5 ms·

Now think about being the people doing the recruiting, offering to 1% of the candidates they interview and still failing 30% of them during their trial period.

Now think about being the people doing the recruiting, offering to 1% of the candidates they interview and still failing 30% of them during their trial period. Hiring is a huge time sink for all people involved. The best people are hard to find and the best jobs are hard to get.

fbdab103 3y ago
All I can think of is the recruiters who cannot have the courtesy to tell the other 99% they are no longer under consideration.
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  Recruiters aren't paid to not recruit. Courtesy doesn't enter into it.
- mgaunard 3y ago
  They get paid 30% of the salary of whoever they secure an offer for. They act according to whatever they think befits their interests.
arter4 3y ago
Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? An average company probably doesn't need exceptional developers. If you're not a tech company and you don't have an extremely challenging setup, your survival as a company doesn't rely on exceptional IT skills. You can do a lot with less than 10 virtual machines, any decent web app framework (Spring? Laravel?), and a version control system. Even apparently insane requirements are entirely reasonable: 100 thousands transactions per day is... 1 TPS. Make that 10 TPS to adjust for peaks. Unless you're doing extremely complex queries, you can definitely handle 10 TPS with reasonably limited resources. Meanwhile, cargo culting and FOMO leads companies to adopt tech stacks, interview styles,... that make sense for FAANGs and other unicorns, but not for your average setup.
- sigsegv420 3y ago
  [dead]
- mgaunard 3y ago
  A business only makes sense if they're aiming to be better than others at a specific angle. They need to get the very best for their particular thing that makes them different. Other roles obviously don't matter as much.
  - arter4 3y ago
    Indeed. For tech companies and a few non-tech companies but with a strong tech environment (think HFT), IT is where you gain an edge on your competitors. Everywhere else, you win customers because of better prices, negotiating nice deals with suppliers, great salespeople and a good SEO presence, and so on, not because you use the latest Kubernetes version that finally introduces support for that sweet annotation you were looking for, or because you use Quarkus instead of Spring (or whatever).
    - mgaunard 3y ago
      This being HackerNews, I would have expected most people here work for a company that is aiming to disrupt the status quo through technology.
- mlhpdx 3y ago
  > Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? No. You need a great _combination_ of people. Over my career I have seen teams assembled with “the best” folks to great fanfare an expense. Then, over and over they are schooled by a team that works great together. If there is one lesson for companies to learn in hiring/staffing/team building it’s this - focus on the team and the team’s results. Yes, there are exceptions.
  - esafak 3y ago
    How do you hire for team fit when people leave, or change teams voluntarily or through reorgs?

fbdab103 3y ago

All I can think of is the recruiters who cannot have the courtesy to tell the other 99% they are no longer under consideration.

jiveturkey 3y ago
Recruiters aren't paid to not recruit. Courtesy doesn't enter into it.
mgaunard 3y ago
They get paid 30% of the salary of whoever they secure an offer for. They act according to whatever they think befits their interests.

arter4 3y ago

Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? An average company probably doesn't need exceptional developers. If you're not a tech company and you don't have an extremely challenging setup, your survival as a company doesn't rely on exceptional IT skills. You can do a lot with less than 10 virtual machines, any decent web app framework (Spring? Laravel?), and a version control system. Even apparently insane requirements are entirely reasonable: 100 thousands transactions per day is... 1 TPS. Make that 10 TPS to adjust for peaks. Unless you're doing extremely complex queries, you can definitely handle 10 TPS with reasonably limited resources. Meanwhile, cargo culting and FOMO leads companies to adopt tech stacks, interview styles,... that make sense for FAANGs and other unicorns, but not for your average setup.

sigsegv420 3y ago
[dead]
mgaunard 3y ago
A business only makes sense if they're aiming to be better than others at a specific angle. They need to get the very best for their particular thing that makes them different. Other roles obviously don't matter as much.
- arter4 3y ago
  Indeed. For tech companies and a few non-tech companies but with a strong tech environment (think HFT), IT is where you gain an edge on your competitors. Everywhere else, you win customers because of better prices, negotiating nice deals with suppliers, great salespeople and a good SEO presence, and so on, not because you use the latest Kubernetes version that finally introduces support for that sweet annotation you were looking for, or because you use Quarkus instead of Spring (or whatever).
  - mgaunard 3y ago
    This being HackerNews, I would have expected most people here work for a company that is aiming to disrupt the status quo through technology.
mlhpdx 3y ago
> Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? No. You need a great _combination_ of people. Over my career I have seen teams assembled with “the best” folks to great fanfare an expense. Then, over and over they are schooled by a team that works great together. If there is one lesson for companies to learn in hiring/staffing/team building it’s this - focus on the team and the team’s results. Yes, there are exceptions.
- esafak 3y ago
  How do you hire for team fit when people leave, or change teams voluntarily or through reorgs?