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A skim of the overall post has me sympathetic, but I almost closed the browser tab with the opening: > Fewer than 100 filled a form with open-ended questions.

by neilv 2y ago

A skim of the overall post has me sympathetic, but I almost closed the browser tab with the opening: > Fewer than 100 filled a form with open-ended questions. About 15 went on to complete a reasonably simple real-world challenge. We are a nation with the cheapest internet and a billion internet users. Where are all the self-directed learners? The eclectic ekalavyas? Apparently not jumping through corporate drone hoops, for a chance to talk with your company. > And then to make it worse, our exam system is fundamentally broken. It’s like forcing Serena Williams and Magnus Carlsen (and Gukesh) to compete in 400m hurdles to figure out if they are fit for their respective sports. Exactly.

TZubiri 2y ago
The actual job posting just says "software engineering", full stack, ai, "to build a tool that answers all the questions". I can only see undergrads falling for this. Maybe if you narrow down the job requirements (and the company mission) you would get less than 2.5k applicants and you wouldn't need to throw challenges to filter out people who value their time.
- cmcaleer 2y ago
  > filter out people who value their time Those who can, do. Those who can’t, will spend half a day on your application for free.
ChaitanyaSai 2y ago
OP here. We are fully aware of how this might seem like a lot of work for job seekers. But the practical reality is the Indian job market has a massive supply of talent. As with any, it is of variable quality. We are very clear we do not want to use the usual credentialing and leetcode interviews as filters. They suck. We want to work with people who are genuinely interested in the domain we work in (education) and this has worked reasonably well for us. I would love to find a better way to filter through 2500 applications. What markers do we rely on. AI has made the usual filters even more irrelevant.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Why can’t you proactively source your own candidates instead of thinking they’ll come to you? Especially for self-directed learners/more independent people?
- roenxi 2y ago
  You've probably misread the situation. As far as I've seen there are two types of job seeker: - People who will be hired immediately on applying because they're amazing. These people generally don't apply through the usual pipeline, they contact people they know and offer to work with them. Sometimes they get headhunted. - Everyone else. To these people it is a numbers game where they have maybe a 5% [0] chance of being hired on applying and so need to apply to maybe 20+ jobs. Any challenge is going to be a massive pain for them because it represents a big time investment for little marginal gain. [0] In the article there are 15 applicants, assuming you only hire 1 there is a 5% chance right there even if they are all obviously qualified and acceptable hires. And then there are a lot of "fake" jobs where the company is not actually going to end up hiring anyone this month.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Probably simplistic but probably also not inaccurate. You have the people who will be directly hired through networking. Then you have everyone else who will shotgun their resumes and other credentials. Some will have better schools and portfolios than others but it's still basically a numbers game. (And, given it's a numbers game, they may not invest much in a given opportunity unless it looks particularly interesting or a company puts skin in the game--e.g. flies them out for on-site interviews.)
- throwaway346434 2y ago
  facepalm here's how you do this. - Ask people to nominate someone else they know as a good resource. - Reach out to the multiply independently recommended person - Ask they who they would recommend and why.
- 0xEF 2y ago
  The job seekers time is more valuable than that of your company. I want you to drill in your skull, tonight, tattoo it on the back of your hand, perhaps. Time is the one resource that none of us can get more of. It is not saved, like money, to be spent on some future endeavors. It does not accumulate interest. It does not grow with market fluctuations. We get what we get and nothing more or less. When an applicant has already taken the time to develop a resume that illustrates their skills along with a portfolio/repo that proves said skills, you callously dismiss that work and past experience by making them jump through hoops in your application process. This starts the conversation by telling the applicant you do not value their efforts thus far, whether you actually do or not. It's not a good foot to lead with. Filtering through thousands of applicants is tough, no doubt, but if your company is successful enough to be receiving that many applicants for a position, then it is successful enough to hire and develop a robust HR or recruiting department that can vet these applications with actual human contact. Yes, this costs money, but if you want to make the omelette, you need to crack some eggs. If you cannot afford to take that path, then you cannot afford to grow, making it tougher to find quality applicants.
linsomniac 2y ago
>Apparently not jumping through corporate drone hoops, for a chance to talk with your company. Ok, you're right that the article is contradicting itself. However, the article is correct as well, our last hiring round had the challenge: "tell us your favorite color in your application". Out of hundreds of applications, we had maybe 5 who said anything about a color. Job seekers are weaponizing applications, and are lamenting that the application process is being weaponized against them. It sucks on both sides of the table.
- pluto_modadic 2y ago
  Other way around. Job seekers are attempting to survive, job boards aren't doing enough to make matchmaking easier.
  - linsomniac 2y ago
    >job boards aren't doing enough to make matchmaking easier Concrete suggestions?
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Companies often rely on referrals/personal recommendations. But that sort of puts the finger on the scale against applicants who don't have an in. Random applications whether online or otherwise have always been pretty much of a crap shoot. To the degree you put substantial barriers in place I'm probably not going to bother if I know it's a numbers game with odds stacked against me.
      - linsomniac 2y ago
        Yep, personal recommendations are huge, but not just because random applicants aren't given a chance... Our last hiring round we got probably 200 applicants. At least 95% seemed to just be automated submissions, no cover letter just a resume, despite our application asking specifically for a cover saying why you were a great fit. We had 3 of our most senior people reviewing these applications (our of a company of 8). Most of the time we were digging through dense resumes trying to pick out the 1 or 2 things that matched our technology stack. We figure the cover is the place you tell us why we should talk to you if you only have 1-2 technology overlap, so most resumes we spent 30-60 seconds on and then ditched. We interviewed 3 people out of that, and they were both really super junior. We were considering hiring one of them as a "maybe she could learn the position". Then I sent out one more round of "if you know anyone" to my personal network (which I had previously done a few months earlier), and got one personal reference to a guy we ended up hiring.

by neilv 2y ago

TZubiri 2y ago

The actual job posting just says "software engineering", full stack, ai, "to build a tool that answers all the questions". I can only see undergrads falling for this. Maybe if you narrow down the job requirements (and the company mission) you would get less than 2.5k applicants and you wouldn't need to throw challenges to filter out people who value their time.

cmcaleer 2y ago
> filter out people who value their time Those who can, do. Those who can’t, will spend half a day on your application for free.

ChaitanyaSai 2y ago

OP here. We are fully aware of how this might seem like a lot of work for job seekers. But the practical reality is the Indian job market has a massive supply of talent. As with any, it is of variable quality. We are very clear we do not want to use the usual credentialing and leetcode interviews as filters. They suck. We want to work with people who are genuinely interested in the domain we work in (education) and this has worked reasonably well for us. I would love to find a better way to filter through 2500 applications. What markers do we rely on. AI has made the usual filters even more irrelevant.

llamaimperative 2y ago
Why can’t you proactively source your own candidates instead of thinking they’ll come to you? Especially for self-directed learners/more independent people?
roenxi 2y ago
You've probably misread the situation. As far as I've seen there are two types of job seeker: - People who will be hired immediately on applying because they're amazing. These people generally don't apply through the usual pipeline, they contact people they know and offer to work with them. Sometimes they get headhunted. - Everyone else. To these people it is a numbers game where they have maybe a 5% [0] chance of being hired on applying and so need to apply to maybe 20+ jobs. Any challenge is going to be a massive pain for them because it represents a big time investment for little marginal gain. [0] In the article there are 15 applicants, assuming you only hire 1 there is a 5% chance right there even if they are all obviously qualified and acceptable hires. And then there are a lot of "fake" jobs where the company is not actually going to end up hiring anyone this month.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Probably simplistic but probably also not inaccurate. You have the people who will be directly hired through networking. Then you have everyone else who will shotgun their resumes and other credentials. Some will have better schools and portfolios than others but it's still basically a numbers game. (And, given it's a numbers game, they may not invest much in a given opportunity unless it looks particularly interesting or a company puts skin in the game--e.g. flies them out for on-site interviews.)
throwaway346434 2y ago
facepalm here's how you do this. - Ask people to nominate someone else they know as a good resource. - Reach out to the multiply independently recommended person - Ask they who they would recommend and why.
0xEF 2y ago
The job seekers time is more valuable than that of your company. I want you to drill in your skull, tonight, tattoo it on the back of your hand, perhaps. Time is the one resource that none of us can get more of. It is not saved, like money, to be spent on some future endeavors. It does not accumulate interest. It does not grow with market fluctuations. We get what we get and nothing more or less. When an applicant has already taken the time to develop a resume that illustrates their skills along with a portfolio/repo that proves said skills, you callously dismiss that work and past experience by making them jump through hoops in your application process. This starts the conversation by telling the applicant you do not value their efforts thus far, whether you actually do or not. It's not a good foot to lead with. Filtering through thousands of applicants is tough, no doubt, but if your company is successful enough to be receiving that many applicants for a position, then it is successful enough to hire and develop a robust HR or recruiting department that can vet these applications with actual human contact. Yes, this costs money, but if you want to make the omelette, you need to crack some eggs. If you cannot afford to take that path, then you cannot afford to grow, making it tougher to find quality applicants.

linsomniac 2y ago

>Apparently not jumping through corporate drone hoops, for a chance to talk with your company. Ok, you're right that the article is contradicting itself. However, the article is correct as well, our last hiring round had the challenge: "tell us your favorite color in your application". Out of hundreds of applications, we had maybe 5 who said anything about a color. Job seekers are weaponizing applications, and are lamenting that the application process is being weaponized against them. It sucks on both sides of the table.

pluto_modadic 2y ago
Other way around. Job seekers are attempting to survive, job boards aren't doing enough to make matchmaking easier.
- linsomniac 2y ago
  >job boards aren't doing enough to make matchmaking easier Concrete suggestions?
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Companies often rely on referrals/personal recommendations. But that sort of puts the finger on the scale against applicants who don't have an in. Random applications whether online or otherwise have always been pretty much of a crap shoot. To the degree you put substantial barriers in place I'm probably not going to bother if I know it's a numbers game with odds stacked against me.
    - linsomniac 2y ago
      Yep, personal recommendations are huge, but not just because random applicants aren't given a chance... Our last hiring round we got probably 200 applicants. At least 95% seemed to just be automated submissions, no cover letter just a resume, despite our application asking specifically for a cover saying why you were a great fit. We had 3 of our most senior people reviewing these applications (our of a company of 8). Most of the time we were digging through dense resumes trying to pick out the 1 or 2 things that matched our technology stack. We figure the cover is the place you tell us why we should talk to you if you only have 1-2 technology overlap, so most resumes we spent 30-60 seconds on and then ditched. We interviewed 3 people out of that, and they were both really super junior. We were considering hiring one of them as a "maybe she could learn the position". Then I sent out one more round of "if you know anyone" to my personal network (which I had previously done a few months earlier), and got one personal reference to a guy we ended up hiring.