4 ms·

Reminds me of a comment I had a while ago regarding HR below. Some context - the company had been having problems with hiring good people and was trying to figu

Reminds me of a comment I had a while ago regarding HR below. Some context - the company had been having problems with hiring good people and was trying to figure out what the problem was - because they never had the problem in the past. So they figured it was related to the HR department and they tested it as below: --- I can't remember which company this story was from (I think it was Lotus Software). Basically the HR team of a multi-billion dollar startup were given the anonymised resumes of the first 10-20 founding team members. HR rejected them all. Not one founding team member was accepted even for a short interview. Tells you something about HR doesn't it? --- Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4699673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4699673 Same problem as found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470941

verelo 14y ago
It does say something, but do you really want to hire founders in a mid stage company? Founders are very different types of people, the type of people who while great at starting companies, but different people are required at different stages of a company.
- chii 14y ago
  assuming you can tell personality from reading a résumé...
  - RougeFemme 14y ago
    But most positions require more than a particular type of personality. And in many cases, unless the person is totally obnoxious, personality counts for little as long as the person has the required skills. . .and can be isolated in a corner, if necessary.
doktrin 14y ago
I would love to get a little more context behind this anecdote, because I have to admit it sounds almost a little too good / bad to be true. While I have fairly limited experience with BigCo hiring, my poor resume has made it through at least a couple HR filters without any attempt on my part to do any keyword matching. Even in the cases where HR is literally grepping the resume for certain target words, the requirements themselves aren't conjured out of thin air. Therefore, I feel some of the blame is shared by the department doing the hiring. After all, they know a filter is being applied by a team without domain knowledge and should tailor it accordingly.
- wisty 14y ago
  My google-fu isn't working, but I definitely remember hearing it from a book or interview. I think it was Microsoft, Apple, or Intel.
gnosis 14y ago
This anecdote might seem incredible to much of the HN community, who look upon successful founders as some sort of demigods. But could it be conceivable that they're really nothing special? Perhaps HR was right after all.
- kalterstern 14y ago
  But could it be conceivable that they're really nothing special? Affable but averagely talented guys with a few rich pals, most of them.
- RougeFemme 14y ago
  Not trying to maintain the "demigod" status of the founders, but. . .maybe they are something special - at least some of them - but not a good fit for the hiring company's culture. Or maybe they would be a good fit within the corporate culture but are a poor fit for a particular job and HR is not flexible enough - or not allowed - to say "not a good fit for this position, but may be a good fit for that position. Let's toss it over to that hiring manager."
Evbn 14y ago
With out a control group made up of non-HR people, this study doesn't show what you think it does.

verelo 14y ago

It does say something, but do you really want to hire founders in a mid stage company? Founders are very different types of people, the type of people who while great at starting companies, but different people are required at different stages of a company.

chii 14y ago
assuming you can tell personality from reading a résumé...
- RougeFemme 14y ago
  But most positions require more than a particular type of personality. And in many cases, unless the person is totally obnoxious, personality counts for little as long as the person has the required skills. . .and can be isolated in a corner, if necessary.

doktrin 14y ago

I would love to get a little more context behind this anecdote, because I have to admit it sounds almost a little too good / bad to be true. While I have fairly limited experience with BigCo hiring, my poor resume has made it through at least a couple HR filters without any attempt on my part to do any keyword matching. Even in the cases where HR is literally grepping the resume for certain target words, the requirements themselves aren't conjured out of thin air. Therefore, I feel some of the blame is shared by the department doing the hiring. After all, they know a filter is being applied by a team without domain knowledge and should tailor it accordingly.

wisty 14y ago
My google-fu isn't working, but I definitely remember hearing it from a book or interview. I think it was Microsoft, Apple, or Intel.

gnosis 14y ago

This anecdote might seem incredible to much of the HN community, who look upon successful founders as some sort of demigods. But could it be conceivable that they're really nothing special? Perhaps HR was right after all.

kalterstern 14y ago
But could it be conceivable that they're really nothing special? Affable but averagely talented guys with a few rich pals, most of them.
RougeFemme 14y ago
Not trying to maintain the "demigod" status of the founders, but. . .maybe they are something special - at least some of them - but not a good fit for the hiring company's culture. Or maybe they would be a good fit within the corporate culture but are a poor fit for a particular job and HR is not flexible enough - or not allowed - to say "not a good fit for this position, but may be a good fit for that position. Let's toss it over to that hiring manager."

Evbn 14y ago

With out a control group made up of non-HR people, this study doesn't show what you think it does.