4 ms·

The claim that every applicant should get to "make their case" to a human may sound nice in theory, but it would be a monumental waste of time. It's easy to ge

by dbecker 14y ago

The claim that every applicant should get to "make their case" to a human may sound nice in theory, but it would be a monumental waste of time. It's easy to get a stack of 500 resumes, and many of those resumes are from people who legitimately lack the skills to be productive. A company committed to talking with every applicant would never get anything else done.

phaus 14y ago
I don't think that he was trying to suggest that every single applicant should get an interview. Right now there are people who are being excluded from consideration for missing one small item from the checklist of requirements. I'm not a programmer, but I've run into the same issue as a telecommunications specialist. As an example, I applied to a position that was looking for someone with at least 1-2 years of experience working with military Satellite Communications systems. I have almost a decade of recent SATCOM experience but when I spoke with their recruiter, they wanted someone who had specifically worked with their system and would not budge on this issue. For anyone who has worked in the telecommunications industry, pretty much all of the long-haul systems are made up of the same basic components (modems, crypto, frequency converters, high-powered amplifiers, etc.) and you can train someone who is familiar with one system to use another in just a few days. Six months later, this position was still being advertised and the employer still wasn't budging. Now many people might say that this is a company I shouldn't want to work for anyways, but generally when someone is looking for a job it is because they don't have one.
- dbecker 14y ago
  I was probably overstating the author's position when I mentioned interviewing every single applicant. But, I think I'm correctly interpreting him as interviewing a lot of people who don't meet some predefined "requirement" list. The strict requirements filter doesn't work great... You may be the perfect example of where it's missing a great potential employee. But the problem remains: if you receive 500 resumes, and you don't have time to interview even 100 of them... how do you whittle down the pool?
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    The problem isn't whittling down the pool, it is finding signals in noise.
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      Sounded like spam filtering, when I thought about it.
- malandrew 14y ago
  Why don't you try to go around the recruiter entirely and figure out how to get ahold of the hiring manager actually trying to fill that position. With a little bit of research, I'm certain you can get to someone who can put you directly in contact with the person filling the position. In fact, I would would give major kudos to people who are clever enough to figure out how to get around HR. That's a useful skill in and of itself.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    That doesn't always work. You may find that even when your inside contact says you are a "must hire," company policy inserts HR into the process anyway and rejects you based on the same trivial criteria. I'm not saying don't try it, just don't bet your career on it.
    - malandrew 14y ago
      I can't imagine what kind of successful career you could have in a company with an policies and an HR department so short sighted. If both HR and the company policies are at the point where they would reject you even though you've sidestepped HR to get the actual hiring manager to deem you qualified then there is more to worry about at that company than a career.
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        One possible scenario: sometimes a lot of good technology is locked up in a bad company (e.g. through acquisitions, mergers, and/or changes in management), and some engineers may consider it worth the risk of boarding a slowly sinking ship just to be able to play with cool toys that aren't available elsewhere. Relatedly, it's easy to say, "That's not a place you want to work anyway," but there are other factors that influence one's decision whether to work at a particular place.
      - nandemo 14y ago
        Ola, Andrew. I think your assumption that weird HR policies imply the company is bad is unfortunately incorrect. I say "unfortunately" because I wish it were true, since I wish could follow your advice and simply avoid companies with doubtful HR practices from the start. I recently contacted 3 friends/acquaintances that work in 3 companies I'd like to apply at. These are engineer-driven companies that are thriving and have a good reputation as good places to work at. I still had to go thru HR in all of them. In one case (a certain search/advertising company) the in-house recruiter cut my process short after a phone interview without asking me a single technical question. So I couldn't talk to the hiring manager (it's the job of the recruiter to filter down the number of people the hiring manager has to talk to) or even a technical peer for that matter. Essentially they're randomly throwing a large % of the resumes in the trashcan, but they can get away with it because they receive a very large number of resumes to start with.

by dbecker 14y ago

phaus 14y ago

I don't think that he was trying to suggest that every single applicant should get an interview. Right now there are people who are being excluded from consideration for missing one small item from the checklist of requirements. I'm not a programmer, but I've run into the same issue as a telecommunications specialist. As an example, I applied to a position that was looking for someone with at least 1-2 years of experience working with military Satellite Communications systems. I have almost a decade of recent SATCOM experience but when I spoke with their recruiter, they wanted someone who had specifically worked with their system and would not budge on this issue. For anyone who has worked in the telecommunications industry, pretty much all of the long-haul systems are made up of the same basic components (modems, crypto, frequency converters, high-powered amplifiers, etc.) and you can train someone who is familiar with one system to use another in just a few days. Six months later, this position was still being advertised and the employer still wasn't budging. Now many people might say that this is a company I shouldn't want to work for anyways, but generally when someone is looking for a job it is because they don't have one.

dbecker 14y ago
I was probably overstating the author's position when I mentioned interviewing every single applicant. But, I think I'm correctly interpreting him as interviewing a lot of people who don't meet some predefined "requirement" list. The strict requirements filter doesn't work great... You may be the perfect example of where it's missing a great potential employee. But the problem remains: if you receive 500 resumes, and you don't have time to interview even 100 of them... how do you whittle down the pool?
- slurgfest 14y ago
  The problem isn't whittling down the pool, it is finding signals in noise.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Sounded like spam filtering, when I thought about it.
malandrew 14y ago
Why don't you try to go around the recruiter entirely and figure out how to get ahold of the hiring manager actually trying to fill that position. With a little bit of research, I'm certain you can get to someone who can put you directly in contact with the person filling the position. In fact, I would would give major kudos to people who are clever enough to figure out how to get around HR. That's a useful skill in and of itself.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  That doesn't always work. You may find that even when your inside contact says you are a "must hire," company policy inserts HR into the process anyway and rejects you based on the same trivial criteria. I'm not saying don't try it, just don't bet your career on it.
  - malandrew 14y ago
    I can't imagine what kind of successful career you could have in a company with an policies and an HR department so short sighted. If both HR and the company policies are at the point where they would reject you even though you've sidestepped HR to get the actual hiring manager to deem you qualified then there is more to worry about at that company than a career.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      One possible scenario: sometimes a lot of good technology is locked up in a bad company (e.g. through acquisitions, mergers, and/or changes in management), and some engineers may consider it worth the risk of boarding a slowly sinking ship just to be able to play with cool toys that aren't available elsewhere. Relatedly, it's easy to say, "That's not a place you want to work anyway," but there are other factors that influence one's decision whether to work at a particular place.
    - nandemo 14y ago
      Ola, Andrew. I think your assumption that weird HR policies imply the company is bad is unfortunately incorrect. I say "unfortunately" because I wish it were true, since I wish could follow your advice and simply avoid companies with doubtful HR practices from the start. I recently contacted 3 friends/acquaintances that work in 3 companies I'd like to apply at. These are engineer-driven companies that are thriving and have a good reputation as good places to work at. I still had to go thru HR in all of them. In one case (a certain search/advertising company) the in-house recruiter cut my process short after a phone interview without asking me a single technical question. So I couldn't talk to the hiring manager (it's the job of the recruiter to filter down the number of people the hiring manager has to talk to) or even a technical peer for that matter. Essentially they're randomly throwing a large % of the resumes in the trashcan, but they can get away with it because they receive a very large number of resumes to start with.