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I’m hiring for 2 positions. We have 400 candidates that our recruiters need to filter through. By the time they’re done we will have 200 more. The instructions

I’m hiring for 2 positions. We have 400 candidates that our recruiters need to filter through. By the time they’re done we will have 200 more. The instructions I give these recruiters are designed to whittle the number down to a manageable amount that I can go through in detail. I don’t think today’s LLMs with good fine tuning and prompting would perform any worse than the nontechnical humans doing this particular task. I’m actually shocked our ATS doesn’t have this feature already.

ZephyrBlu 3y ago
LLMs not performing worse than non-technical people isn't a good thing. Non-technical people also filter out the best candidates. "[whittling] the number down" is generally not a good way to find the best applicants, because it is purely focused on reducing the number of applications rather than picking out potentially good ones. It's a safe, low-risk approach that reduces variance.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  It depends on what instruction you give. You’re making a lot of wild assumptions.
  - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
    What instructions do you provide then? It's not a wild assumption when easily 95% of people/companies operate like this.
    - flappyeagle 3y ago
      I provide instructions that are specifically tailored to the role I’m hiring for
  - SantalBlush 3y ago
    I think the idea is that any set of rules or principles for filtering applications can and will be gamed.
    - esafak 3y ago
      The candidates don't know your filters.
- ip26 3y ago
  Whittling out chaff does help you get a better view of the average quality, and there’s no point reading 400 resumes if 200 of them are basically resume spam.
  - ZephyrBlu 3y ago
    Why do you care about average quality? You're hiring a specific person. These kind of things should be rule-in, not rule-out. You also cannot tell the difference between resume spam and a potential candidate until you read the resume. 400 resumes @ 1min per (Which is generous) is ~7hrs. 400 resumes @ 10sec per is only ~1hr. Recruiters might be useful at filtering out obvious spam, though I don't feel like can help with much past that and I think they're also liable to put legitimate but unconventional candidates in the spam pile.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - flappyeagle 3y ago
      Average quality matters because you need to be realistic with the talent level you’re able to attract
srackey 3y ago
So does everyone apply to 200 job postings? Or is tech in a massive recession?
- BrandonWatson 3y ago
  It's slightly different than that. It's the low "cost" of publishing a job post to various boards, and the low "cost" of applying to jobs that are posted. The combinatorial math has exploded the number of applicants per position, but the talent pool has not expanded by that much. The net result is companies are abdicating agency to ATS systems in an effort to filter the "best" resumes. Candidates are responding by feeling disillusioned by the ghosting, non-responses, and 400 applications within 24 hours to any new job posting.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  I don’t know. They are remote positions so there are a lot of geographies that can apply
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  A lot of job sites make it easy to apply to arbitrarily many jobs, so if a candidate wants to they can fairly efficiently apply to every job on the site. It's not hard to imagine that there are at least 200 such people.
- xanderlewis 3y ago
  PhD positions (at least in the UK) are similarly in demand: about 100 applications for 5 places. And, inspired by your calculation, it’s definitely not true that each person is applying to 20 places. I guess a lot of people just don’t get in. It does seem like a lot of people I know are genuinely struggling to find a job. There are probably more than enough lower paying, lower prestige jobs on offer, but they don’t require academic qualifications and so university graduates feel they deserve better.
  - yunwal 3y ago
    > There are probably more than enough lower paying, lower prestige jobs on offer, but they don’t require academic qualifications and so university graduates feel they deserve better. There’s also the issue that people will get dismissed as “overqualified”.
liquidpele 3y ago
Well, agreed, but letting the recruiters filter has always been terrible and they always filter out talent more than they find it. It’s perhaps the most bone headed thing you could do in hiring.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ZephyrBlu 3y ago

LLMs not performing worse than non-technical people isn't a good thing. Non-technical people also filter out the best candidates. "[whittling] the number down" is generally not a good way to find the best applicants, because it is purely focused on reducing the number of applications rather than picking out potentially good ones. It's a safe, low-risk approach that reduces variance.

flappyeagle 3y ago
It depends on what instruction you give. You’re making a lot of wild assumptions.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  What instructions do you provide then? It's not a wild assumption when easily 95% of people/companies operate like this.
  - flappyeagle 3y ago
    I provide instructions that are specifically tailored to the role I’m hiring for
- SantalBlush 3y ago
  I think the idea is that any set of rules or principles for filtering applications can and will be gamed.
  - esafak 3y ago
    The candidates don't know your filters.
ip26 3y ago
Whittling out chaff does help you get a better view of the average quality, and there’s no point reading 400 resumes if 200 of them are basically resume spam.
- ZephyrBlu 3y ago
  Why do you care about average quality? You're hiring a specific person. These kind of things should be rule-in, not rule-out. You also cannot tell the difference between resume spam and a potential candidate until you read the resume. 400 resumes @ 1min per (Which is generous) is ~7hrs. 400 resumes @ 10sec per is only ~1hr. Recruiters might be useful at filtering out obvious spam, though I don't feel like can help with much past that and I think they're also liable to put legitimate but unconventional candidates in the spam pile.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - flappyeagle 3y ago
    Average quality matters because you need to be realistic with the talent level you’re able to attract

srackey 3y ago

So does everyone apply to 200 job postings? Or is tech in a massive recession?

BrandonWatson 3y ago
It's slightly different than that. It's the low "cost" of publishing a job post to various boards, and the low "cost" of applying to jobs that are posted. The combinatorial math has exploded the number of applicants per position, but the talent pool has not expanded by that much. The net result is companies are abdicating agency to ATS systems in an effort to filter the "best" resumes. Candidates are responding by feeling disillusioned by the ghosting, non-responses, and 400 applications within 24 hours to any new job posting.
flappyeagle 3y ago
I don’t know. They are remote positions so there are a lot of geographies that can apply
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
A lot of job sites make it easy to apply to arbitrarily many jobs, so if a candidate wants to they can fairly efficiently apply to every job on the site. It's not hard to imagine that there are at least 200 such people.
xanderlewis 3y ago
PhD positions (at least in the UK) are similarly in demand: about 100 applications for 5 places. And, inspired by your calculation, it’s definitely not true that each person is applying to 20 places. I guess a lot of people just don’t get in. It does seem like a lot of people I know are genuinely struggling to find a job. There are probably more than enough lower paying, lower prestige jobs on offer, but they don’t require academic qualifications and so university graduates feel they deserve better.
- yunwal 3y ago
  > There are probably more than enough lower paying, lower prestige jobs on offer, but they don’t require academic qualifications and so university graduates feel they deserve better. There’s also the issue that people will get dismissed as “overqualified”.

liquidpele 3y ago

Well, agreed, but letting the recruiters filter has always been terrible and they always filter out talent more than they find it. It’s perhaps the most bone headed thing you could do in hiring.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]