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Hiring is entirely broken. I don't think anyone is listening to developers. I took some data about this (tracking pixel in a Developer Auction profile), but som

by kanzure 13y ago

Hiring is entirely broken. I don't think anyone is listening to developers. I took some data about this (tracking pixel in a Developer Auction profile), but someone did an even better job than me and posted in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 I want a company that treats me with dignity and respect, even before and during the interviewing pipeline. How a company treats people during interviews is a huge indicator of how they treat people in general. I would never subject my friends or family to the hiring practices that programmers are exposed to regularly. Be proud about how you hire. Otherwise this weighs heavily when I reject your offer. I want a "1-hour guarantee" that I'll receive your considered offer after one hour of interviewing, and not multiple hours of hazing. Otherwise, I'll stick with consulting, thanks. Maybe there should be a site that compares the interviewing pipelines of different companies, and then you can focus on the ones that aren't entirely offensive. Also, it would be awesome if one of you would actually look at my git repositories before the interview and, you know, actually read my code. No, looking at a "repository summary" doesn't count.

rdtsc 13y ago
> Hiring is entirely broken. Aaaand tokenadult is submitting his "best hiring strategies" mega-comment supported by Schmidt & Hunter reference in 3...2...1 /I've been here too long perhaps ;-)
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Maybe we need to play the role of the monkeys in the apocryphal conformity experiment (http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-exp...) and post it for him: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543
codex 13y ago
Bootcamp in the Marine Corps is an example of a tough hiring practice. Are your friends and family doctors or lawyers, per chance? Both professions use grueling hiring marathons which are much, much worse than a software engineering interview (residency and the bar exam). All other engineering professions require a rigorous licensing process, whereas software engineering is one of the cushiest jobs on the planet. In none of these professions do they accept a casual "hey, take a look at this portfolio" means of quality assurance. That's too easily faked. They test you, actively. Standing in a room for a few hours writing on a wall is not exactly hazing; to say it is reeks of entitlement, especially when many software engineering jobs have a public trust: safety, privacy, reliability, and correctness standards that demand a certain level of rigor. Software engineering is a very hot field right now, and developers are in demand--but that doesn't mean you should turn up your nose at companies that maintain their own stringent standards of hiring.
- danenania 13y ago
  No one here is objecting to being tested and challenged. People just want to be tested on how well they can actually perform the job and build solid products, not how well they can memorize algorithm implementations. It's like screening Marines based on whether they can build a rifle by hand. It's a cool skill and could be useful in some ways, but it's not the job.
  - Tloewald 13y ago
    Hiring is a two way process. They're looking for employees, and you're looking for a salary, colleagues, boss, etc. A company that fucks up an interview fails. My toughest interview process involved driving 200 miles to spend a day doing psychological tests (after my interview). I got the job. Really, the hirer failed the interview, but I wanted out of my current job. Whose fault was that? Turned out to be a great job (my boss told me that he looked at my portfolio and CV and simply said "hire that guy" — the process was hoop jumping.
    - tekromancr 13y ago
      I have lost jobs based on those bullshit, pseudo-scientific psych tests. Some of them are straight out of the back of an issue of Cosmo. If I was a moral-less dirtbag I would still have scruples about trying to sell a company on personality tests as part of an interview process.
- SiVal 13y ago
  Sorry, but the thing that reeks of entitlement is Google's abusive "we can pass you from interviewer to interviewer, making you do anything we want for days, and you'll take it because there are plenty more where you came from," hiring practices. If Google thinks they have the power to do what they want to a candidate, and the GP poster thinks he has the power to limit how much of his time he'll offer them, I don't see why he is the only one accused of reeking of entitlement.
  - Jabbles 13y ago
seivan 13y ago
I saw your article before it disappeared from the front page. Nice work.
objclxt 13y ago
> I want a "1-hour guarantee" that I'll receive your considered offer after one hour of interviewing ...I wouldn't have hired many of my fellow engineers after an hour. I would at least want two interviews, one with me (the line manager), and one with my team. To flip it the other way round, I don't think I could get a good enough feel for an employer from a single hour. I'm not sure this works for everyone. I would, however, hire a consultant after an hour's interview. The difference is, at least in the country I live in, is that I can fire the consultant with almost no notice, whereas a FTE is more of an investment.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  I don't make major financial decisions in an hour, either, and hiring an engineer is a 6 figure commitment.
  - kanzure 13y ago
    You don't have to decide during that interview. You can take your time. Look at the candidates' source code on github, bitbucket, look at their mobile apps, disassemble them, take a look at how well they write software, etc.
    - prodigal_erik 13y ago
      How could you verify the code is actually theirs in just one hour, and not something they've been coached on? The stakes are so high that we already have an awful lot of blatantly unqualified people trying to bluff their way through in-depth interviews, and making that easier is a huge step backwards.
      - kanzure 13y ago
        > How could you verify the code is actually theirs in just one hour You don't have to review the code inside of one hour. You can take as long as you want on that. The point was that when talking with them either on the phone, in person, whatever, you take only an hour. Code review can take as long as you please. I highly encourage you to look at source code before making a hiring decision.
groundCode 13y ago
>> Also, it would be awesome if one of you would actually look at my git repositories before the interview and, you know, actually read my code. No, looking at a "repository summary" doesn't count. actually, this I find is the biggest annoyance of all. Every company I've interviewed with over the last few years has said "show us your github".....so far, not one has actually looked at it. It's kind of like walking into an interview with a company that has a web-presence and saying "so, what line of business are you in?".
noloqy 13y ago
> How a company treats people during interviews is a huge indicator of how they treat people in general. I fully agree. I think a possible fix is to publicly share the experiences people have when interacting with HR. If this is done centrally, perhaps the industry will take notice and improve.
zenbowman 13y ago
The threshold for using "broken" now is the presence of any imperfection in any process, its an abuse of the word. Hiring is imperfect, but its been moving in the right direction. Most companies ask programmers to come in, solve some problems on the board, and then pay them a generous salary if they succeed at it. How is this in any way "broken"? A casting couch is an example of "broken" and corrupt hiring, we have nothing of the sort.
- kanzure 13y ago
  > Most companies ask programmers to come in, solve some problems on the board, and then pay them a generous salary if they succeed at it. How is this in any way "broken"? For starters, because those "problems" are usually unrelated to what we actually do.
SethKinast 13y ago
My interview at Amazon (where I am currently) fit those requirements. * It lasted 3 hours, not all day. They suggested business casual dress. * No trick questions or trivia puzzles. Just coding on whiteboard. * The interviewers had clearly looked at the work I'd been doing (no one asked "what do you do currently," etc. * I had an offer, with numbers, about 50 minutes after the interview. * I countered, they took less than 24 hours to respond and accept. It was really enjoyable.
sjg007 13y ago
Startups exist because hiring is broken.

by kanzure 13y ago

rdtsc 13y ago

> Hiring is entirely broken. Aaaand tokenadult is submitting his "best hiring strategies" mega-comment supported by Schmidt & Hunter reference in 3...2...1 /I've been here too long perhaps ;-)

nitrogen 13y ago
Maybe we need to play the role of the monkeys in the apocryphal conformity experiment (http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-exp...) and post it for him: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543

codex 13y ago

Bootcamp in the Marine Corps is an example of a tough hiring practice. Are your friends and family doctors or lawyers, per chance? Both professions use grueling hiring marathons which are much, much worse than a software engineering interview (residency and the bar exam). All other engineering professions require a rigorous licensing process, whereas software engineering is one of the cushiest jobs on the planet. In none of these professions do they accept a casual "hey, take a look at this portfolio" means of quality assurance. That's too easily faked. They test you, actively. Standing in a room for a few hours writing on a wall is not exactly hazing; to say it is reeks of entitlement, especially when many software engineering jobs have a public trust: safety, privacy, reliability, and correctness standards that demand a certain level of rigor. Software engineering is a very hot field right now, and developers are in demand--but that doesn't mean you should turn up your nose at companies that maintain their own stringent standards of hiring.

danenania 13y ago
No one here is objecting to being tested and challenged. People just want to be tested on how well they can actually perform the job and build solid products, not how well they can memorize algorithm implementations. It's like screening Marines based on whether they can build a rifle by hand. It's a cool skill and could be useful in some ways, but it's not the job.
- Tloewald 13y ago
  Hiring is a two way process. They're looking for employees, and you're looking for a salary, colleagues, boss, etc. A company that fucks up an interview fails. My toughest interview process involved driving 200 miles to spend a day doing psychological tests (after my interview). I got the job. Really, the hirer failed the interview, but I wanted out of my current job. Whose fault was that? Turned out to be a great job (my boss told me that he looked at my portfolio and CV and simply said "hire that guy" — the process was hoop jumping.
  - tekromancr 13y ago
    I have lost jobs based on those bullshit, pseudo-scientific psych tests. Some of them are straight out of the back of an issue of Cosmo. If I was a moral-less dirtbag I would still have scruples about trying to sell a company on personality tests as part of an interview process.
SiVal 13y ago
Sorry, but the thing that reeks of entitlement is Google's abusive "we can pass you from interviewer to interviewer, making you do anything we want for days, and you'll take it because there are plenty more where you came from," hiring practices. If Google thinks they have the power to do what they want to a candidate, and the GP poster thinks he has the power to limit how much of his time he'll offer them, I don't see why he is the only one accused of reeking of entitlement.
- Jabbles 13y ago

seivan 13y ago

I saw your article before it disappeared from the front page. Nice work.

objclxt 13y ago

> I want a "1-hour guarantee" that I'll receive your considered offer after one hour of interviewing ...I wouldn't have hired many of my fellow engineers after an hour. I would at least want two interviews, one with me (the line manager), and one with my team. To flip it the other way round, I don't think I could get a good enough feel for an employer from a single hour. I'm not sure this works for everyone. I would, however, hire a consultant after an hour's interview. The difference is, at least in the country I live in, is that I can fire the consultant with almost no notice, whereas a FTE is more of an investment.

WalterBright 13y ago
I don't make major financial decisions in an hour, either, and hiring an engineer is a 6 figure commitment.
- kanzure 13y ago
  You don't have to decide during that interview. You can take your time. Look at the candidates' source code on github, bitbucket, look at their mobile apps, disassemble them, take a look at how well they write software, etc.
  - prodigal_erik 13y ago
    How could you verify the code is actually theirs in just one hour, and not something they've been coached on? The stakes are so high that we already have an awful lot of blatantly unqualified people trying to bluff their way through in-depth interviews, and making that easier is a huge step backwards.
    - kanzure 13y ago
      > How could you verify the code is actually theirs in just one hour You don't have to review the code inside of one hour. You can take as long as you want on that. The point was that when talking with them either on the phone, in person, whatever, you take only an hour. Code review can take as long as you please. I highly encourage you to look at source code before making a hiring decision.

groundCode 13y ago

>> Also, it would be awesome if one of you would actually look at my git repositories before the interview and, you know, actually read my code. No, looking at a "repository summary" doesn't count. actually, this I find is the biggest annoyance of all. Every company I've interviewed with over the last few years has said "show us your github".....so far, not one has actually looked at it. It's kind of like walking into an interview with a company that has a web-presence and saying "so, what line of business are you in?".

noloqy 13y ago

> How a company treats people during interviews is a huge indicator of how they treat people in general. I fully agree. I think a possible fix is to publicly share the experiences people have when interacting with HR. If this is done centrally, perhaps the industry will take notice and improve.

zenbowman 13y ago

The threshold for using "broken" now is the presence of any imperfection in any process, its an abuse of the word. Hiring is imperfect, but its been moving in the right direction. Most companies ask programmers to come in, solve some problems on the board, and then pay them a generous salary if they succeed at it. How is this in any way "broken"? A casting couch is an example of "broken" and corrupt hiring, we have nothing of the sort.

kanzure 13y ago
> Most companies ask programmers to come in, solve some problems on the board, and then pay them a generous salary if they succeed at it. How is this in any way "broken"? For starters, because those "problems" are usually unrelated to what we actually do.

SethKinast 13y ago

My interview at Amazon (where I am currently) fit those requirements. * It lasted 3 hours, not all day. They suggested business casual dress. * No trick questions or trivia puzzles. Just coding on whiteboard. * The interviewers had clearly looked at the work I'd been doing (no one asked "what do you do currently," etc. * I had an offer, with numbers, about 50 minutes after the interview. * I countered, they took less than 24 hours to respond and accept. It was really enjoyable.

sjg007 13y ago

Startups exist because hiring is broken.