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I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials. Have most companies not realized that the two aren'

I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials. Have most companies not realized that the two aren't directly related? Are they too lazy? Do they have no confidence in the ability of their hiring managers? Do they lack the resources to train new employees? There's an upside to this, though: You can easily identify short-sighted companies that probably aren't worth working for based on the degree requirements stated in their job listings. If you require 3 years of experience and a CS degree for all your 'junior' and 'entry level' developer positions, there's a good chance you couldn't think your way out of a paper bag. That's often code for "I expect a lot out of you, but I'm not going to give you much in return". Tech companies need to adapt more quickly than most others just to stay afloat. Following the same hiring practices that have been around since the 19th century is a great way to fall flat on your face in that regard.

lordofmoria 14y ago
I also see this as a huge problem. Without the "credential crutch", identifying talent and true ability is nearly impossible for a hiring manager who isn't deeply involved in the business on a day-to-day level. The problem is, the managers who ARE deeply involved are usually too busy to spend time searching for and hiring new employees (GREAT managers though, will always find time for this). Hiring is especially a problem in tech, because there's an even bigger disconnect between the hiring managers' understanding of the actual position.
incision 14y ago
>I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials. Have most companies not realized that the two aren't directly related? Are they too lazy? Do they have no confidence in the ability of their hiring managers? Do they lack the resources to train new employees? * In general, I think there has been a strong trend away from investing in people, to treat them as interchangable cogs or simply farm out as much as possible. I've seen larger organizations which almost seem scared of having exceptional people, or more specifically allowing them to do exceptional work. It's actually seen as a kind of liability, that a great person could generate leverage to effectively demand more money or leave and take unique institutional knowledge with them. * Assessing "talent" costs time. The time of reasonably talented people you are or will be paying, in some form another. * Unless you find a way to turn it into an automated, repeatable process, the decisions made are subjective and subject to all manner of criticism and allegations. This might not rate in a startup, but once you're large enough to have anyone titled "hiring manager", I expect these things are going to be relevant. * Scale is a problem. If I put out an entry-level job I'm gonna get 500+ applicants. Reduce it to something almost criminally narrow (You already know who you're going to hire, but you have to go through the motions and make the selection defensible) and I'm still looking at 100+. * Not sure what exactly you mean by training. It's hard enough to find people who can drop into a new environment and apply their existing skills immediately. Finding people who are so smart and capable that they can drop and learn skills while applying them would be that much harder.
- chii 14y ago
  > It's actually seen as a kind of liability, that a great person could generate leverage to effectively demand more money or leave and take unique institutional knowledge with them. this begs the question - _just who exactly_ is the entity that is seeing this as a liability instead of an asset? I suspect its not the owner of the business, but a middle manager who needs to make themselves valuable, and their only value is in managing other employees. A self directed, motivated employee who has large leverage could pose risk to the said middle manager. Of course, all this is just speculation.
codeonfire 14y ago
"I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials." You have to realize how there is a huge, huge amount of people incredibly full of shit. Everybody thinks, or at least says, that they are an expert hacker. The problem is that invariably someone who overstated and overestimated their skills makes it inside a company. Then the bullshit really starts flying. They want to hire their no skills friend, or sibling, or spouse because $$$. They talk them up and try to bully anybody who is against hiring the person. Suddenly it appears on the surface that the company IS trying to hire based on 'talent' or at least one persons biased perception of it. Talent is not going to work in the typical political business environment. Next, you go with degrees. Does your self serving friend hire at least have a degree? No? well too bad for you and your friend. When you talk about "talent" it's almost funny because of how awful reality actually is in hiring. When anyone tries to talk up themselves or their friends, all anybody can think is 'full of shit.' When somebody says they dropped out and taught themselves, its 'full of shit.' When somebody says that the best employees don't need to go to college, its 'full of shit.' Do you think people who have heard and seen every lie out there are just going to take a person's word for it?
- randomdata 14y ago
  Curiously, you didn't say, "when somebody says they went to college, its 'full of shit'". If people are as untrustworthy as you claim, it is a real concern. I assume you take steps to verify that everyone who claims to hold one actually does? Of course, in programming specifically, it is so easy to verify expertise, relatively speaking, that observing any claim made by the applicant seems pointless.
  - codeonfire 14y ago
    Companies can verify academic credentials through third party services or the school directly. That's the whole point of credentials. In programming it is very difficult to verify expertise. Programmers, especially self taught programmers, are usually very myopic. Someone will learn one technology, and then they determine a candidates overall expertise based on knowledge of that one technology. The problem is they've built up their entire ego based on learning just one thing and even got a job as a rails hacker or a javascript hacker or whatever. That person thinks that they know how to determine expertise: just ask a bunch of very specific rails questions. In reality there's a huge range of necessary expertise such as problem solving, debugging, interacting with people, using other languages and frameworks, databases, testing, operations. But the ego takes over and says, "I'm an expert in html, therefore html is all that's really important." Now you might say that if the interviewer finds someone who can do the specific skill, what's the problem? The problem is that in a larger company, that one skill is a dime a dozen. How is the candidate going to stack up when there are 400 rails hackers that can also do lots of other things. As soon as its apparent the person can only do rails and is kind of dumb about other things, that's inviting huge criticism and job peril for the interviewers. Small companies can enjoy their ignorant bliss. The other class of interviewers are hiring managers who's egos are by their very nature amazing experts in all fields and technologies, but who's brains know absolutely nothing about software.

lordofmoria 14y ago

I also see this as a huge problem. Without the "credential crutch", identifying talent and true ability is nearly impossible for a hiring manager who isn't deeply involved in the business on a day-to-day level. The problem is, the managers who ARE deeply involved are usually too busy to spend time searching for and hiring new employees (GREAT managers though, will always find time for this). Hiring is especially a problem in tech, because there's an even bigger disconnect between the hiring managers' understanding of the actual position.

incision 14y ago

>I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials. Have most companies not realized that the two aren't directly related? Are they too lazy? Do they have no confidence in the ability of their hiring managers? Do they lack the resources to train new employees? * In general, I think there has been a strong trend away from investing in people, to treat them as interchangable cogs or simply farm out as much as possible. I've seen larger organizations which almost seem scared of having exceptional people, or more specifically allowing them to do exceptional work. It's actually seen as a kind of liability, that a great person could generate leverage to effectively demand more money or leave and take unique institutional knowledge with them. * Assessing "talent" costs time. The time of reasonably talented people you are or will be paying, in some form another. * Unless you find a way to turn it into an automated, repeatable process, the decisions made are subjective and subject to all manner of criticism and allegations. This might not rate in a startup, but once you're large enough to have anyone titled "hiring manager", I expect these things are going to be relevant. * Scale is a problem. If I put out an entry-level job I'm gonna get 500+ applicants. Reduce it to something almost criminally narrow (You already know who you're going to hire, but you have to go through the motions and make the selection defensible) and I'm still looking at 100+. * Not sure what exactly you mean by training. It's hard enough to find people who can drop into a new environment and apply their existing skills immediately. Finding people who are so smart and capable that they can drop and learn skills while applying them would be that much harder.

chii 14y ago
> It's actually seen as a kind of liability, that a great person could generate leverage to effectively demand more money or leave and take unique institutional knowledge with them. this begs the question - _just who exactly_ is the entity that is seeing this as a liability instead of an asset? I suspect its not the owner of the business, but a middle manager who needs to make themselves valuable, and their only value is in managing other employees. A self directed, motivated employee who has large leverage could pose risk to the said middle manager. Of course, all this is just speculation.

codeonfire 14y ago

"I've often wondered why so few companies make a concerted effort to seek out talent rather than credentials." You have to realize how there is a huge, huge amount of people incredibly full of shit. Everybody thinks, or at least says, that they are an expert hacker. The problem is that invariably someone who overstated and overestimated their skills makes it inside a company. Then the bullshit really starts flying. They want to hire their no skills friend, or sibling, or spouse because $$$. They talk them up and try to bully anybody who is against hiring the person. Suddenly it appears on the surface that the company IS trying to hire based on 'talent' or at least one persons biased perception of it. Talent is not going to work in the typical political business environment. Next, you go with degrees. Does your self serving friend hire at least have a degree? No? well too bad for you and your friend. When you talk about "talent" it's almost funny because of how awful reality actually is in hiring. When anyone tries to talk up themselves or their friends, all anybody can think is 'full of shit.' When somebody says they dropped out and taught themselves, its 'full of shit.' When somebody says that the best employees don't need to go to college, its 'full of shit.' Do you think people who have heard and seen every lie out there are just going to take a person's word for it?

randomdata 14y ago
Curiously, you didn't say, "when somebody says they went to college, its 'full of shit'". If people are as untrustworthy as you claim, it is a real concern. I assume you take steps to verify that everyone who claims to hold one actually does? Of course, in programming specifically, it is so easy to verify expertise, relatively speaking, that observing any claim made by the applicant seems pointless.
- codeonfire 14y ago
  Companies can verify academic credentials through third party services or the school directly. That's the whole point of credentials. In programming it is very difficult to verify expertise. Programmers, especially self taught programmers, are usually very myopic. Someone will learn one technology, and then they determine a candidates overall expertise based on knowledge of that one technology. The problem is they've built up their entire ego based on learning just one thing and even got a job as a rails hacker or a javascript hacker or whatever. That person thinks that they know how to determine expertise: just ask a bunch of very specific rails questions. In reality there's a huge range of necessary expertise such as problem solving, debugging, interacting with people, using other languages and frameworks, databases, testing, operations. But the ego takes over and says, "I'm an expert in html, therefore html is all that's really important." Now you might say that if the interviewer finds someone who can do the specific skill, what's the problem? The problem is that in a larger company, that one skill is a dime a dozen. How is the candidate going to stack up when there are 400 rails hackers that can also do lots of other things. As soon as its apparent the person can only do rails and is kind of dumb about other things, that's inviting huge criticism and job peril for the interviewers. Small companies can enjoy their ignorant bliss. The other class of interviewers are hiring managers who's egos are by their very nature amazing experts in all fields and technologies, but who's brains know absolutely nothing about software.