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This is so very wrong it's almost shocking. How have you been working 25 years that you've learned bad hires get weeded out in three months? (They don't, at a m

This is so very wrong it's almost shocking. How have you been working 25 years that you've learned bad hires get weeded out in three months? (They don't, at a minimum there's usually a PIP for legal reasons, but it takes a six months if you're lucky and usually at least a year) Or that the cost of onboarding a dud is just that person's salary? (It's not, it's at least triple that in terms of time and resources... a bad hire is vastly, vastly worse than no hire over the same period of time). The "good hiring process" of "spending an hour chatting with someone" isn't good, it's noisy. Why would a more restrictive hiring process that has a lower false-positive rate cost my company "millions" in the long term? Especially compared to what you're advocating? "Back in the day you had small teams and little managment" - what? Big Corp programming wasn't an invention of the 21st century. If anything it was more endemic twenty to thirty years ago at airlines, banks, tech, logistics/shipping, government agencies, big box stores, and all of the major groups hiring software / database / etc. hiring engineers.

ghaff 2y ago
Even in sales, there's ramp-up time and then you probably need to miss your numbers for a couple of quarters before you're going to be pushed out. There are probably environments where timeframes will be shorter but a year is probably a pretty rule of thumb for how long it takes to ease out a new hire who isn't working out unless maybe they obviously just lied about their qualifications. And someone who just isn't a good fit any longer for some reason probably has an even longer runway.
ipaddr 2y ago
Your comments are based on a handful of FAANG companies. PIP didn't exist and doesn't exist in most places now. The three months probation allows an employer to let someone go without notice. If they are let go within a year 2 weeks are owed. I'm not worried about big Faangs spending millions on bad hires so logically they have to spend tens of millions on a hiring process that bleeds money and produces not great results. They play this game where they push back stock grants to the last years of a 4 year vest and offer a low base rate. That first year isn't costing them much and with an average of less than 2 years of employment (Amazon) it becomes a profit center. You would think a faang should be able to find the best people the easiest but they struggle more than a smaller shop.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Why would a more restrictive hiring process that has a lower false-positive rate cost my company "millions" in the long term? 1. because you're not thinking in opportunity cost. Companies are concerned with not losing a few months of productivity in a hire. Meanwhile, true best fits don't even get to talk to a human and get hired and make other companies millions. 2. even if we don't take that into account: a longer hiring process costs productivity internally. Your current overworked employees realize help isn't coming and leave. So you not only lose whatever a new hire would have cost, but existing tribal knowledge. Self-furfilling prophecy. 3. Lastly, social/cultural fit is way more important than hard skills 95% of the time. The absolute worst case isn't losing employee productivity, but getting a potential lawsuit over a culturally misaligned hire. These days those are usually weeded out quickly, but it wasn't as obvious if we're talking 10+ years ago.

ghaff 2y ago

Even in sales, there's ramp-up time and then you probably need to miss your numbers for a couple of quarters before you're going to be pushed out. There are probably environments where timeframes will be shorter but a year is probably a pretty rule of thumb for how long it takes to ease out a new hire who isn't working out unless maybe they obviously just lied about their qualifications. And someone who just isn't a good fit any longer for some reason probably has an even longer runway.

ipaddr 2y ago

Your comments are based on a handful of FAANG companies. PIP didn't exist and doesn't exist in most places now. The three months probation allows an employer to let someone go without notice. If they are let go within a year 2 weeks are owed. I'm not worried about big Faangs spending millions on bad hires so logically they have to spend tens of millions on a hiring process that bleeds money and produces not great results. They play this game where they push back stock grants to the last years of a 4 year vest and offer a low base rate. That first year isn't costing them much and with an average of less than 2 years of employment (Amazon) it becomes a profit center. You would think a faang should be able to find the best people the easiest but they struggle more than a smaller shop.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>Why would a more restrictive hiring process that has a lower false-positive rate cost my company "millions" in the long term? 1. because you're not thinking in opportunity cost. Companies are concerned with not losing a few months of productivity in a hire. Meanwhile, true best fits don't even get to talk to a human and get hired and make other companies millions. 2. even if we don't take that into account: a longer hiring process costs productivity internally. Your current overworked employees realize help isn't coming and leave. So you not only lose whatever a new hire would have cost, but existing tribal knowledge. Self-furfilling prophecy. 3. Lastly, social/cultural fit is way more important than hard skills 95% of the time. The absolute worst case isn't losing employee productivity, but getting a potential lawsuit over a culturally misaligned hire. These days those are usually weeded out quickly, but it wasn't as obvious if we're talking 10+ years ago.