3 ms·

Why ever hire mediocre talent?

by efavdb 1y ago

dkdcio 1y ago
availability and cost
bilekas 1y ago
Can be financially the only viable option, also they present an amazing opportunity to train up to fit better into your ideal.
- j45 1y ago
  Depending on the work, a smaller team that performs better together can often get more done than a larger team.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Why ever hire mediocre talent? Even if we had perfect filters to accurately identify the best talent, there's not enough of the top few percent to fill all the spaces in the industry, so someone is going to be hiring mediocre talent or forgoing having a business. In the real world, though, we don't have perfect filters, and churn has a cost, too, so in practice most places are going to derive value if they can make effective use of mediocre talent rather than just letting it increase their churn. (Moreover, one of the effects frequently claimed from great talent, employed effectively, as noted upthread, is not just their own direct output, but increasing the yield from lesser talent; if you don't hire any lesser talent in the first place, you can't benefit from that.)
godelski 1y ago
Finding "the best" is very hard. You get such a small glimpse at a person from their resume and the interview process. Then good luck getting them to join you instead of another job that can pay more, give better perks, or whatever. You put in all that time interviewing, spending all that money, and look where you work, is it really all that effective? If your company requires the best then you most likely have too much complexity. If your company requires the best to continue then your company isn't stable. Even if you got the best, can you keep the best? If you argue that there are enough "the best" then really you're just calling average (or anyone just above average) the best
j45 1y ago
The world isn't full of A players. Too many B players won't listen to grow even if they have the abilities. All you can do is help them discover their potential and that it's worth.
OkayPhysicist 1y ago
Because you have a mediocre job to do. If you hire excellent talent, you have to pay excellent prices. If you only have mediocre ROI tasks for said talent, then you're reducing the ROI of the task by overpaying for better talent.
wbl 1y ago
Because you're solving mediocre problems for terrible pay. If you want to solve the world's toughest problems for terrible pay and can meet the bar, there are other places with a very happy customer, stable careers, and great benefits.
- hadlock 1y ago
  In my experience, that is what contractors are for; grind through the blergh B and C tier tickets. You can have onshore developers do that but a lot of companies seem fine with offshoring those tasks.
banannaise 1y ago
why doesn't every MLB team just go get Ohtani
swiftcoder 1y ago
Because Zuckerberg or Altman is willing to pay the A players a cool million, and you aren't willing to match that
ponector 1y ago
Should you hire top talent to fix boring bugs? To implement primitive, yet useful features? Imagine formula 1 team. Should they hire top talent for every position? Like a delivery driver, for example
threatofrain 1y ago
Because sometimes you know how to decompose a problem very well, and some problems are the nice kinds that have a nice horizontal scale-out for mediocre talent.

Why ever hire mediocre talent?

by efavdb 1y ago

Why ever hire mediocre talent?

dkdcio 1y ago

availability and cost

bilekas 1y ago

Can be financially the only viable option, also they present an amazing opportunity to train up to fit better into your ideal.

j45 1y ago
Depending on the work, a smaller team that performs better together can often get more done than a larger team.

dragonwriter 1y ago

> Why ever hire mediocre talent? Even if we had perfect filters to accurately identify the best talent, there's not enough of the top few percent to fill all the spaces in the industry, so someone is going to be hiring mediocre talent or forgoing having a business. In the real world, though, we don't have perfect filters, and churn has a cost, too, so in practice most places are going to derive value if they can make effective use of mediocre talent rather than just letting it increase their churn. (Moreover, one of the effects frequently claimed from great talent, employed effectively, as noted upthread, is not just their own direct output, but increasing the yield from lesser talent; if you don't hire any lesser talent in the first place, you can't benefit from that.)

godelski 1y ago

Finding "the best" is very hard. You get such a small glimpse at a person from their resume and the interview process. Then good luck getting them to join you instead of another job that can pay more, give better perks, or whatever. You put in all that time interviewing, spending all that money, and look where you work, is it really all that effective? If your company requires the best then you most likely have too much complexity. If your company requires the best to continue then your company isn't stable. Even if you got the best, can you keep the best? If you argue that there are enough "the best" then really you're just calling average (or anyone just above average) the best

j45 1y ago

The world isn't full of A players. Too many B players won't listen to grow even if they have the abilities. All you can do is help them discover their potential and that it's worth.

OkayPhysicist 1y ago

Because you have a mediocre job to do. If you hire excellent talent, you have to pay excellent prices. If you only have mediocre ROI tasks for said talent, then you're reducing the ROI of the task by overpaying for better talent.

wbl 1y ago

Because you're solving mediocre problems for terrible pay. If you want to solve the world's toughest problems for terrible pay and can meet the bar, there are other places with a very happy customer, stable careers, and great benefits.

hadlock 1y ago
In my experience, that is what contractors are for; grind through the blergh B and C tier tickets. You can have onshore developers do that but a lot of companies seem fine with offshoring those tasks.

banannaise 1y ago

why doesn't every MLB team just go get Ohtani

swiftcoder 1y ago

Because Zuckerberg or Altman is willing to pay the A players a cool million, and you aren't willing to match that

ponector 1y ago

Should you hire top talent to fix boring bugs? To implement primitive, yet useful features? Imagine formula 1 team. Should they hire top talent for every position? Like a delivery driver, for example

threatofrain 1y ago

Because sometimes you know how to decompose a problem very well, and some problems are the nice kinds that have a nice horizontal scale-out for mediocre talent.