5 ms·

Hiring is hard

37 points by twism 18y ago

lessallan 18y ago
Great read.
jgrahamc 18y ago
You could also consider using a recruiter. I realize it's painful to pay a large chunk of salary and you really want to conserve cash in a start-up. But you also have to trade off the speed of finding someone against the recruitment cost. I'm using both recruiters and social techniques (including giving a bonus to any engineer on my team who brings in a candidate that we actually hire).
- mcargian 18y ago
  If hiring is hard, finding a decent recruiter is even harder. My experience, with recuriters, has been signing a contract to cough up 15% of annual salary to a recruiter who does nothing more than list the ad on job sites and pass along resumes. I know there are some recruiters that actually do recruit, and add value, but they are very hard to find.
  - jgrahamc 18y ago
    I do agree that it's hard to get a good recruiter and you do have to work with them to make sure they understand your requirements, but it is possible. I've worked with a few over the years who do a really good job of screening candidates and if you give them a test that they can pass on to candidates as well then you waste less of your time.
  - mdakin 18y ago
    15% seems like a low fee. Perhaps the recruiters willing to work at that rate are not the best? The mid-sized company I used to work for would pay more like 33%. That company was able to build quite an impressive staff for a larger mid-sized company. (Also, they paid staff noticeably higher than industry average which was probably the real key.)
  - cabalamat 18y ago
    > I know there are some recruiters that actually do recruit, and add value, but they are very hard to find. Indeed so. I've been on the other side of the fence -- i.e. as an employee -- and the vast majority of the recruitment agencies I dealt with were idiots. 99% of them have no ability to sort of competent from incompetent candidates.
  - dnaquin 18y ago
    And some recruiters are so bad that they steer candidates away from a position. I know I've walked away from a potential job because the recruiter was so hard to deal with.
jgrahamc 18y ago
This post doesn't talk about what happens when you've actually got a candidate in front of you. That too is hard. We're using extensive testing of candidates to make sure that we understand their technical knowledge as well as traditional interviews. All our candidates have to do a programming test before they even get considered for an interview (we made up a test that we think captures the sort of programming that they would have to do here). Then when they come in they sit a programming knowledge test before they get to the first interview.
- neilc 18y ago
  Another consideration is how you actually convince your prospective hire to join the company: particularly in a startup, the sort of person you want to hire is very likely to have multiple offers to choose amongst. When interviewing someone like that, I think it's important to realize the person's calibre quickly, and then to try to use the interview to show them why they ought to work for you -- in that situation, routine written programming tests probably work to your disadvantage.
  - estegonza2002 18y ago
    You do have a point there. first of all, I work with Auston, the one who posted this threat. I think that making the decision to join a company has to do more with the people and vision of the company I'm interviewing with. At the same time I think it would be nice to show them my skill set. I'm have been a consultant for a long time now and there have been times when I didn't want to do business with the other company after the initial meeting and other times where I had to proof myself to the company before we could have a deal together. I think we approached the interviews pretty good. We set up a very relax atmosphere and talk about more than just programming and skill stuff.
estegonza2002 18y ago
getting hired is harder!
timcederman 18y ago
This is the same company that caused all that fuss a few weeks back with their arrogance about who they would hire and for posting a cover letter to belittle a candidate. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360574) No wonder they're finding hiring hard.
- webwright 18y ago
  It's generally about that hard (many startups pay recruiters $20k+ to recruit a single good developer), and they apparantly succeeded. Good for them.
- nostrademons 18y ago
  Cut 'em some slack. They screwed up, hopefully they've learned their lesson, apparently they've found someone (so it doesn't look like they were hurt too badly), and the data they post here may help other startups find people.
  - timcederman 18y ago
    It was a slightly unnecessarily snarky comment, you're right -- the data actually wasn't too bad.
ardit33 18y ago
"waded through 85+ applicants, calling about 25 of those people, and interviewing about 10 candidates." --For ONE position. It feels like this guy is running "American Idol" contest. Really, you bring in 10 candidates, to hire one, then you are not doing enough of a good phone screening.
- auston 18y ago
  Sorry. I should have said "followed up" we didn't actually call 25 people. Also, you may not be accounting for our geographic location.
  - mikeryan 18y ago
    If you didn't call that what the heck was a follow up? An email?
    - auston 18y ago
      We called some, IMed others, Facebooked a few, Emailed the rest.
jmtame 18y ago
Why are you using "college degree" as a measure of a candidate's "quality"?
- auston 18y ago
  We didn't actually take a college degree into consideration when hiring. I simply thought it would be nice to include, because some people do take college education into consideration when looking to follow up with applicants.
  - jmtame 18y ago
    I understand, in some cases it can be helpful. But the way you worded it, you dropped the college degree reference many times. I don't want to sound like a cynnical person when writing on this. I think it's cool that you published your results, I just felt like pointing out that it seemed like a lot of emphasis was put on college degrees as a qualifying factor. I would really like to hear about your reasoning for why you selected the applicants in the final round. Some possible things to consider writing about next time: Did they contribute to open source projects? If so, which ones? Did they write some cool apps in the past? If so, what were they? Do they have an interesting philosophy on life, code, or hackers? If so, what was it?
- stillmotion 18y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Problem with a lot of inexperienced startups is their failure to look at people's potential and not their credentials. While a degree helps, people are more likely to prove their quality through great work and amazing reliability. When I start hiring--which hopefully is soon--I'm not going to give a rat's ass about people's credentials, I'll know they're good when I see their work and how they work.
  - brentr 18y ago
    I am curious as to what would count as "work". Would you consider building a financial library used for personal and academic purposes work?
bdotdub 18y ago
This is probably a nitpicky thing, but things you can't rate, you shouldn't rate. Customer Service 9? (Never had to use it) Why a 9?
- cdr 18y ago
  Not to mention the rating for HN: 0 (No way to get on the jobs page!)
mikeryan 18y ago
The more I read these "get real or die" folks the more I realize they need a few more years in the barrel before they're ready to go.
smwhreyebelong 18y ago
How about LinkedIn ? Anybody try that for finding potential candidates ? I have started receiving increasing mail from recruiters/startups there.
phil_collins 18y ago
Are you writing controls for the space shuttle or building a web based lead manager? How come nobody is good enough? My guess is you probably don't know what to look for in a candidate.

37 points by twism 18y ago

Great read.

You could also consider using a recruiter. I realize it's painful to pay a large chunk of salary and you really want to conserve cash in a start-up. But you also have to trade off the speed of finding someone against the recruitment cost. I'm using both recruiters and social techniques (including giving a bonus to any engineer on my team who brings in a candidate that we actually hire).

mcargian 18y ago
If hiring is hard, finding a decent recruiter is even harder. My experience, with recuriters, has been signing a contract to cough up 15% of annual salary to a recruiter who does nothing more than list the ad on job sites and pass along resumes. I know there are some recruiters that actually do recruit, and add value, but they are very hard to find.
- jgrahamc 18y ago
  I do agree that it's hard to get a good recruiter and you do have to work with them to make sure they understand your requirements, but it is possible. I've worked with a few over the years who do a really good job of screening candidates and if you give them a test that they can pass on to candidates as well then you waste less of your time.
- mdakin 18y ago
  15% seems like a low fee. Perhaps the recruiters willing to work at that rate are not the best? The mid-sized company I used to work for would pay more like 33%. That company was able to build quite an impressive staff for a larger mid-sized company. (Also, they paid staff noticeably higher than industry average which was probably the real key.)
- cabalamat 18y ago
  > I know there are some recruiters that actually do recruit, and add value, but they are very hard to find. Indeed so. I've been on the other side of the fence -- i.e. as an employee -- and the vast majority of the recruitment agencies I dealt with were idiots. 99% of them have no ability to sort of competent from incompetent candidates.
- dnaquin 18y ago
  And some recruiters are so bad that they steer candidates away from a position. I know I've walked away from a potential job because the recruiter was so hard to deal with.

jgrahamc 18y ago

This post doesn't talk about what happens when you've actually got a candidate in front of you. That too is hard. We're using extensive testing of candidates to make sure that we understand their technical knowledge as well as traditional interviews. All our candidates have to do a programming test before they even get considered for an interview (we made up a test that we think captures the sort of programming that they would have to do here). Then when they come in they sit a programming knowledge test before they get to the first interview.

neilc 18y ago
Another consideration is how you actually convince your prospective hire to join the company: particularly in a startup, the sort of person you want to hire is very likely to have multiple offers to choose amongst. When interviewing someone like that, I think it's important to realize the person's calibre quickly, and then to try to use the interview to show them why they ought to work for you -- in that situation, routine written programming tests probably work to your disadvantage.
- estegonza2002 18y ago
  You do have a point there. first of all, I work with Auston, the one who posted this threat. I think that making the decision to join a company has to do more with the people and vision of the company I'm interviewing with. At the same time I think it would be nice to show them my skill set. I'm have been a consultant for a long time now and there have been times when I didn't want to do business with the other company after the initial meeting and other times where I had to proof myself to the company before we could have a deal together. I think we approached the interviews pretty good. We set up a very relax atmosphere and talk about more than just programming and skill stuff.

estegonza2002 18y ago

getting hired is harder!

timcederman 18y ago

This is the same company that caused all that fuss a few weeks back with their arrogance about who they would hire and for posting a cover letter to belittle a candidate. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360574 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360574) No wonder they're finding hiring hard.

webwright 18y ago
It's generally about that hard (many startups pay recruiters $20k+ to recruit a single good developer), and they apparantly succeeded. Good for them.
nostrademons 18y ago
Cut 'em some slack. They screwed up, hopefully they've learned their lesson, apparently they've found someone (so it doesn't look like they were hurt too badly), and the data they post here may help other startups find people.
- timcederman 18y ago
  It was a slightly unnecessarily snarky comment, you're right -- the data actually wasn't too bad.

ardit33 18y ago

"waded through 85+ applicants, calling about 25 of those people, and interviewing about 10 candidates." --For ONE position. It feels like this guy is running "American Idol" contest. Really, you bring in 10 candidates, to hire one, then you are not doing enough of a good phone screening.

auston 18y ago
Sorry. I should have said "followed up" we didn't actually call 25 people. Also, you may not be accounting for our geographic location.
- mikeryan 18y ago
  If you didn't call that what the heck was a follow up? An email?
  - auston 18y ago
    We called some, IMed others, Facebooked a few, Emailed the rest.

jmtame 18y ago

Why are you using "college degree" as a measure of a candidate's "quality"?

auston 18y ago
We didn't actually take a college degree into consideration when hiring. I simply thought it would be nice to include, because some people do take college education into consideration when looking to follow up with applicants.
- jmtame 18y ago
  I understand, in some cases it can be helpful. But the way you worded it, you dropped the college degree reference many times. I don't want to sound like a cynnical person when writing on this. I think it's cool that you published your results, I just felt like pointing out that it seemed like a lot of emphasis was put on college degrees as a qualifying factor. I would really like to hear about your reasoning for why you selected the applicants in the final round. Some possible things to consider writing about next time: Did they contribute to open source projects? If so, which ones? Did they write some cool apps in the past? If so, what were they? Do they have an interesting philosophy on life, code, or hackers? If so, what was it?
stillmotion 18y ago
My thoughts exactly. Problem with a lot of inexperienced startups is their failure to look at people's potential and not their credentials. While a degree helps, people are more likely to prove their quality through great work and amazing reliability. When I start hiring--which hopefully is soon--I'm not going to give a rat's ass about people's credentials, I'll know they're good when I see their work and how they work.
- brentr 18y ago
  I am curious as to what would count as "work". Would you consider building a financial library used for personal and academic purposes work?

bdotdub 18y ago

This is probably a nitpicky thing, but things you can't rate, you shouldn't rate. Customer Service 9? (Never had to use it) Why a 9?

cdr 18y ago
Not to mention the rating for HN: 0 (No way to get on the jobs page!)

mikeryan 18y ago

The more I read these "get real or die" folks the more I realize they need a few more years in the barrel before they're ready to go.

smwhreyebelong 18y ago

How about LinkedIn ? Anybody try that for finding potential candidates ? I have started receiving increasing mail from recruiters/startups there.

phil_collins 18y ago

Are you writing controls for the space shuttle or building a web based lead manager? How come nobody is good enough? My guess is you probably don't know what to look for in a candidate.