5 ms·

> Google is beginning to show its age,... Yup. Goodhart's law strikes again. I am curious as to what the next as-of-yet-ungamed effective hiring metric is.

idontwantthis 4y ago
Maybe analytical hobbies. Hire anyone into lockpicking, rock climbing, or music theory.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  I assume that's a joke? Sounds like going back to manhole covers.
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    I honestly don’t know if I was joking or not but the breadth of replies is interesting.
    - george574 4y ago
      [dead]
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  Sounds to me like a monoculture filled with the sorts of people that I just…wouldn’t like working with.
- fathyb 4y ago
  Makes me think, the Real Book might be musical equivalent of Leetcode..
- neilv 4y ago
  I think the last couple decades of software suggest that all these indicators, if adopted by companies that significant numbers of people wanted to work for, would quickly become checklists of things to do/fake. See also: college admissions. (No, that kid probably didn't do that volunteering activity because they wanted to help people, but because they were told it was a checklist item, as they were coached through college admissions. And they probably didn't learn anything, and they were coached on what to say about that in the essay. And, normally, actually productive volunteering probably wouldn't have looked like each one of those kids starting their own duplicate initiative so each could spin it as demonstrating leadership. And it's more an option for kids from families well-off enough that the kids didn't have to work jobs that would contribute better to their household income or college expenses. And don't get me started on how the well-to-do decided that "travel" would be a plus on applications.)
  - george574 4y ago
    [dead]
  - swsieber 4y ago
    I'd prefer switching metrics every decade to never having a good hiring system.
    - throwaway6734 4y ago
      or introduce some level of randomness to dull the effect of the metrics
      - chiefalchemist 4y ago
        Introduce randomness to see if there are other metrics that might be signals worth considering.
      - yifanl 4y ago
        "We only want to hire lucky people, so our hiring council only looked at your resume if everyone flipped a coin and all landed heads"
        idontwantthis 4y ago
        It worked on Ringworld.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Next level: You take interview vacations, where you work 3 days for every final company in your interview round. It’s an exchange: You check the cushions on the sofas of the HR ad, they check that you can actually take a bugfix to production. Then they give you your real chair.
    - diamondage 4y ago
      Surely there is some economy of scale here, where a standardized first round interview'taking a bug fix to production' fits multiple companies. Noone should have to do more than one technical interview
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Why not skill at writing 8-legged essays[0] instead? Either way, you're so far away from anything that maps directly on to "is this person likely to succeed as an X level software engineer at Y company" that it's all pretty arbitrary. Not to mention, you'd have to have a precise and well defined notion of what "analytical hobbies" are. Preferably one that doesn't carry an inherent classist[1] (and maybe even racist or sexist) bias. That part alone seems pretty tough, forget the actual definition part. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay [1]: https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b...

idontwantthis 4y ago

Maybe analytical hobbies. Hire anyone into lockpicking, rock climbing, or music theory.

ShredKazoo 4y ago
I assume that's a joke? Sounds like going back to manhole covers.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  I honestly don’t know if I was joking or not but the breadth of replies is interesting.
  - george574 4y ago
    [dead]
KyeRussell 4y ago
Sounds to me like a monoculture filled with the sorts of people that I just…wouldn’t like working with.
fathyb 4y ago
Makes me think, the Real Book might be musical equivalent of Leetcode..
neilv 4y ago
I think the last couple decades of software suggest that all these indicators, if adopted by companies that significant numbers of people wanted to work for, would quickly become checklists of things to do/fake. See also: college admissions. (No, that kid probably didn't do that volunteering activity because they wanted to help people, but because they were told it was a checklist item, as they were coached through college admissions. And they probably didn't learn anything, and they were coached on what to say about that in the essay. And, normally, actually productive volunteering probably wouldn't have looked like each one of those kids starting their own duplicate initiative so each could spin it as demonstrating leadership. And it's more an option for kids from families well-off enough that the kids didn't have to work jobs that would contribute better to their household income or college expenses. And don't get me started on how the well-to-do decided that "travel" would be a plus on applications.)
- george574 4y ago
  [dead]
- swsieber 4y ago
  I'd prefer switching metrics every decade to never having a good hiring system.
  - throwaway6734 4y ago
    or introduce some level of randomness to dull the effect of the metrics
    - chiefalchemist 4y ago
      Introduce randomness to see if there are other metrics that might be signals worth considering.
    - yifanl 4y ago
      "We only want to hire lucky people, so our hiring council only looked at your resume if everyone flipped a coin and all landed heads"
      - idontwantthis 4y ago
        It worked on Ringworld.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Next level: You take interview vacations, where you work 3 days for every final company in your interview round. It’s an exchange: You check the cushions on the sofas of the HR ad, they check that you can actually take a bugfix to production. Then they give you your real chair.
  - diamondage 4y ago
    Surely there is some economy of scale here, where a standardized first round interview'taking a bug fix to production' fits multiple companies. Noone should have to do more than one technical interview
actually_a_dog 4y ago
Why not skill at writing 8-legged essays[0] instead? Either way, you're so far away from anything that maps directly on to "is this person likely to succeed as an X level software engineer at Y company" that it's all pretty arbitrary. Not to mention, you'd have to have a precise and well defined notion of what "analytical hobbies" are. Preferably one that doesn't carry an inherent classist[1] (and maybe even racist or sexist) bias. That part alone seems pretty tough, forget the actual definition part. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-legged_essay [1]: https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-b...