5 ms·

With the large up front ask, do you put an equal amount of time and effort into explaining why you pass on a candidate? My biggest issue with tech hiring is the

With the large up front ask, do you put an equal amount of time and effort into explaining why you pass on a candidate? My biggest issue with tech hiring is the complete and utter lack of feedback of any sort.

steveklabnik 3y ago
I am not personally involved in rejecting candidates, but I have heard anecdotally that people have found what gets sent out to be nicer than what they've heard from others. Have you gotten more feedback in other industries? To be honest, I thought that general standard is essentially silence. But it's been many years since I've worked in not-tech.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Most companies are totally silent on what went wrong for legal reasons, although many will give you the courtesy of saying "no" instead of ghosting you once you have had an interview. It does seem a little bit suboptimal to ask so much upfront from people who you would never hire. A company with a similarly large early screening form, Reservoir Labs, does a first resume screen before sending an invitation to respond to their screening questions. I would suggest that you do the same out of politeness to candidates.
  - bcantrill 3y ago
    We're not going to do a resume screen, because too often we have found that a resume does not accurately predict the quality of the materials (in both directions!). People are certainly welcome to not apply to Oxide; the world is large, and this company emphatically isn't the right fit for everyone! Indeed, part of the reason that we chose to make this process public is to allow people to better decide if it's worth the investment of time and energy -- or not!
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      I would advise caution at hiring someone who is excessively willing to go through an immense set of hoops just to get hired, as this might indicate a disproportionate willingness to work for you. Honestly, it feels suspicious. It’d probably be better to invest the (substantial) work done in reviewing the submission in a more structured interview process where the traits can be better assessed.
      - steveklabnik 3y ago
        We do not evaluate people on “how much they want to work here” but instead on relevant skills. As mentioned in this thread (and on our jobs page) we get enough applicants that it takes 4-6 weeks to even read materials, on average, and so have to necessarily reject a large number of people. Simply wanting to work at Oxide is not a differentiator. Everyone who applies does!
        Paul-Craft 3y ago
        > We do not evaluate people on “how much they want to work here” Yes you do, implicitly.
        steveklabnik 3y ago
        Every workplace that has open job postings does, on some level. We do not particularly use “seems like they really want to” as a criteria.
        rbanffy 3y ago
        If the hiring process is a significant burden to the candidate when compared to your competitors, it might become, even if not formally recognised. This is why I asked if you can detect any interesting signals in your candidate’s profiles that diverge from the overall candidate pool (hard to get stats on the people who don’t apply, but I think you understand where I’m going). For the record, I’d LOVE to see that kind of data.
- meejah 3y ago
  If someone demands hours of free labour for "code exercises" or whatever, the absolute bare minimum is that you put some portion of that back into meaningful code review. So you should probably be spending _more_ time on the feedback for rejected candidates. Be specific, tie it back to your evaluation criteria that you wrote down before asking for the exercises to be completed.
  - bcantrill 3y ago
    We at Oxide don't ask for code exercises, but perhaps you're making a more general comment?
    - steveklabnik 3y ago
      I read the parent as metaphorical; if we did code samples, code review would be expected, so since we do not, an equivalent review would be nice. I get the sentiment but it’s very tricky; most places do a screen and then an interview and so review takes place during said interview, we are heavier allocated on “the screen” in a sense. It would be even more work in our circumstances to do so, since we have more people in that stage of the process than others.
      - meejah 3y ago
        Yes, I was making a more general comment (I think it does still apply whether there's actual code-exercises or not though). If it's "too much work" for you, might be time to re-examine how much work you're asking for. I also think these sorts of things select for candidates that have lots of time for "applying to places" (which will naturally select against people already in jobs, or who already value work/life balance). Your process doesn't look as onerous as some I've seen for sure -- but perhaps you _should_ add a "screen" portion and thereby not ask for the "long form" work from candidates you'd reject anyway (also buying more time for meaningful feedback to those you do ask the work of).
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  More feedback? No. Less time demanded? Yes. And your company's application process is more demanding and more personal than most in your industry. Does a generic response show Oxide's values of candor, courage, empathy, and transparency?
  - bcantrill 3y ago
    We don't provide feedback on folks that we don't interview -- for reasons not dissimilar to Y Combinator's logic for the same policy.[0] I wouldn't phrase it quite the same way, but we are grossly oversubscribed as a company, and we as a result end up rejecting people who would probably succeed here. [0] https://www.ycombinator.com/whynot https://www.ycombinator.com/whynot

steveklabnik 3y ago

I am not personally involved in rejecting candidates, but I have heard anecdotally that people have found what gets sent out to be nicer than what they've heard from others. Have you gotten more feedback in other industries? To be honest, I thought that general standard is essentially silence. But it's been many years since I've worked in not-tech.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Most companies are totally silent on what went wrong for legal reasons, although many will give you the courtesy of saying "no" instead of ghosting you once you have had an interview. It does seem a little bit suboptimal to ask so much upfront from people who you would never hire. A company with a similarly large early screening form, Reservoir Labs, does a first resume screen before sending an invitation to respond to their screening questions. I would suggest that you do the same out of politeness to candidates.
- bcantrill 3y ago
  We're not going to do a resume screen, because too often we have found that a resume does not accurately predict the quality of the materials (in both directions!). People are certainly welcome to not apply to Oxide; the world is large, and this company emphatically isn't the right fit for everyone! Indeed, part of the reason that we chose to make this process public is to allow people to better decide if it's worth the investment of time and energy -- or not!
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    I would advise caution at hiring someone who is excessively willing to go through an immense set of hoops just to get hired, as this might indicate a disproportionate willingness to work for you. Honestly, it feels suspicious. It’d probably be better to invest the (substantial) work done in reviewing the submission in a more structured interview process where the traits can be better assessed.
    - steveklabnik 3y ago
      We do not evaluate people on “how much they want to work here” but instead on relevant skills. As mentioned in this thread (and on our jobs page) we get enough applicants that it takes 4-6 weeks to even read materials, on average, and so have to necessarily reject a large number of people. Simply wanting to work at Oxide is not a differentiator. Everyone who applies does!
      - Paul-Craft 3y ago
        > We do not evaluate people on “how much they want to work here” Yes you do, implicitly.
        steveklabnik 3y ago
        Every workplace that has open job postings does, on some level. We do not particularly use “seems like they really want to” as a criteria.
        rbanffy 3y ago
        If the hiring process is a significant burden to the candidate when compared to your competitors, it might become, even if not formally recognised. This is why I asked if you can detect any interesting signals in your candidate’s profiles that diverge from the overall candidate pool (hard to get stats on the people who don’t apply, but I think you understand where I’m going). For the record, I’d LOVE to see that kind of data.
meejah 3y ago
If someone demands hours of free labour for "code exercises" or whatever, the absolute bare minimum is that you put some portion of that back into meaningful code review. So you should probably be spending _more_ time on the feedback for rejected candidates. Be specific, tie it back to your evaluation criteria that you wrote down before asking for the exercises to be completed.
- bcantrill 3y ago
  We at Oxide don't ask for code exercises, but perhaps you're making a more general comment?
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    I read the parent as metaphorical; if we did code samples, code review would be expected, so since we do not, an equivalent review would be nice. I get the sentiment but it’s very tricky; most places do a screen and then an interview and so review takes place during said interview, we are heavier allocated on “the screen” in a sense. It would be even more work in our circumstances to do so, since we have more people in that stage of the process than others.
    - meejah 3y ago
      Yes, I was making a more general comment (I think it does still apply whether there's actual code-exercises or not though). If it's "too much work" for you, might be time to re-examine how much work you're asking for. I also think these sorts of things select for candidates that have lots of time for "applying to places" (which will naturally select against people already in jobs, or who already value work/life balance). Your process doesn't look as onerous as some I've seen for sure -- but perhaps you _should_ add a "screen" portion and thereby not ask for the "long form" work from candidates you'd reject anyway (also buying more time for meaningful feedback to those you do ask the work of).
pseudalopex 3y ago
More feedback? No. Less time demanded? Yes. And your company's application process is more demanding and more personal than most in your industry. Does a generic response show Oxide's values of candor, courage, empathy, and transparency?
- bcantrill 3y ago
  We don't provide feedback on folks that we don't interview -- for reasons not dissimilar to Y Combinator's logic for the same policy.[0] I wouldn't phrase it quite the same way, but we are grossly oversubscribed as a company, and we as a result end up rejecting people who would probably succeed here. [0] https://www.ycombinator.com/whynot https://www.ycombinator.com/whynot