4 ms·

as someone who's going through the Google hiring pipeline right now (as a candidate), I just wanted to say thanks for these nice words of encouragement / ration

as someone who's going through the Google hiring pipeline right now (as a candidate), I just wanted to say thanks for these nice words of encouragement / rational thinking about all of this. the process (this isn't Google's fault) feels quite a bit like a semi-objective judgement about my competency and worth (both as a professional... and individual). sure, I know I "shouldn't" think like that, but it's overall very very tough. thanks for a clear headed view on it all.

blagie 3y ago
Hiring is a die roll. Here's a good model: - You want to hire someone with a competency of 100 units - A bad hire is expensive, and you definitely don't want one slipping in. - There is a noise floor in the interview process of 50 units - This means you need to set the hiring bar at 150 units to be sure no one below 100 units slips in This means the vast majority of qualified people won't be hired (which is okay; the cost of a lost hire is low), but you're very unlikely to get the person who can't pass fizzbuzz. The flip side is that the job applications are saturated with idiots. Consider this model: - You have 100 people in a work force. - 95 are qualified, and quickly find jobs after 1-6 interviews. They stay in those jobs until they get bored, typically 3-10 years. - Five can barely tie their shoelaces. They send out hundreds of resumes until they get hired, and then stay in jobs until they're found to be incompetent and fired, typically 3-6 months. Although there are O(20x) as many qualified people as unqualified, they'll send out at most 100 resumes per year, and so job applications are dominated by the unqualified ones. This means hiring needs a very high noise floor, indeed, and a few idiots will still sneak in. This is oversimplified in a millions ways, but it's why you probably won't get a Google offer no matter how good you are. Interviews have a huge noise floor, and to be hired, you need to be qualified AND have a good day. How good a day depends on how qualified you are, but that's why you see twitter posts from world-famous developers about not qualifying for this job or the other.

blagie 3y ago

Hiring is a die roll. Here's a good model: - You want to hire someone with a competency of 100 units - A bad hire is expensive, and you definitely don't want one slipping in. - There is a noise floor in the interview process of 50 units - This means you need to set the hiring bar at 150 units to be sure no one below 100 units slips in This means the vast majority of qualified people won't be hired (which is okay; the cost of a lost hire is low), but you're very unlikely to get the person who can't pass fizzbuzz. The flip side is that the job applications are saturated with idiots. Consider this model: - You have 100 people in a work force. - 95 are qualified, and quickly find jobs after 1-6 interviews. They stay in those jobs until they get bored, typically 3-10 years. - Five can barely tie their shoelaces. They send out hundreds of resumes until they get hired, and then stay in jobs until they're found to be incompetent and fired, typically 3-6 months. Although there are O(20x) as many qualified people as unqualified, they'll send out at most 100 resumes per year, and so job applications are dominated by the unqualified ones. This means hiring needs a very high noise floor, indeed, and a few idiots will still sneak in. This is oversimplified in a millions ways, but it's why you probably won't get a Google offer no matter how good you are. Interviews have a huge noise floor, and to be hired, you need to be qualified AND have a good day. How good a day depends on how qualified you are, but that's why you see twitter posts from world-famous developers about not qualifying for this job or the other.