14 ms·

Ask HN: Why is hiring so dehumanized, and what can be done?

114 points by elevanation 4y ago

As technology permeates the world more and more, the hiring process is becoming more dehumanized, IMHO. What can we do as an industry, to make hiring more efficient for everyone? Some of the pain points I observe are: 1. Applicants must wade through large volumes of job postings, which are often poorly written, and frequently lacking key information which is important to the applicant. 2. Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements. 3. Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants. 4. Applicants are then annoyed with the lack of replies. 5. By the time an employer finds a potential match, the applicant may be difficult to reach, or is no longer interested. 6. By the time an applicant hears back from an employer, they are disappointed in the quality of the response, and already have a bad impression of the employer. What is working well today to address these pain points? What are other Possible Fixes?

Maxwellcarolyn 4y ago
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Maxwellcarolyn 4y ago
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logicalmonster 4y ago
This seems counterintuitive, but I wonder if hiring can be more humanized by essentially making firing easier, or "dehumanizing" firing. One big reason that companies go through the lengthy song and dance of multiple tests and interviews in a crazy hiring process with dozens of people is that trying to fire somebody is always a risk, even in places with at-will hiring. You have to worry about severance and other legal requirements, you have to worry about discrimination lawsuits. Additionally, hiring has become so expensive (multiple interviews and tests with multiple teams with multiple candidates) that it's kind of a feedback loop that incentivizes a very careful process because you can't get it wrong when you spend so much effort on it. What should be a much more common practice is agreeing to quickly hire somebody who has a good resume and passes a basic knowledge interview, and then firing them fairly quickly without severance pay or legal risk if they don't work out. If they can't hack it in a job (the most fair job interview possible because it's literally the job) firing them should be the easiest thing in the world. This could incentivize a much easier and quicker hiring process that should take a day or two, not weeks or more. You might get it wrong a bit more often, but this should be counterbalanced by getting it right sometimes much, much quicker and cheaper.
p1esk 4y ago
In one of the startups I worked at, when we really needed to find good people, CEO raised the referral bonus from 3k to 10k, paid 90 days after start date. In another startup, management asked every IC on hiring teams to find at least one potential candidates - every week. Time to find them was allocated into sprints. The referral bonus was raised from 2k to 3k. The first example was more successful from what I remember.
- elevanation 4y ago
  That sounds like a good idea. I wonder what percentage of companies are offering substantial referral bonuses?
- web3-is-a-scam 4y ago
  Am I the only one that isn't incentivized by referral bonuses? The last thing I want is the blame for a bad hire because I somehow referred someone ended up not being a good fit for whatever reason.
  - sfe22 4y ago
    Well, you get it after 90 days, by then they will probably know if it is a bad fit.
    - noirbot 4y ago
      Sure, but if it's a bad fit, it's still tied to you. Your team or some other team is now blaming you for their bad hire and you don't get the money.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        I never felt like that when recommending someone. First of all, before referring someone, I'd personally interview them and make sure I want to work with them. And after that the candidate would still go through all the usual interview rounds (sans the initial recruiter's screen). The decision would still be collective - everyone on the team still has to write a review and give thumbs up.
lp0_on_fire 4y ago
> Applicants must wade through large volumes of job postings, which are often poorly written, and frequently lacking key information which is important to the applicant. > Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements. > Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants. Employers should stop casting such a wide net, then. If you post on a site like monster and say the position is remote then obviously you're going to get a lot of applicants. If you're not prepared for that you should post locally or tailor your advertisement better. IMO the job postings are often deliberately written that way because the people doing the hiring a) don't understand what they're looking for (see: "we need 10 years of experience in [technology that was released last year]) or b) they know they need a body but don't want to lock that person into a particular "role". It's just another version of "and other duties as required". The remaining points in your OP can be solved when employers solve the problems in 1-3.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Most of the problem in 2 is on the applicant side (shotgunning applications to every opening).
  - noirbot 4y ago
    Sure, but that's a classic tragedy of the commons. I've been applying selectively to some places over time, and have had less than 10% even send me a rejection letter. As an applicant, if I actually needed a job, I can't afford to send out a handful of applications and wait 2-3 weeks to find out if I'm even being considered before sending out more. EDIT: Now that I think about it, I've often had companies who did interview me take weeks to initiate the process from when I applied.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      If you’re applying to jobs that you (more or less) meet the qualifications for, there’s nothing at all for anyone to object to. What I do find negative (and unlikely to succeed anyway) is people shotgunning to roles that they aren’t remotely qualified for. I think qualified applicants have a hard time believing the volume of utterly unqualified applicants who knock on the virtual door of every SWE opening.
punkbit 4y ago
In my opinion is lack of empathy! Before requesting the interview I usually check the persons work online, e.g., repositories, etc. I personally don't find the twitter activity interesting, but some people give that extreme importance. If I'm in charge of interviewing, and in touch with somebody, that means the person has a very high chance of getting the job, never failed me! The last thing I want is waste the other persons time. It's disappointing being interviewed by people who are assh*les, really makes other people feel like sh!t!
Oras 4y ago
I’m working on a platform to filter out applications by: 1. Geo restriction (when required). 2. Skills required in the job (listed by employer). Any resume that don’t meet a percentage of required skills will be notified immediately after uploading the resume. 3. Filtering questions. That could be anything from skills, required certifications, ability to start in certain times. It is an attempt though, I don’t know if it will work but to explain the reasons behind the platform: 1. The application rate of online jobs is less than 8% due to complicated long forms. Which means employers are missing many talented applicants. See this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33341263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33341263 To fix, I implemented an easy apply similar to LinkedIn. You only upload the resume, it will be parsed to validate skills. 2. With the remote work, there are companies who want to limit the remote to their own country or certain time zones. Writing that in the job description doesn’t stop people from applying. As you mentioned, ghosting is one of the main reasons why candidates apply to as many jobs as possible. To fix, there will be a message saying the job is not available in your region when applying from outside the designated regions. 3. The skills filtering will help candidates to understand immediately why they had been rejected instead of just being ghosted. It will help in reducing the number of unqualified applications. 4. Filtering questions will be for things that can not be identified in resumes. That could be ability to relocation, having certain certifications, security clearance … etc.
- roxgib 4y ago
  Ideally it would be smart about the skills, and recognise how skills transfer between technology. I feel like this is a solvable problem with the right technology.
lapcat 4y ago
This may seem obvious, but... start with fixing #1 on your list?
stuckinhell 4y ago
Part of my job responsibilities is hiring, retention, and unfortunately layoffs. Hiring is only going to get worse in technology related fields. The competition has increased 10x in the last couple months compared to the last year for a single jr - mid developer position at my company. That's going from 1000 applications to 10,000 applications. I even created a jupyterhub notebook to do some analysis on the unfiltered resumes over the weekend. I can easily see over half are liberals arts majors who switched careers in the last 5 years via bootcamps or masters programs. The next 25% are are mostly people who were laid off. The final 25% are new graduates with either no experience or an internships. A lot more jr developers basically, I imagine the senior devs are being kept happy, or weren't laid off. Yet those are the only people a bunch of our tech teams want to hire . . . . Also yes we filter out a lot of resumes using keywords, but the latest batches of interviews didn't go well. So I've been re-evaluating our processes.
- btwillard 4y ago
  It sounds like you're saying you want to hire people who weren't laid off? If so, what's the reasoning behind this?
  - stuckinhell 4y ago
    Many of the people laid off in the last couple months are generally considered to be dead weight by executives and various tech teams. (I do not believe this, but many do)
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Just require applications to be sent by mail. Explain why you're doing it up-front. The tiny hassle and tens-of-cents cost should cut volume down tremendously. [EDIT] Incidentally, in the age of ChatGPT, I suspect I'm going to be recommending this more and more often for a lot more use-cases....
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's an interesting idea, especially if you largely automate the analog->digital ingress process. Unfortunately, you probably would have an adverse selection process. Anyone who can (or thinks they can) easily land a job will be F this crap. And the truly desperate will jump through the hoops.
warrenm 4y ago
Work for smaller companies Only "apply" to jobs where you already know at least one person at the company
- ghaff 4y ago
  Not even just smaller companies if you know someone high enough up :-) Every job I've had since right out of grad school has basically come through sending someone I knew an email. That's really the answer although it's probably not very actionable for a lot of more junior people.
  - warrenm 4y ago
    "who" vs "what" you know has always been the "right answer" :)
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I know you'll find people who say they've always just gone through recruiters or applying online, but beyond starting out it certainly hasn't been my experience--including in difficult periods like 2001. I'm sure I've been lucky but it's also resulted in the right jobs through the right people.
      - warrenm 4y ago
        Yeah - in 25 years, I've gotten precisely one job through a "blind" application ... when I worked at Hertz as a car cleaner :) Every single other job has come via connection
systemvoltage 4y ago
Hard take which is pretty much unpalatable to HN crowd: If I had a small dev shop, I would put out an hiring ad that says you must drop off your resume in person and we will only hire people from 50 mile radius. Like they used to do in 1970's. Not a fan of: 1) Global pool of candidates 2) Leet code bullshit 3) Remote work Fan of 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. 2) You will be part of our family, we'll build great things together 3) You'll get a decision when you visit us. Just drop by, no appointment necessary. We'll make time. 4) If you get rejected, we’ll tell you in the most honest way possible. No HR bullshit talk.
- lief79 4y ago
  #3 doesn't seem to correlate well with being able to interview/meet with team members, unless hiring takes priority over emergencies, etc. Then again, with enough bodies that should be possible to do without much of a hit.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I think the expectation is that living in a mid sized towns, you'll probably get 1 candidate per month if that. I am thinking of a shop that is 30 devs or less. You don't always hire and we would put everything aside if someone shows up at the door. I think the risk would be that no one ever shows up. :-(
- endemic 4y ago
  I'm amused at the juxtaposition of "you'll be family" with "no bullshit."
  - corbulo 4y ago
    That is a certain kind of family
- elbigbad 4y ago
  This is so on point, back in the 20s I got my first tech job by putting an onion on my belt (that was the style at the time) and going to the company with a resume and shaking their hand and not releasing until they agreed to give me a job. Kids these days don’t know the value of a handshake and a drop by. I grew with them as a family and still hold the job to this day. The name of that company? The International Business Machines Corporation aka Big Blue.
roland35 4y ago
It is tough balance between "humanizing" and trying to be fair and unbiased when reviewing candidates. I think this is where small companies really have a huge advantage over larger companies, and they should be taking advantage of it!
glass3 4y ago
Applicants could organize in a guild. The members can rate each other in a friendly environment with constructive feedback. Then, the guild knows who are the best matches for a given job. Employers at first communicate with the guild and only have to evaluate 5-10 candidates. All interviewed candidates pool their knowledge about the employer so the next suggestions from the guild will be even better matches. Medieval guilds made sure that craftsmen could be trusted. Programmers can do the same thing.
- RationPhantoms 4y ago
  I love this idea. It's like a proxy for hiring. I see similarities to recruitment firms yet a lot better.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Yes. How a modern could look like? From a UI/UX point of view?
- patel011393 4y ago
  Interesting idea, but wouldn't it lead to groupthink and prevent outliers from pushing the envelope?
- janosett 4y ago
  This could be really useful, but it feels like the bootstrapping phase might be difficult to get past -- on one hand you need to reach the size and level of repute for companies be willing to deal with the process, and on the other you need to provide a sufficient value proposition for candidates to contribute to the guild. I also have some concerns about how you manage problems as this sort of guild scales. How do you keep a consistent standard of skill? what if members performance changes over time?
- janalsncm 4y ago
  Given the number of laid off professionals now, this is very doable. To join, one must have some amount of professional experience and pass a test. Members pay some nominal fee to support an internal liaison team. That team communicates with with companies looking to hire. Create some sort of internal ranking metric (which includes filters for e.g. location and pay), and top ranked members will be connected directly with HR at the company. This is basically what H1B sourcing companies do. No reason it can’t be for full time as well.
annexrichmond 4y ago
Have the candidate interview with their potential teammates really helps. The interviewer will also be more engaged than if they were interviewing for some other random team I also try to make small talk, have a quick conversation and so on. This has been mostly good except with a couple candidates. They were hasty and basically like ok let’s get to the question It’s so interesting how groomed candidates are with LeetCode and Sys Design videos. Sometimes when I ask anything off course, like a basic question, it’s like a huge curve ball for some people
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  Not so sure about this. Most people suck at conducting interviews if they haven't been trained. This is how we ended up with candidates complaining about high pressure whiteboard tests as a form of hazing.
ldehaan 4y ago
Using all of these hiring tools is the issue. They didn't work 20 years ago, still don't work, however interviewing someone like they're a person, asking questions, finding their passion, that has had 100% return for me and my companies. Word of mouth has been the best way I've been able to hire a lot of really skilled people. My team members have told me many times that I'm the best manager they've ever had. It's because I don't do anything the way you're supposed to. Try being a place worth working for and you'll see skilled people show up, and they know how to get ahold of you since they're highly skilled and motivated.
- noirbot 4y ago
  I'm curious though - if I'm a skilled person who wants to find "a place worth working for" how would I do that? Especially in a remote work world? Most of the places I've worked over the years are smaller and more niche companies and teams that I wouldn't have known to look for if I didn't already know someone working there. If you're a small company who has tapped out their current team's referral network, how do you get out the word that you're a good place to work, and how would people find out that you're a good place to work?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >If you're a small company who has tapped out their current team's referral network, how do you get out the word that you're a good place to work, and how would people find out that you're a good place to work? One thing I might do is have a blog which had genuinely interesting content that's both related to what the company does and working there.
    - noirbot 4y ago
      Perhaps, but I don't make a habit of reading blogs about jobs I don't currently have from smaller companies. Not that I have anything against them, but you still have a discoverability problem.
      - ghaff 4y ago
SirLJ 4y ago
We have an AI process trying to automate all matching and speed up the process, because we have a lot of candidates... The real problem I find is that the best candidates are not even looking for a new job or applying, so we are currently trying to offer part time opportunity for all open position to see if they are gong to like us...
donatj 4y ago
In 2006 when I got my first dev job, I sat down with the lead developer for about half an hour and we largely just had a very friendly and informal conversation talking about how I would hypothetically build things, what software I enjoy using, etc. I very vividly remember talking about how great I thought it was you could do basic math in the Firefox search bar at the time. He left to talk to the owner, came back with a (in hindsight very small) number on piece of paper, and I started that week. When I started at my current gig over a decade ago I had a three-day ordeal of interviews. In person, telephone, full day of in person again. Spoke with at least six different sets of people. Jobs I've applied for in the interim have been even worse. As someone who has been in a hiring position myself, I think that first informal interview tells you way more than any checklist. If you need the checklist items answered, put them on the application. Interviews should be for getting to know the person. I don't do hiring these days, but from what I've heard, DEI doesn't want us going off pre-approved script at all. I understand where that's coming from but it seems like it would do more harm than good.
- newswasboring 4y ago
  > When I started at my current gig over a decade ago I had a three-day ordeal of interviews. In person, telephone, full day of in person again. Spoke with at least six different sets of people. These kinds of processes just feel designed to dilute the blame.
  - donatj 4y ago
    I kind of feel like it's no department wanting to feel left out of the process.
- mcv 4y ago
  My interviews still tend to be one or two friendly conversations. Of course I'm freelancing (for big projects) rather than employed, so maybe that changes things. And the actual hiring process can still be long because I do a lot of work for banks and other organisations with a serious screening process, but at its core is still the basic interview that's basically a friendly chat. When I was responsible for hiring at my previous project, that's also what I did: I want to get to know the person. Is this someone I can work with? I was much more interested in what their most interesting project was, than in which checkboxes they checked. If there was one checkbox I had, it was: "can they admit they don't know something?" because some people just started spewing nonsense if they didn't know the answer to a question.
gbuk2013 4y ago
From a hiring perspective there are tools available. I work for a startup that is selling a CRM to addresses all of those pain points. We have many large customers and were recently valued >1B. We have several competitors that make the same sort of thing. The point at when our product makes sense cost wise is apparently 8+ recruiters so that certainly excludes a large number of smaller companies. The solutions range from boring (e.g. CRUD things, advanced search, campaign management) to fancy (e.g. automation, AI things). Our approach is basically to reduce / automate as much as possible to free up as much time for the recruiter to do actual human things.
AussieWog93 4y ago
Was talking to an Uber driver about this, funnily enough. Apparently it's very common for applicants to just spam their resume out to every employer, since there's no cost to do so. If it were standard practice to implement some kind of hurdle, so that the applicant would have to spend an hour of their time to get a resume in front of a human, then there would be a lot less resumes to sift through and therefore a lot more time that could be given to each one by the employer. Another commenter mentioned having to drop off resumes in person, but I suspect something as simple as this could have a huge impact on spam.
- ghaff 4y ago
  This applies to other things as well. I was involved in one phase of picking submittals for a conference recently and there were no small number of submittals where basically one person sent in a half-dozen or more generic submissions, possibly with a sentence tacked on to make it relevant to this specific conference. I'm a big fan of conferences limiting the number of submittals or at least throwing enough hoops in the way of shotgunning a bunch of generic proposals to discourage the practice. (Basically, more submittals mean that the conference committee is going to end up being more random evaluating submittals against each other.)
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  > If it were standard practice to implement some kind of hurdle, so that the applicant would have to spend an hour of their time to get a resume in front of a human, then there would be a lot less resumes to sift through and therefore a lot more time that could be given to each one by the employer. Let me introduce you to my little friend: the leetcode quiz.
BeetleB 4y ago
A lot of this is game theory at play. > 1. Applicants must wade through large volumes of job postings, which are often poorly written, and frequently lacking key information which is important to the applicant. This is nothing new - it's been this way for over 20 years. Job postings are not more poorly written than in the past. > 2. Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements. Because many/most employers are willing to hire people who don't meet the minimum requirements. Or rather, they are sloppy when they made the job posting. Therefore, applicants who actually honor the minimum requirements are at a disadvantage. > 3. Employers are then too overwhelmed to reply to all the applicants. Same reason as above. Employers got themselves into this mess because they are not strict with their minimum requirements. I don't have solutions for the whole system, but a given employer can do much to improve things: 1. Employer posts accurate postings and are strict about minimum requirements. Applicants who submit applications where they clearly are not meeting the requirements are blacklisted for a year (make this clear up front). 2. Do not let people apply to more than 3 positions at once. 3. Require a proper cover letter. 4. Develop a reputation for good candidate management. If someone applies, they should hear from you in a decent timeframe (even if it is a simple rejection). 5. Write in reasonable detail about the interview process. Will it involve Leetcode style questions? Etc. Most applicants will just not apply to you, but that's fine. The key to making it work is step 4. As an example, I almost never include a cover letter, because it consumes a lot of my time, and I discovered that over 90% of openings that have an option for a cover letter never read them. If I'm submitting a cover letter, I want a strong commitment that it will be read.
- noirbot 4y ago
  I was going to ask about Cover Letters. Why do you think that's such a big improvement, especially in the current AI Generation zone? Most of the time I've written a cover letter, it may as well have been written by an AI, or I simply recycled another one I'd written and changed the names. If you're actually going to reject someone for having a bad cover letter, does that not heavily bias against people who aren't as proficient in your chosen language?
  - 4y ago
blackbear_ 4y ago
A question for those who are hiring: how much do cover letters actually matter? How much of a setback is not submitting one (when it's optional)?
- lolsal 4y ago
  As someone who has done a lot of the hiring side for technical positions, I never care about a cover letter. I can't remember the last time I saw one.
- rm445 4y ago
  I have been hired essentially on the strength of a covering letter... weirdly, I was later cc'ed on a whole email chain going back to my application, and saw the impact of certain things I had mentioned. It was basically explaining my passion for a cross-industry move. But for most people for most jobs, most of the time, a job is just a somewhat match for their skillset and there isn't much else to say. Now I'm hiring I don't pay much credence to cover letters or objective statements, but they can still be meaningful for certain people's circumstances. I think cover letters have a bad rep because a generic one is meaningless.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
To answer the title question, because that's the subjective experience of commodifying oneself for the market. It's specifically the cognitive dissonance resulting in the erroneous assumption that social relations are primarily not economic relations in an environment, more than almost any other, that is evidently the opposite. The sooner that one realizes that one's job search is primarily a performance in commodification of labor, the easier it is to get over it and move on.
- v1l 4y ago
  can you explain in human? #notbeingsarcastic but I literally didn't get it.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Sure, do you ever feel like applying for a job is an impersonal and soul-crushing exercise that feels dehumanizing? If you've felt this way then congrats, there's a name for it: alienation. Human's are complex social beings and each individual has a unique set of strengths and talents. However, this complexity is incompatible with how the labor market works. Specifically it's incompatible with how labor is commodified. Let's use a tech parallel to explain how labor is treated as a commodity. Take Docker for instance. Docker commodifies applications by wrapping them in a uniform interface. The whole point is that packaging up the whole app into a standardized container makes it easier to work with. You don't have to care about the internal complexity of the application, you interact with all Docker containers the same way. Commodification of goods goes hand in hand with the mass production of goods and the ability for markets to function. Think of commodity markets as an example. Oil is traded in barrels, a standardized container for oil, and at regulated grades. This makes buyers confident that they are getting what they're paying for when they buy oil. One barrel of sweet crude is just as good as any other barrel of sweet crude. We trade commodities as a means to an end. The problem happens when we do the same to people. The debasement we feel during the hiring process is due to how people are treated as a commodity. Take the resume as an example. The resume is an abstraction of you as a person. It helps HR and hiring managers sort through candidates because of the way it abstracts labor. But at the same time, it reduces a person to a list of bullet points on a page or two at most. There is a stark contrast between the whole person as a living breathing human being and a list of bullet points. Some people find being treated as a means to and end humiliating. I think by now you can choose others parts of the hiring process and use this lens to see in which ways people are treated as commodities. I expect to get reactions along the spectrum from "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Of course that's how it works!" to "Huh, I never thought of it that way before." Both are fine. I've heard it all.
georgeecollins 4y ago
This isn't a fix exactly, but for a long time now the only jobs I ever take are either with people who know me or people who know someone who recommended me. Like a lot of people here I had to randomly apply to all kind of jobs and got rejected for practically everything when I started. So my suggestion would be: think about people you know or could meet and ask them if they like where they work? Are they hiring? Then, if you have a position somewhere you don't need to be perfect, but it helps to be memorable.
- roxgib 4y ago
  This makes sense for companies as they tend to want to avoid bad hires more than they want to hire the 'best' person. As another person pointed out though it really sucks for people who happen not to have contacts, and often makes it harder for minorities.
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VirusNewbie 4y ago
Anecdotally, last year I did loops with Netflix and Google and was incredibly impressed by how they were conducted. The coding questions at both places were not anything I had seen before (despite studying on leetcode), however none of them needed any esoteric tricks or algorithms. Recursion, loops, hashmaps, lists, etc was all that was needed to pass the coding portions. I'd say the questions would be considered 'hard' on leetcode, but still only needing fundamental understanding of DS&A. And I was given about 40 minutes. I also had some coding rounds that were 100% practical stuff. Basic 'data munging' kind of stuff. It was non trivial but again nothing weird or funky. System design rounds were practical and engaging and fun. I think the template is pretty solid, it's just most places have poor implementation (and from what I've heard, it's very possible to roll poorly at Google and get someone who asks a super weird or challenging question). When I first started studying for interviews, I would absolutely panic with someone watching me, I could barely do a proper for loop. But after enough practice it became fine. Overall the interviews were challenging but NOT what I was expecting, I thought they did a good job of asking unseen questions that tested coding fundamentals.
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lbrito 4y ago
IMO none of OP's points are the one thing really wrong with (dev/tech) hiring. The absolutely grueling, pointless, insane interviews processes are the lion's share of problems in this field. To the point that its an industry of its own, with Leetcode and the likes. Its pathetic, inefficient and just in terrible taste.
Gigachad 4y ago
I just call a recruiter. Then I don’t have to wade though the mountains of crap. They present a nice short list of listings from companies they have personal experience with.
poorbutdebtfree 4y ago
It has and will always be dehumanizing. At the end of the day you're simply begging someone to pay you less than you're worth. Either flip the script or join /r/antiwork.
logicalmonster 4y ago
> Employers are overwhelmed with large numbers of applicants, most of whom don't meet the requested minimum requirements. 1) I wonder if the problem of being overwhelmed by applicants can be solved in the same way that dating sites work, because they somewhat have a similar issue. Perhaps restrict job seekers from applying to more than X jobs per day or week, like some dating sites do. At the least, this ensures that effort is put into individual applications and people are more selective about applying to jobs they think they have a reasonable chance to get rather than applying to anything they're remotely qualified for and playing a numbers game. Everybody will be applying to fewer jobs and can be more conscientious about the process, improving it for all. 2) And speaking of minimum requirements, in most cases they're not strict absolutes for performing the job. If you're going for some hard-core game developer job and you don't know C++, yeah that might be a big problem. But if you're going for a web-developer job and you haven't used one of 6 Ruby gems they listed in their ad, who gives a fuck? You should still apply because you're experienced enough to know that your general knowledge is in the ballpark of what they're really looking for.
- roxgib 4y ago
  Your second point is important, but when you have recruiters/HR as the front line of hiring it completely breaks down because they haven't got a clue whether an applicant's skills are transferable or not. And they cop a lot of flack for this from developers but honestly I'm not sure it's possible for someone who doesn't even code for a living to learn how different technologies are and aren't compatible, skills-wise. Same reason we end up with unhelpful job descriptions. I think most developers would already be onboard with your second point but it's simply not up to them.
  - diceduckmonk 4y ago
    > honestly I'm not sure it's possible for someone who doesn't even code for a living to learn how different technologies are and aren't compatible, skills-wise You don’t have to be the best sports player to be a great sports coach. You don’t have to be the best programmer to be a great engineering manager. The problem is that companies have not decided it cost effective to pay more for recruiters that know how to code or even have a CS degree. This said, I think AI, ChatGPT/LLMs, and probabilistic models can make inferences about skill transferability. Interacting with ChatGPT could effectively become a fizzbuzz programming interview. Potentially, we can have the AI randomly remove a line of code from otherwise correct code, and interacts with the interviewee to debug what’s wrong with the code.
pkrotich 4y ago
It's just like dating - have you tried it lately? Dating Apps has made the issue even worse - so "better" hiring platform is not a viable solution either. The quickest hires IMHO are via referrals - but this is sort like arranged marriages/dates and it comes with it's own set of issues (nepotism etc). I think companies need to have dedicated HR / Recruiters (or hire headhunters) to cut down on such frustrations. But the problem is tech hires, unlike construction / temp hires require high touch interviews with department heads etc. Add flood of resumes (now that WFH is a thing) and it's so difficult to speed up the process since it's costly to hire the wrong candidate.
- deleted 4y ago
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deterministic 4y ago
I recently interviewed a number of developers for a Typescript front-end job. We received 360+ CV’s but most of them could be rejected in seconds (no developer experience at all) narrowing it down to about 20. We interviewed about half in priority order, and hired 2 really good developers. All we did in the interview was to discuss things they have worked on before, going deep into all the details. Talking about why they decided to implement it the way it was implemented, what the trade offs were, what they would do differently today, the hardest problems they had to solve, how they would have implemented it given different biz constraints etc. No white-boarding, silly puzzle questions, online coding games, or other BS nonsense. Just deep questions about things they claim they have worked on in the past. It works really well. It is easy to identify experienced smart developers by how clear their thinking is and how well they articulate their decisions, problem solving etc. It’s simple. It works. Highly recommended.
rockzom 4y ago
Nothing. Dehumanization is the goal for the entire employee lifecycle.
- jsjsof 4y ago
  The process does seem perfect for hiring drones and robots.
klooney 4y ago
Humanity is a lawsuit risk, cold algorithmic process is armor.
- expertentipp 4y ago
  > Humanity is a lawsuit risk Only in some litigative societies. On the course of my career I can count lawsuits by employees on the fingers of one hand, and these were cases of glaring misconducts by the employer.
blakeburch 4y ago
I've thought on this for a bit and I think it's because the applicant tracking systems (ATS) (Greenhouse, Lever, Breezy, etc.) are built for the employer, not the applicant. This one-sided process is dehumanizing due to a lack of visibility and transparency of the process. Inconsistencies in the process develop when the hiring managers are responsible for too much and just let things slip. I'm of the opinion that increased automation could actually make the process feel more humanizing. Here's my ideal state I've envisioned in a platform. I'm not in a position to explore this right now, but I'd love to chat with someone who is. 1. Employers should be forced to define their applicant funnel stages. Each stage, including the initial application, should be associated with an expected timeline and an automated message. 2. Rejection types and corresponding automated messages should all be set up front. Standard picks would be "Did Not Meet Requirements" (location, sponsorship, etc.), "Bad Fit (Resume Review)", "Bad Fit (Screening)", "Bad Fit (Post-Interview)", "Did Not Respond", and "Position Filled/Closed". 3. Applicants should have a dedicated portal where they can see the status of their application. It should show the entire funnel, their current status in that funnel, and the expected timeline based on their position in the funnel. It should even show details like who has viewed your application, when, and how many times. Additionally, all communication between the applicant and the employer should be shown here in a consolidated chat view. 4. When an employer moves the applicant from one stage to the next (kanban style) the applicant automatically receives a message with clearly defined steps to engage with the new stage. This should include scheduling links, project uploads, etc. 5. Stage timelines should be treated as SLAs. Employers can set up automated reminders to ensure they meet their SLA timeline for each candidate. If the employer doesn't meet their SLA, the situation should be handled based on automated rules. If the SLA isn't met due to lack of response/scheduling from the applicant, automated processes can be put in place to follow up or close out the application. If the SLA isn't met due to lack of employer interaction, the candidate gets the choice to let their application expire (incentivizing employers to be on time) OR the candidate can be automatically moved to the next stage (if feedback is present). 6. Using all of this information, applicants should be able to see an employers average response time, timeline adherence, etc. 7. When the position is closed, all applicants currently in the funnel should receive the appropriate rejection message. 8. Through (hopeful) economies of scale, applicants would eventually be able to track multiple applications through a single portal on their side. If you want to get extra dicey, you could have it where applicants are also able to see team comments/feedback so employers are forced to be very structured about their feedback and there are fewer rejections without a shared understanding. I sympathize with both sides here. --- I'm not a saint - I've created my fair share of bad candidate experiences. But it's never out of malice. It's always from bad process or tooling. Would love to hear thoughts on this idea.
jameshush 4y ago
Hiring is VERY much still humanized. The vast majority of jobs go unposted. Friends get friends work. In the last seven days I’ve had three loose acquaintances ask me if I knew of engineers and designers looking for work in three different countries. The key to always be at the top of people’s lists is: 1. Be excellent at your job. 2. Be kind and interested in other people’s problems. 3. Say “hi” when you don’t need anything.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  What do you mean by the vast majority jobs go unposted? Are you really so good leadership will get additional headcount just to hire you for a nonexistent position?
  - Marrand 4y ago
    He probably means that when it comes time to hire they will ask existing employees if they know any good candidates before they start making posts on job boards
    - jameshush 4y ago
      Yup! That’s exactly what I meant. By the time a formal job posting has been written and a recruiter gets involved a hiring manager has generally asked everyone from their star IC to their mom’s hairdresser for a referral.
muzani 4y ago
I actually enjoy the Singaporean approach: drop your resume to this address which may be a black hole, but solve this programming puzzle to get a guaranteed response. The programming puzzle is usually relatively easy and can be done in 2 hours. If you're applying to jobs, you're bound to be doing lots of puzzles anyway, so it's just more practice. It filters out the 80% bottom of the barrel and this might mean one less tech interview stage. Heck just give them fizzbuzz straight away and it should filter about 80% anyway.
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thecleaner 4y ago
Lawsuits. That's why. If you start to provide feedback, you would have to run it through a lawyer.
expertentipp 4y ago
Recruitment has become alike online dating. You all think you're so smart yet the matching mechanisms every time end up with the same pathological hopeless frustration. Watch the chaos burn, hop into the downward spiral.
MaxPengwing 4y ago
My main grief is that recruiters in tech has no clue what they are writing in the job listing. They also tend to reach out to you over linkedin and refuse to give you the actual job description unless you give them your email/phone-number and CV, which is just infuriatingly arrogant. My hope is that tech job listings stop listing stuff like Must have Experience with XXX and YYY application/framework and instead start listing skills needed to be success full in the role. Tech becomes outdated so incredibly fast and we're allways learning in our jobs that it's kinda futile to list tech instead of skills. Sure Need to know Python, C#, Assembler, that is a skill, but applications and frameworks are something that you can learn, and besides each company use them slightly different so you'd need internal training anyway.
- 2rsf 4y ago
  From experience hiring managers, and not just recruiters, tend to publish ads without understanding the full content.
jhoelzel 4y ago
This is unsolvable. As an human you are probably applicable to a multitude of jobs in all different kinds of industries and therefore the sheer process of going through the list to find "the one" is going to prove very difficult. Its not that hiring is inhuman, but unnecessary moats are. Those are there in turn because a large number of people are applying to those same jobs. Combine that with the fact of remote working, you pretty quickly realize that you will get resource management problems no matter what you do. Finally, its also that most people hiring have no actual clue as to whom they would like to hire for the position to begin with. Just as all recruiters don't really understand the position they are hiring for.
giantg2 4y ago
You don't want it to be humanized, because then you'd end up hiring losers like me.
chumbly72 4y ago
The cause of most issues with hiring today is because of technology. Back in the good old days, you'd turn to something like the newspaper or a corkboard with job postings, or you'd work with your school's career services to find a job. Then you'd go to the place in person, call them on the phone, or send your resume through the mail. Then at the end of an interview or two, they'd tell you on the spot if you were hired. It was a good and honest way with natural barriers of entry to do hiring. So to answer your question, OP, we can fix it by going back to using want ads in the paper and physical correspondence for the entire process.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
in order of impact 1. market saturation, everyone and their dog is a developer now 2. infiltration and appropriation of hiring process by HR/"Tech Recruiters" 3. cargo culting of interview process
thebigspacefuck 4y ago
What do you think of Hired.com? It may not be perfect but seems to solve a few of these issues. All of these problems exist because we are human, so I’m not sure how it’s become dehumanized.
iamwpj 4y ago
This problem has been attempted to be solved by software engineers or MBAs -- not people with humanities degrees. Behind every weird convoluted process is a batch of CEOs who don't know what they're doing besides copying their neighbor. I agree with the commentary about guilds, unions, etc. I'm self-taught and would appreciate the legitimacy that these groups could offer through testing/training/merits etc. By relying on specialist organized groups you're abstracting the non-human issues from the humans themselves.
joanne123 4y ago
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- Larrybernart 4y ago
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BillyTheMage 4y ago
This is just capitalism being capitalism. It takes the life out of everything. We're just machines who produce endless streams of dollars and trash for the parasitic capitalist ruling class. It's one big pyramid scheme. All of this is designed to let you know that you are not in control of your own labor. Sure you can decide which capitalist to let own you for a time, but that's most people's only option. The few people who do make it on their own are used as propaganda to convince you that if you just put in extra work and make extra profit for a capitalist, you might make it someday too! "Just keep working harder and ignore the fact that you can afford less and less each passing year. It's all those lazy people who want workplace democracy who are to blame for the record-breaking profits the capitalists rake in every year". The fix is stop using an economic system with a hierarchy of parasites embedded in it's design. It'll take work and it won't happen overnight, but some of us are already getting started because there is no future under Capitalism other than slavery.
nitwit005 4y ago
The biggest issue just seems to be employer expectations. Elaborate and lengthy interview processes have become normal in a number of industries, along with high rates of rejecting candidates. The two natural consequences are people apply for more jobs, anticipating the high rate of rejection, and the people doing interviews get tired of how many they have to do.
hughdbrown 4y ago
I've been sent this job description five times in the past day. I can't begin to understand what hiring process gives rise to a list of 34 requirements. How many people does this describe? Somewhere between 0 and 1, I figure. ----- • 20+ years' experience in BI and Analytics with 8+ experience in data science • Degree in an analytical field (e.g., Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research, Management Science). Any Data Science Certification and Project Management Certification will be an added advantage. • Leverage data and business principles to solve modern devices, real estate modernization and network infrastructure problems. • Ability to translate business requirements into technical project plans. • Manage/develop strategic planning for a variety of key projects. • Onsite customer interaction and co-ordinate with onsite data scientists. • Extensive experience in project management & delivery of Data Science Model for actionable insights. • Industry experience in Data analytics/BI, Data modelling and visualization, Optimization, and statistics. • 5+ years of Scripting with one of these languages (R, PYTHON). • Ten or more years of overall IT/DBMS/Data Store experience. • Three or more years of experience in, big data and data visualization and handling of 10 Petabyte of data per month • Drive programs/projects from project initiation through delivery. • Responsible for data cleaning and developing various Data science models using R and Python. Provide insights using the various modelling technique like classification, Regression, RNN model, XGBoost, Random Forest, Decision Trees with association rules, Ensemble Learning etc • Experience in implementing A&I solutions using NLP, Luis, Machine Learning and Deep Learning • Responsible for building end to end pipelines for Machine learning and data science model. • Prior experience with Teams, Modern devices, real estate and networking infrastructure services and/or data analytics projects preferred. • Strong experience in visualization and storytelling to present to business • Expert in querying and analyzing big data using Kusto, Scope Scripts • Experience working with unstructured big data (Hadoop and/or Cosmos) • Experts in advanced Excel functions (e.g., creating formulas, pivot tables) and Power BI • Prior knowledge of data modelling and processing techniques for big data systems • Solid understanding of BI and data solutions, including Power-pivots, cubes, and data marts. • Self-motivated, agile and driven to think out-of-the-box • Ability to influence diverse audiences and build strong partnerships with stakeholders • Ability to work independently or to manage a virtual team that will research innovative solutions to challenging business problems. • Ability to collaborate with partners and drive analytic projects end to end, • Superior communication skills, both verbal and written • Attention to detail and data accuracy. • Business reporting • Experience with writing requirements as features or user stories • Ability to be a self-motivated team player. • Possession of excellent oral and written communication skills • Possession of excellent teamwork and interpersonal skills • Experience with Agile tools -----
austin-cheney 4y ago
At my current employer there were two or three interviews of 1 hour each and no code test. It felt like a breeze like anybody off the street could get this job with excellent incentive pay. It turns out they are highly selective and interview frequently selecting almost nobody. The most important quality is personality, things like honesty and humility. I have been writing software for over 20 years and probably interviewed at two dozen places before moving in with the current employer. Here is what I have learned: * Don’t be awesome. Employment normalizes to a bell curve. Awesome is a less compatible outlier. If you want to be awesome write software outside of work as a hobby and write about the things you learned. * Be selective. If you are confident in your skills and experience (realistically, not a Dunning-Kruger fantasy) you can afford to be less desperate about who you will work for. High pay is great but maximize for emotional fulfillment. * Vanity is for the fashion industry. Software is about automation. Many developers never see the distinction. They try to make things into something they aren’t and are miserable and low performing as a result. Conscientiousness is negatively correlated with intelligence so smart people frequently fail hard at this and cannot see it. * The qualities that are most well rewarded in employee assessments are helpfulness, honesty, and writing. These take time and deliberate action. It also means maximizing mutual respect but simultaneously don’t shy away from hard truths or disagreements.

roland35 4y ago

One unfortunate side effect of referral bonuses is that they don't really help increase diversity since employees are most likely to refer friends from their existing social circles. I didn't realize that at first!

p1esk 4y ago
I personally would prefer to work with people from my social circle.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  Of course you would. That is exactly the problem.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    I am more productive (and generally happier) when working with people I like, and can relate to. Communication is better too, which is pretty important.
  - atmosx 4y ago
    Why is that a problem?
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      Imagine you keep applying for jobs and you get none because all the existing employees are recommending their friends who are inferior to you in skills, but the company is prioritizing referrals. This is, and has always been, a real problem: That your ability to get good positions is limited not by your skill set but by your ability to network.
      - deadbeefinmoon 4y ago
        You only need a laptop to set up a company in this field. If there are separate networks of different ethnities (or whatever you mean by diversity) their companies should be able to win over the ones who are not hiring based on pure skill and abilities. Does this happen?
        BeetleB 4y ago
        1. I didn't make any mention of diversity. 2. The notion that companies will win purely due to skill is questionable. I would highly recommend listening to "How I Built This". Skill is a significant factor, but companies that win do not always do so based on skill.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        Generally if you have good skills people will want to network with you, unless you're anti-social or have some other personality issues. Keep in mind that technical skills are just one component in a good coworker.
        bheadmaster 4y ago
        This comment reveals another problem - if a person is not interested in networking for the sake of it, they're slapped with the "anti-social" or "personality disorder" labels. Anecdotally, some of the best engineers I've worked with despise the networking culture and prefer to keep to themselves, while some of the most "social" and "networking" people were grifters who didn't have much skill, but knew how to appear like they do.
        BeetleB 4y ago
        > Generally if you have good skills people will want to network with you, unless you're anti-social or have some other personality issues. Not really. In my experience that is the exception rather than the rule. Especially because most people will have no way to know you have good skills if they don't already know you.
        ipaddr 4y ago
        Generally programmers don't and do not seek to network. If you are actively networking and not writing code you might be in it for the wrong reasons.
        p1esk 4y ago
        I would put it this way: in these times of massive layoffs, if you're a programmer and you don't network, you're doing it wrong. There are exceptions, e.g. for genius types, but the rest of us better be social.
- pkrotich 4y ago
  I used to believe in "culture fit" as well but it took me going to a tech conference to realize it was a codeword / gateway for alot of **isms. And I don't even mean racism - say your potential candidate is older with kids (assuming you're younger) would you pass them because they cannot go out drinking with you after work (a.k.a social circle)? That said, I agree that you want to work with people you get along with, but it has to be at work. Social circle is the issue for me.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    By "social circle" I did not mean people I go out for drinks with - I'd call those "friends". I simply meant people I have something in common with, share the same values with, people I can relate to. If the candidate is older with kids (assuming I'm younger) - he/she should be someone I want to become in the future, someone I respect, someone I'd learn from. Race, gender, age, even education - does not really matter - as long as I'm genuinely interested in that person and feel like I'd enjoy working with them. After many years of interviewing and hiring at various startups this is more important to me than technical skills. Skills could be learned, personalities usually don't change.
  - klooney 4y ago
    I feel like programmer discourse goes in a circle every five years on agreeableness/human factors when hiring. You can say "rigid process and blind hiring!" And then you hire someone you knew was, er , difficult, and it sucks and they get fired and you have to adjust. Then on the other side of the spectrum, you have grumpy people pointing out that it turns out agreeableness turns out to mean coethnic drinking buddies, and how could you?
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I prefer to work with the best people for the job.
deadbeefinmoon 4y ago
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wobbly_bush 4y ago
Interestingly, one of the actual AIs from DEI teams is to ask for referrals from existing diverse candidates.

yamtaddle 4y ago
I got... oh, three of my first four software jobs, by walking in and asking. Including my second full-time role post-college. The first of these would have been around 2000, the last around 2010 or '11. The other one of those four just came to me directly through my network. Now that I think about it, of the 7ish jobs I've held in about 23 years, I don't think a single one came from "fill out this online application form". I've done those, but it's never gotten me a job. Recruiters, responding to a very-basic listing on Craigslist that didn't involve some online form and was all-email, network, and just walking in. The "normal" process, not once, I don't think. But I also think the normal process takes a lot longer than any of my job searches have (longest was about a month? Most two weeks or less) to yield results, in most cases, so IDK, maybe it would eventually have worked for me. I guess maybe the '00s are onion-on-my-belt-territory now, though. [EDIT] Incidentally, I do think it helps to be fairly young when attempting this. Putting on my other-side-of-the-table hat, I'd probably be more likely to have positive feelings about a 24-year-old walking in like this and asking for some time, than a 34-year-old. 24 year old does it, "huh, interesting, they clearly have some amount of spirit or hunger to them, let's see what they're like, I can find a few minutes"; 34-year-old: "WTF are you doing?" I've not attempted it since crossing the 30-year-old barrier.
- ghaff 4y ago
  On the other hand, you're more senior and you probably know more senior people. I got my last job (or at least got the process rolling) by emailing the president of the company who I had met at events and did some work for.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Right, I'd kick up my event-attendance and mingling and leverage my network more now if I wanted to avoid the usual process, these days. That stuff tends to work less-well for those just starting out, but the "you showed up and personally showed interest" thing can still be huge for youngsters, I think, if not for ~immediately getting a job then at least for winning an internal advocate or two to grease the wheels on the process. Does require a smaller company, though. Big ones, you'll just get stuck in the lobby, I suppose, and you're not likely to run into anyone who'd care to help you out just hanging around the area. Probably a waste of time.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I like that. I was a hiring manager for 25 years. I hired experienced C++ engineers, for fairly hairy algorithm work (image processing pipelines). Leetcode was absolutely worthless. There was no way to test for the stuff we did. The algorithms were nowhere to be found in most textbooks (they could be found in some textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars, though). Also, our company was cheap. They offered "competitive" salaries. This probably reduced our candidate pool by 90%. We were a marquée imaging company (great to have on your résumé), so the only folks that applied, were fairly serious about the job. I had to filter for folks that had the basic tech chops to get into our codebase, and also had the ability to learn the stuff we did. It was challenging. Also, once we hired someone, Japan wouldn't even acknowledge their existence, until they'd been on the team for at least a year. Training them on our algorithms was also a multi-year process, so I hired for the "long haul," and keeping people for many years was important. I didn't look for people that would work crazy hours, but I wanted folks that would be dedicated enough to the job, that they would be conscientious in their work, and put in extra time, if needed (which I was careful not to do too often). I looked for folks that I thought could work in an extremely diverse team; spread throughout the world, and that were capable of treating their teammates with respect; not competition. I did OK. Never had a technical bomb, but I did make a couple of mistakes, when it came to folks that could integrate into the team. They generally found it uncomfortable, and went their way, but that still hurt, because of all the time we had to invest. All very old-fashioned stuff, and probably not representative of most of today's companies. I will say, that, towards the end of my tenure, there, the HR started to get really rapacious. They were run by the Corporate General Counsel, and tended to treat the employees as threats. Shielding my team from them was pretty important, and it meant that I was occasionally called on the carpet.

lolsal 4y ago

Interesting take. I have some questions: > 1) Global pool of candidates Why not? global pool could potentially get you a lot more bang for your buck. I've employed folks from outside the US and it was a joy to get really talented folks and pay them stupidly well for their location. They were super excited to work with us for that and we were super excited to pay them a lower rate than hiring in the US. Win-win. > 3) Remote work Why not? > 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. I think this works well on paper, but not so much in practice. I wouldn't be interested in wasting 3 months of time (even if I'm paid) just to find myself back in the job hunt process again. I can't imagine on a large enough or complex enough project that three months would be sufficient to be measurably productive. I'd rather use that time to find a longer-term place that is a better fit for me. This is just me though. > 2) You will be part of our family, we'll build great things together Oof, no thanks. I'm exchanging my time and experience for money. I don't need additional weird social hierarchy or hidden rules about behavior (not to mention the passive exploitation). > 3) You'll get a decision when you visit us. Just drop by, no appointment necessary. We'll make time. Gosh, as an employee there, this would signal to me that I might be expected to be interrupted and context-switch to an off-the-street interview. That doesn't sound like fun. > 4) If you get rejected, we’ll tell you in the most honest way possible. No HR bullshit talk. Sometimes that "HR bullshit talk" is to protect you and your company from lawsuits. Honesty combined with "HR bullshit" is possible and not mutually exclusive. ---- On another note, I appreciate such visible signals that I would not be a good candidate for your company.

ghaff 4y ago
It's one thing to have a probationary period with the assumption being that, if things don't go utterly sideways, there's nothing to worry about. It's another thing to do a provisional hire thing where the implication is that if you wow us as much after three months as you did in the interview we'll fully hire you. I'm fine with the former. Mostly wouldn't be with the latter.
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noirbot 4y ago
Fair, but you're always going to get a pretty bland paper. The honest answer is "so I get money and am not homeless and starving" and my background is "I do computer things so I'm not homeless and starving". Whether they'll write that out, that's roughly correct for most people. Is part of being a good employee faking that you're probably at least primarily there because they're making sure you can pay your bills? Sure, I'd rather work somewhere interesting than not, but writing a nice cover letter about how I'm interested in your project and mission goes out the door pretty quick when you come back with how you want to pay me 60k under market rate. I'm not exactly anti cover letter, but it feels like writing a dating profile. It's me putting on a bit of a guise and obscuring at least part of my true motives. Everyone involved should understand that or is hopelessly naive, but then what signal do you get from it? That I care enough to dissemble effectively to you? That you think I'm as interested in your company as you're going to tell me all about how you'll treat me like family?
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > The honest answer is "so I get money and am not homeless and starving" For a lot, if not most, programmers, there are other ways of making a living. If you are of the mindset that there aren't, I may have some roles for you, but they would not be growth roles and some may feel exploitative, but they are not because there are no shortage of engineers who are happy with such roles. You picked SW development over other viable options for a reason. > and my background is "I do computer things so I'm not homeless and starving". The ask is what, not why. My background is that I am an engineering guy (non-CS), who pivoted at some point to SW. Your background may be different. If you've got 10 years at various companies, you do have a background other than "I do computer things". But to get to your sentiment: Yes, we all know we're all trying to make a living. The cover letter is an opportunity to speak to why this job and not any other job. If you don't have a reason, that's fine. Over 90% of the times I do not either. But that means I and you are as guilty of contributing to the "problem" of this submission as employers are. More importantly, if I know the employer is going to be fussy about this, I will save us both time by not applying. As an employer, if I get enough who do have a convincing reason, they get to the top of the pile. If I don't get enough cover letters to find a candidate, I'll loosen my requirements. It is a bit like a dating profile, but so is the resume, so you can't avoid it. And speaking of dating, what would you think of a partner who says "I just want someone to have sex with, who'll pay for my expenses and let me not work (so should earn good money), and will take care of the children while also taking me to expensive restaurants. I really don't care about his personality." > but then what signal do you get from it? That I care enough to dissemble effectively to you? That you think I'm as interested in your company as you're going to tell me all about how you'll treat me like family? I think you're reading way too much into this. If you wrote a nice little script to solve an annoying problem at work that everyone was neglecting, it could be quite appropriate to put that in the cover letter. In 2011/2012 I independently learned pandas and spread organically to my team members such that the majority stopped writing annoying JMP scripts, that could go in the cover letter if I'm applying to a company that does numerical work. There just isn't room in the resume to highlight these kinds of things. Of course, if you have nothing like that to show for yourself after N years in the industry, that's OK, but it makes you the same as every other applicant who doesn't.
  - noirbot 4y ago
    I really do appreciate this reply. It's pleasant to get a response from someone who's not nearly as jaded about this as I am that helps me reconsider and be less hyperbolic about things. I was certainly being a bit overly cynical with a lot of what you're replying to, but I think a lot of that is driven by not earnestly believing that most companies are as earnest and caring about this as you seem to be. I can write an earnest cover letter about what I love about computing and my job, and what I want to do, and how a new role I'm applying to excites me and speaks to what I find interesting about this sort of job. I've even done that 3-4 times in the last year. And you know what? I got literally not even a rejection letter from any of the places I put at least half an hour of me spilling my soul and passions into a cover letter for. I literally think I've had a worse track record of getting a first round interview when I provided a cover letter than when I didn't. Small sample size for sure, but I'm actually unsure I've ever had a cover letter even get acknowledged, let alone get me in the door. To turn your analogy, most companies and job postings feel like them saying "I'll buy you nice dinners, take care of your kids, and cover your expenses as long as you have sex with me." And honestly, at some point, I've been mostly beaten down to the point where that sounds good, because the companies that promise me they care about me and want to learn about my interests and go on a nice date with me don't even acknowledge my existence when I send them a love letter. I've been curious about this recently, and have been asking around my network, and I actually don't think anyone I've worked with who's done interviewing for their company has ever even seen a cover letter as part of an interview packet. You seem to work somewhere that cares and would actually read and process them, but if so, you really need to make it clear that it actually matters, because at this point, I've had too many companies even require a cover letter and then seemingly care less about treating me like a person than I treated their job as something I could be passionate about.
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      As I said in my original comment: I pretty much never include a cover letter. :-) I've discussed them in the past on HN where I argue they are a waste of time. Each time I bring it up I get comments supporting my stance, and comments strongly in favor of writing them. Amusingly, the last time this happened one responder admitted that he had screened out candidates based on things they said in their cover letter, but not those who didn't provide one (hence the cover letter working against the candidate). If it is to work, the employer must require it, and must make some (verifiable) commitment that they read it. > I've been curious about this recently, and have been asking around my network, and I actually don't think anyone I've worked with who's done interviewing for their company has ever even seen a cover letter as part of an interview packet. If you read my comment, that's been my experience as well. I provide it, and if I get a call, I ask "Did you read the cover letter?" "Oh, you sent a cover letter?"

EconoBen 4y ago
I’m not going to try to convince you in particular one way or another. I’ve just been reflecting about what you’ve said in general, because I think it’s insightful and it’s gotten me thinking. While I think your analogy is more or less accurate, I think any reasonable economist/person could interpret whether hiring standardization is good or bad. For instance, it’s very easy to interpret a standardization of practices as making the labor market more efficient as most people will know exactly what to expect, more or less, in the process. So they can study or prepare for a job and apply to a multitude of places. Someone could probably write a paper on how standardization of hiring processes has ultimately led to more people hired more, from a more diverse number of places and cultures, than it ever had in the past. And of course another person could find issues in this for sure. I end up feeling there are trade-offs with both and certainly processes can be improved. But I think that’s a more micro problem. Like most places don’t in actuality do the exact same hiring process so you can’t really paint with too broad a brush. At least in tech. But standardization is actually a pretty amazing phenomenon and it can’t be understated how much it equalizes many areas of economies. On the other hand, I’ll also point out it can disenfranchise those who wouldn’t do well in that standardized process. I’ve felt this in my own life with grad school entry processes. Unless you are the very very best on paper, the top schools ignore you. That’s been utterly dehumanizing and makes me very unhappy. So I really do feel it. But again, pros and cons. Anyway, thanks for posting this.
- EconoBen 4y ago
  By the way, only tangentially related, but my favorite book on standardization is Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon. It’s inspired a lot of my interest in the intersection of economics, tech, and nature and how we impose standards upon the world.