I spend basically always finds stuff out about the candidates that my coworkers find interesting and important, and often prompts further interesting information in the interview. I always just figure that the explanation is: my coworkers don't enjoy doing hiring stuff, and nobody is making them do it, therefore they don't. Do you think differently?
- Dudeman112 4y ago
  An alternative explanation: even if they did spend more time on the resumes they wouldn't be selecting better, because they don't know what to look for Ah, the sheer ego size of hiring managers who go around saying stuff like "understanding how candidates think" or "assessing cultural fit" The brightest minds of psychology - with far, far more resources and time - can't replicate those results if they run the tests this Monday or this Wednesday... and then comes the hiring manager and they say they can do it with a CV, some technical assignment, and an hour of chat. After having spent less time properly studying the topic than highschoolers spend on their homework each week
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  I like this comment. At the end you wrote: <<my coworkers don't enjoy doing hiring stuff>> Can you clarify something for me? Are you a hiring manager? If yes, the "ROI" comment makes a lot of sense. And do "co-workers" mean other hiring managers... or non-managers? As a non-manager, putting effort into hiring doesn't have good ROI for me personally. My CV and LinkedIn profile had links to open source projects for more than 10 years. I am someone who interviews a lot -- I like to move from company to company for diverse experience. Only once in ten years has anyone asked about my open source work. They are generalist libraries (Java and Python) that I "import" at every new job. They give me a real edge over my teammates. My point: Interviewing seems like a total gamble. My best strategy is to figure out what the hiring manager wants and pretend to be that person. In most teams, the hiring manager calls the shots nearly 100%. If they like you, you will be hired. I've had crap tech interviews with the "teammates" and still gotten offers because I transformed (during the interview!) into exactly what the hiring manager wanted. Bizarre.
- shagie 4y ago
  It isn't "critically evaluate" but rather "in this stack of 100 resumes, find four that stand out sufficiently to bring in for interviews." The "stand out significantly" check doesn't take 10 minutes per resume. Additionally, doing nothing but reading 100 resumes (no meetings, no development work, no trouble shooting issues, nothing else) is soul crushing. Going to blogs some HR departments will frown upon as it may introduce biases into the evaluation process that they'll get sued over. "The candidate recently wrote about her experience with pregnancy on her blog that the interviewer had looked at" - and you've got a discrimination suit on your hands.
stcroixx 4y ago
I think I’ve got over a hundred to go over for one of my positions right now. I take a half day a couple times a week to go over them. I just consider it a priority and make time for it. Training and then firing someone is such a massive waste.
mcv 4y ago
LinkedIn is my resume. It's how recruiters find me. I wouldn't know how else to find work except by having recruiters find me on LinkedIn. I sometimes notice people using LinkedIn for something else, but I don't get it. It's mostly a resume-hosting site for me.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Same here. I haven't updated my resume in 10 years, but I update my LinkedIn all the time.