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It does seem like the mechanisms people have come up with for this so far are counterproductive. But the underlying problem seems to me a real one, and a hard o

by gruseom 13y ago

It does seem like the mechanisms people have come up with for this so far are counterproductive. But the underlying problem seems to me a real one, and a hard one: how can you tell whether someone will be good to work with? The only way to know is to actually work with them. So (the argument goes) rather than relying on bogus predictors, let's just test the hypothesis "this person will be a good addition to our team" directly. Since you think about hiring a lot, I'm curious: do you think the above is accurate? If no, how would you phrase it differently? If yes, how would you recommend testing that hypothesis instead?

tptacek 13y ago
I think it's very accurate, and I think the idea of temp- to- perm hiring is seductive for exactly that reason. In addition to the argument that the economics of temp- to- perm don't work out in this market for tech talent, there are also fundamental problems with the approach. Most importantly: lots of people can perform well for short periods of time, especially if they don't have to deal with interpersonal conflicts (which take time to develop) or technical design disagreements (which only happen at inflection points in product/service design; ie, it might take 8 months to discover whether someone can "disagree and commit" to work on a team where they disapprove of some technical decision). Also, lots of people can work well on a project for a couple weeks before they get bored, and some of those people lack the ability to kickstart their engagement back up again once they feel "burned out" by a problem domain. I think those are some of the most likely failure modes of new employees, and they also happen to be different from the failure modes that classic interviewing and work-sample testing are likely to suss out; ie, you can cover the non-psychological non-work-ethic concerns about new candidates with a relatively straightforward hiring process, so temp- to- perm might not even buy you much even if you don't assume that the approach is costing you the best candidates.
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by gruseom 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

I think it's very accurate, and I think the idea of temp- to- perm hiring is seductive for exactly that reason. In addition to the argument that the economics of temp- to- perm don't work out in this market for tech talent, there are also fundamental problems with the approach. Most importantly: lots of people can perform well for short periods of time, especially if they don't have to deal with interpersonal conflicts (which take time to develop) or technical design disagreements (which only happen at inflection points in product/service design; ie, it might take 8 months to discover whether someone can "disagree and commit" to work on a team where they disapprove of some technical decision). Also, lots of people can work well on a project for a couple weeks before they get bored, and some of those people lack the ability to kickstart their engagement back up again once they feel "burned out" by a problem domain. I think those are some of the most likely failure modes of new employees, and they also happen to be different from the failure modes that classic interviewing and work-sample testing are likely to suss out; ie, you can cover the non-psychological non-work-ethic concerns about new candidates with a relatively straightforward hiring process, so temp- to- perm might not even buy you much even if you don't assume that the approach is costing you the best candidates.

deleted 13y ago
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