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The Infuriating Truth About Getting Hired
- kami8845 14y agoif they're seeing your CV and then based on that they either move forward or not you're applying to the wrong company.
- NateDad 14y agoWhy would you want to get hired by a company that hires this way?
- hnriot 14y agoEvery big corp operates this way, would you want to not consider a company like google just because they have notoriously bad hiring people in their hr dept?
- Articulate 14y agoI went through the process because I really wanted to work for an international organization with a lot of prestige (the U.N. the World Bank or the I.M.F.
- BCM43 14y agoYou're really just making the case that organizations with these hiring processes are terrible both ethically and as a place to work. I'm sure the NSA has an annoying hiring process too.
- jff 14y agoDo you want to sell sugar water, err, todo list apps for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world? Big organizations have the potential to be great places to work. How can you criticize the ethics of hiring at large organizations when we see daily accounts here about how terribly discriminatory startups can be with their "culture fit" requirements? I work for a large federally-funded organization. We are quite diverse, have good job security, we all get our own real offices, and we get to work on important problems that actually stand to make an impact in national policy. Sure, meals aren't free, but we also don't have Chet the Brogrammer Boss telling us to stay late on Friday to crush that javascript.
- BCM43 14y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
- hkmurakami 14y agoYou're a new grad w/o enough practical skills or real work experience to get hired by a smaller, more nimble company that has modern hiring practices. In this case applying to a mega-corp is often your only realistic choice.
- armored_mammal 14y agoNope, because mega-corps only do internships or '3-5 years' experience.
- chewit 14y agoPretty much every big company has a graduate scheme.
- eshvk 14y agoFactually incorrect, if you are talking about software engineering positions. Source: College career fairs. BigCos come and recruit people in hordes. Around 60-70% of people graduating from UT, Austin went to a BigCo (Google, MS, Amazon etc)
- joonix 14y agoYes, but not everyone gets into the college recruiting gravy train. You either didn't go at a target school, or you didn't make the cut. Then you graduate and you're basically hung out to dry unless you know someone. This applies to many areas besides software engineering.
- armored_mammal 14y agoI mostly remember college careers fairs as a place where big companies tried to get you to apply for their internships. Microsoft and Google and such usually had their own separate events, and I'll grant they were more serious about hiring people, though they mostly seemed to hire people who'd already been their interns.
- TheCoelacanth 14y agoI've experienced the opposite but that might be because I'm looking at software development jobs. Most of the mega-corps and the medium-large companies that do software development actively recruit new grads while the small companies are only looking for experienced people.
- alan_cx 14y agoHow would you know? Do we ever really know why we were hired or turned down?
- jorgeleo 14y agoBecause I have to pay bills
- yen223 14y agoIt is entirely possible for a company to have a great working environment and an incompetent HR team.
- dexen 14y agoIt is, but only for a very short time. `Evaporative cooling' and `dead sea effect' will quickly cause the better employees to jump the ship and the weaker to remain solidly entrenched.
- vonmoltke 14y agoUsually, but I spent a significant amount of time in an organization where even many of the good employees thought there was nowhere better to jump to or that such a transition was not feasible. Given the difficulty I had in getting out of there myself, I can understand where the latter feelings came from.
- nitrogen 14y agoHow much of that was due to your local job market, and how much of it was due to psychological conditioning from the company culture leading everyone to believe that it was hard to get out?
- bluthru 14y agoThis article exists because this is quite prominent. Managers should be looking at resumes for high-skill jobs, not HR.
- joonix 14y agoBecause you need a job. You need money. You need experience. You need to get off the couch. You can't be picky. Too many engineers on this site live (work) in a bubble. The rest of the labor force doesn't have it quite as good.
- PeterisP 14y agoBecause you aren't a software dev in California or other extremely in-demand type; and you want a job. Since almost all large companies are doing this, it means you'd have to ignore half of job offers, and the vast majority of people can't afford to be that picky, especially in the current job market.
- duiker101 14y agodatabase error.
- steven777400 14y agoI work for a government agency and I can confirm this. It's maddening. When ranking resumes, we are only allowed to consider whether or not they say they have the skill we want. We aren't allowed to consider how well written the resume, how compelling the described experience is, external source repositories, etc. So someone who puts "used C sharp on projects" gets the same "yes" as someone who describes, in detail, their extensive C# projects at various organizations, large and small. And, no, we don't even get "5%" for opinion. The reason is, according to the HR contact who so directed me, almost every hire ends in at least one lawsuit from a candidate not selected, claiming unfair hiring practice.
- fibbery 14y agoHave a skills test at the interview?
- steven777400 14y agoWe do, and it is very effective. The interview is really not a problem, it's just the resume selection that is frustrating. I can't imagine having to interview technical candidates without being able to administer a skills test.
- randomdata 14y agoI do not even bother with resumes anymore. I have found much more effective ways to get noticed. If, on your side of the coin, you also find resumes ineffective, I'm curious why you cling to the practice?
- steven777400 14y agoOur hiring procedures are set by HR. We have to review and rank resumes on a yes/no criteria (the same criteria that appears in the job advert). Then, we can choose how many people to interview, but they must be in sorted order based on resume ranking. In the interview we have to ask the same questions of all candidates. So we can't go from their resume and say "tell me about this project X on your resume". Instead we have to ask generic questions, and if they don't refer to their resume projects, that's a problem. We can do skill tests, as long as they are "objective" and all candidates get the same skill test. So my approach is basically interview everyone who meets the bare minimum criteria, make sure they bring up relevant resume projects in the interview, and then hit them hard with skill tests, and sort from there. Seems to be an acceptable "work around" to the fairly rigid and heavy HR prescribed hiring process.
- excid3 14y agoCached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.articulateventures.com/thoughts-on-being-an-employer/getting_hired/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
- niggler 14y ago"Error establishing a database connection" I'm wondering if this is a meta statement (where database connection is interpreted as having a real life social connection to someone at the firm you wish to join)
- andrewflnr 14y agoI got that at first too. Just refreshing it worked.
- nkozyra 14y agoError establishing employment connection.
- PeterisP 14y agoWell, it's not about getting hired, it's about getting to an interview - which is a separate filter with very different criteria. However, it may be everything that matters for writing a CV - as when you're in the interview, everybody (hopefully) will be looking at you and your real skill description, not the CV.
- tseabrooks 14y agoThis is a good place to put the reminder; Write a unique resume for each job. Resumes need to be written to match the culture of the company you're applying to. Try to understand the mindset of the people you expect to be looking at your resume and create something that will get you into the interview room. An example is that the "resume" for my current job was a casual email that didn't include any normal stuff that would be in a resume.
- colkassad 14y agoThis is difficult to do sometimes. I just interviewed at a small company that does defense contracting. The person I spoke with by email was very military-sounding in his diction so I assumed the culture was a bit formal and well...stuffy. When I went in for the interview dressed in a suit, everyone was fairly casual, people had pony tails and tousled hair, and we spent a good portion of the interview discussing video games.
- epoxyhockey 14y agoWhen I went in for the interview dressed in a suit, everyone was fairly casual It's a bit of a double standard, but they might have been expecting you to be dressed in a suit anyway. Good luck with the job!
- wuest 14y ago> It's a bit of a double standard, but they might have been expecting you to be dressed in a suit anyway. I've encountered this. My current workplace has a notoriously laid back and straight-forward culture. Knowing this, I asked the interviewer who was inviting me to interview if I should dress up, or dress appropriately for the company culture. "I would recommend you dress up a little, and hope it's the last time you have to wear those clothes," was the response. Showing that you are familiar with the culture into which you're walking is worth a lot in such situations.
- tibbon 14y agoAll of these points sound like great filters- not for the company, but for me in determining that I probably don't want to work there. A place with thin margins, HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? No thanks. I do say this however as someone both privileged and experienced enough to really not need to scrape for a job too hard at this point in my life. YMMV.
- jpdoctor 14y ago> HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? Most folks don't realize it, but the phrase above is redundant. Intrinsically, the function of HR is CYA for the company. By the time you have full-blown HR, CYA is present. One example: Need to fire someone? Trained HR folks will help you navigate the minefield of legalities.
- potatolicious 14y agoThere's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. I think the CYA OP is talking about is the sort where employees (managers, devs, designers, what have you) deliberately act suboptimally to protect themselves. Making a suboptimal recommendation knowing it will harm someone else more than it will harm you. Diffusing responsibility. Inflating estimates. etc etc.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jpdoctor 14y ago> There's legal CYA and there's CYA ingrained in the everyday operation of the company. Maybe other people have different experiences, but I've never met an HR person who did one and not the other.
- potatolicious 14y agoHR is CYA by definition, but you can have a HR department without having the whole company behave like said HR department.
- 1wheel 14y ago> Therefore if you are a minority, or from an under represented gender it will work to your advantage to signal that to the HR Officer, be subtle though. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
- pessimizer 14y agoThanks for posting this before me. >if you are a minority, or from an under represented gender it will work to your advantage This is part of the bizarre myth of black privilege that's been part of the culture since Reagan's race baiting. It's really rarely to your advantage to be black (or even have a name that sounds black), unless the environment you're being hired for is lily-white and has recently had a discrimination-based legal scare. edit: to be fair to the article - it is describing exactly the time when being black is advantageous in hiring. But to correct the article - at a lot of business, the only time that they hire black people is when their racial balance has been criticized. So overall, any indication that you are black is not going to work well at a company who would be criticized about their racial mix, unless that company's problem is lack of applicants - if it's in Colorado or something.
- moron4hire 14y agoThe advent of HR departments as gate keepers rather than employee facilitators is probably a significant factor in the ever growing incompetency in corporate America. You have people who have no domain knowledge about the job trying to select resumes out of a hat, essentially. Both the systems they have created and the abysmal results are inevitable.
- mbesto 14y agoTo the HR Officer, your resume matters only matters if it meets their needs. Furthermore - whatever reduces the risk of that HR officer losing their job, or that of the manager. You can't get fired for hiring a person with 10 years of experience as opposed to one with 2 years, even if the person with 2 years experience may be a much better employee.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoRelated content for job seekers. >Why your tech CV sucks. And here's how we can help. By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/your_cv/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/your_cv/ >Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse. Really, why do you even bother... By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/17/connor_on_interviews/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/17/connor_on_interviews...
- manishsharan 14y agoAnd this is precisely why one should be an independent contractor. Nobody expects or wants contractors to fit in -- they want to get their shit done in time or have a whipping boy in case things go south. And big cos ( your banks/funds etc.) are willing to pay well for that service. As a contractor in Canada, where healthcare costs are not a problem, there is really really no incentive for me to subsume myself to a bureaucracy not to mention that I am too accented and overly pigmented to ever look like the hiring manager's cousin.
- at-fates-hands 14y agoCompletely agree. As someone who navigated those CYA waters of HR for many years, I'm glad I switched over to being a contractor. My health care is taken care of, and I don't have to worry about all the BS the "employees" have to deal with like pumping up your yearly goals, and working overtime just to get a 1% higher pay increase at the end of the year. I come, I go, I get paid. Simple, without any entanglements.
- Articulate 14y agoIndependent contractors can get pretty beat up in situations like this- there are really strict rules about the price increases a contractor can ask for from one year to the next- and often it is less than 5% and those contractors aren't able to complain because the alternative to to just not renew the contract- which is the right of the organization- being a contractor in many ways leaves you with less security (especially to do stuff like speak up when a regular employee is doing bad work) and less pay.
- r00fus 14y agoThis depends - in a truly independent contracting situation - ie, the contractor has a corporation (usu. S-corp) and manages their own P.O. with the client company, there is incredible freedom and ability to negotiate - you are, however, effectively re-negotiating very often (sometimes daily if the PO is running low). If you happen to be a contractor working for Volt, Adecco, Robert Half or some other staffing firm, then you are in a different league and are often in a worse position than as an established employee or a truly independent contractor... you might have some basic benefits and 401k, but this is body-shop territory and it's advisable to consider this situation as non-permanent.
- chrisbennet 14y agoI suddenly have a lot more sympathy for HR. At least the ones that are trying to hire good people.
- austingunter 14y agoThis is why the resume is broken, and why I drew a line in the sand for myself shortly after graduating college in 2009 that I would never get a job using a resume again. I would only find jobs via my reputation, connections, and by pitching the work that I thought needed to be done, and why I was the person to do it. Now, I was working the Austin, Texas startup community, and built a group of 120 startups at a local accelerator, so it's safe to say that I wasn't setting my career up for jobs that would have an HR manager. That said, I broke my rule the next year, sent in a resume and went through a grueling process to ultimately get hired at a small consulting firm. Breaking my rule was a terrible decision, but fortunately its affects were quick to take effect, and short-lasting. It was an awful job for me, but the company had a round of layoffs 90 days later that I was caught in. My foot hit the pavement that day, and I realized it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I'm currently at a fast-growing, profitable startup. I got the job by pitching work and writing my own job description. I joined the company as employee #12. Not once did anyone ever ask me for a formal resume. All they cared about were results. I have a beautiful resume somewhere on my hard drive. But I have even better results that you can see in my actual work.
- Tloewald 14y agoTo the extent this article might be true about some companies or organizations -- you don't want to work there. I've never worked anywhere with priorities like this, not even in the Australian Public Service (which certainly has cretinous hiring practices, but not like this). To begin with, most HR departments only lightly filter resumes submitted against a position -- if you get tossed out of the mix by the person in recruiting it's probably for a dumb reason (e.g. your CV lacks a crucial buzzword) but again, not these reasons.
- Eduardo3rd 14y agoAs someone who has an Hispanic heritage, point number 3 is pretty frustrating. I'd like to think that the accomplishments I've made in my life are more impacted by the results of the work I've done, but there's always this nagging feeling that I'm just there to pad the diversity stats. I've talked to other minority students during my time in undergrad and grad school and it's pretty crazy how many of us are plagued by impostor syndrome. I'm talking about incredibly high performing individuals who are near the top of their field at a prestigious university that don't know if they are there because of their abilities or their skin color.
- groby_b 14y agoGiven the fact that minorities are still under-represented in tech, I suggest you think of this differently: You've gotten to where you are wearing the additional burden of being a minority. You've clearly out-performed expectations.
- nerdzero 14y agoIt would be silly to say we should make sure that people with green eyes are not under-represented in tech but why is it okay to say the same thing regarding skin color? I think the reality is that these days being a minority is not a "burden", it's an advantage, and an unfair one. It would be better if it was just a non-issue but I guess we're just not there yet.
- groby_b 14y agoLet me guess - you're a white male, aren't you? Being a minority is a long cry from being an advantage. I agree with you that I'd prefer it to be a non issue, but we're definitely not there yet. Oh, and I'd expect that overall, the distribution of eye color in the tech world would be overall roughly equivalent to to the normal population, yes. And if there were people running around, actively complaining how green eyes give you an unfair advantage while green-eyed people are under-represented, and yet other people telling us how green-eyed people are stupid, couldn't possibly do tech, are a threat to the American Way Of Life(tm), and should in general not be so uppity, then yes, we should look at that.
- lsiebert 14y agoThat's why I favor an HR Technocracy to an HR Bureaucracy.