6 ms·

How We Hire

36 points by nemesisj 12y ago

whorleater 12y ago
This is pretty interesting, I haven't really seen a place that filters out the Degree Pedigree and name from the CV. I'm curious if they actually have any in depth data on this, because the hiring manager working the job sounds great in theory for them to know a lot about the job, but it can also really create an environment where everyone thinks the same way.
- nemesisj 12y ago
  We don't have any data on the blinded vs. non-blinded looking at CVs, other than the anecdotal (and deeply embarrassing) realization that in the past there may have been instances where we were favoring "normal" names or becoming overly impressed with specific universities. These types of subtle biases exist, no matter how much we wish they didn't, so we thought we'd try to remove them as much as possible. We like the hiring manager to know how to do the jobs they're managing/responsible for, but the expectation is that the person working the job should be and needs to be better. So for the first few weeks they work how the manager did things, then we specifically ask them to step out and start experimenting. It seems to work pretty well. Someone told me 37Signals has a similar policy in place, not sure what it is exactly.
- basseq 12y ago
  I found this interesting as well. I'm sure it removes biases, but it removes a data point as well. A more prestigious university tends to be more selective and reflects a history accomplishments/drive. Of course, a "good name" doesn't mean the person is a "good hire", but when why not censor the name of previous companies ("Ooh, he worked at Facebook!") or other pertinent data?
sportanova 12y ago
So they've hired 150 people over the last 10 years, and currently have 13 people.. Turnover much?
- nemesisj 12y ago
  Heh, sorry if that wasn't clear. Our team (through working at various other organisations) has hired more than 150 people over the last 10 years.
  - sportanova 12y ago
    Haha that was my guess, but then I looked at your website and I didn't see anything about recruiting
AnSavvides 12y ago
Thanks for posting this; I submitted an "Ask HN" entry a few days ago to ask other start-ups how they go about hiring technical people (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978111) - it didn't get much traction but this might be a good opportunity to find out a bit more :)
cpwright 12y ago
Under the important things they've learned, "A startup is a war. ... lots of life changes shouldn't be made together", and then a biblical quote saying that a newly married man should not be set to war. Doesn't strike me as truly the bias-free process they were earlier promoting.
- nemesisj 12y ago
  Yeah, was wondering in retrospect if that would be a bit bizarre without the context of the talk. Essentially, we were saying that this idea of making sure we're not hiring people who are undergoing lots of change in other areas of life isn't a new idea, and has been recognised by ancient cultures long ago (hence the quote from the Old Testament). If you can find any similar quotes from a long way back, let me know and we'll add them!
  - DoubleMalt 12y ago
    Don't change the airframe and the engines at the same time ;)
  - illogical 12y ago
    The fact that it happened in ancient times and worked doesn't mean that it's fine to replicate. I know that people who work in start-ups tend to be of younger age because companies want them almost exclusively for themselves and not for their girlfriend/potential wife/family but acceptable forms of discrimination are still forms of discrimination.
  - jamesdutc 12y ago
    This seems unwise to publicise. There are a few common life changes for which you cannot legally discriminate against a candidate in hiring (in the US.) I'm not even sure why you would allow hiring manages to ask the questions necessary to discriminate against these candidates. More fundamentally, there seems to be a conflict between candidates who assure that they are committed to the position and hiring managers who assume they cannot be. "We were willing to hire you and put the success of our company in your hands, but we don't really trust you when you say you'll work hard, because you'll probably just go sneaking off to go spend time with your family." I think candidates would prefer a company that trusts the judgement of its employees.
Dewie 12y ago
> 3. Interview > 1. Review blinded CVs (remove name and university whenever possible) Interesting that they remove the name of the university, considering the seemingly widespread habit of name-dropping Ivy League universities when people want to show themselves in a good light/give indirect credentials, or is talking about someone who they want to show in a good light. Though I've seen this behaviour on "The Internet", and The Internet is more American than Scottish.
- socksy 12y ago
  Trust me, the British obsession with prestigious higher education establishments matches or perhaps even exceeds the American obsession.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    Does it? on here I have seen a lot of comments that you have to go to the right University in the USA. And getting a good law job seems to require an extra degree from a small number of law schools And I suspect that France is worse give the lock the tiny number of universities like ENA have on the Civilservice
danielweber 12y ago
"We strongly value reliability, so we're testing this with every email..." What if the candidate is in an all-day meeting at the job he's currently working and doesn't have time to open his personal email? This process seems to involve a lot less of the weird psychological-tests-designed-by-non-psychologists, but it's still there.
- nemesisj 12y ago
  I think reliability is different than promptness. If someone says they'll get back to us on a certain day, we take note of that, and if it doesn't happen without a reason given, that's a concern. We wouldn't want to treat a customer that way, for example. We're totally fine with people letting us know (and this in fact just happened with a candidate recently) that their train is delayed due to mechanical failure, and they'll be late. That's a huge plus for us vs. just arriving late without forewarning.
  - tribaal 12y ago
    Wait, that's basic social competence! Sorry, but I don't think any interviewer in the history of job interviews would give a guy a job if he showed up late without warning - how is your "testing for reliability" any different?
- watwut 12y ago
  What if the candidate actually does work in his current job and thus spend a lot of time focused on coding, writing etc (as opposed to dealing with personal mail constantly)?
kubiiii 12y ago
"Culture fit is really important." We could discuss hours about culture fit but this might reveal an uncontroled bias on your (remarkable) bias free hiring process because it is highly subjective. How do you ensure a recruiter assesses culture fit correctly (i.e not by the way someone dresses for example or just by ensuring that the candidate looks sufficiently like him).
- jlees 12y ago
  They specifically mention defining company values and having predefined interview questions to test for every value.
  - kubiiii 12y ago
    Looks like I skipped that part, thanks. I would love to have a snippnet of the questions though.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  Better to admit that you're touchy about "culture fit" than to pretend that you're not.
  - kubiiii 12y ago
    I really suck at pretending I am not. Well I am more touchy about wrong culture and wrong fit than about culture fit.
mkhalil 12y ago
"We don’t claim to be experts on HR.." then they list some prerequisites to hire and say "Don't have these prerequisites? Don't hire. Period." ...couldn't read past that. I really despise the "our way is the only right way" opinions.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  You're misreading the slide. That's the criteria they use internally. "Hey Bob, you need a new team member right? If you don't check these boxes then you don't really need one." It's not directed towards outside people. It's just their internal process.
  - mkhalil 12y ago
    Not sure if you're reading the slides correctly. Company Organization Chart, Company Handbook, Company Values. This isn't something "Bob" comes up with.
    - sergiotapia 12y ago
      You're not really getting it.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  I really despise the "our way is the only right way" opinions. I didn't read it that way -- it sounded like they were just trying to be very, very clear. So many people in the business world are, as we know, just so rush and slapdash in, well, pretty much everything they do. Especially recruiting and hiring.
e12e 12y ago
Interesting to see they're using jobscore.com, but as far as I can tell doesn't have a presence on careers.stackoverflow.com. While I've yet to apply for a new job, I've so far found the good ads on so to be far superior (in terms of how informative they are, in letting me classify them as a probably good/bad fit right off) to pretty much any other job ads I've come across. Ultimately I suppose the main thing is to get good talent to apply (and to a lesser extent, not waste everyone's time with those that clearly are a bad fit) -- so posting something like this on HN is probably a good strategy vs placing an ad pretty much anywhere else.
Peroni 12y ago
>The CEO must be personally involved in the first 150 hires. Is this a typo? Should it have read 'first 15 hires' because 'first 150' is absolute nonsense.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  In fairness, it really depends on the CEO's level of involvement in those hires. If the CEO is taking time out of the day to interview each of the first 150, that might be inefficient (or it might not be, depending upon the length of time during which those 150 were hired). On the other hand, if the CEO merely has to give a thumbs up or final approval to anyone who's made it through the gauntlet, that seems like a more modest timesuck.
  - Peroni 12y ago
    Modest yes but also completely unnecessary. If the CEO hasn't spent one-on-one time with the applicant then they shouldn't be the one holding the final decision.
- boling11 12y ago
  This seems doable if the CEO is the final interview. I can't imagine the CEO overriding the team on more than 30% of interviews, so it's ~200 interviews on the high end. I know the Palantir founders still interview every candidate and they seem to be doing fine.
basseq 12y ago
Additional things that struck me (in addition to my other comment on censoring university name): They give transparent pay ranges up-front. The salary game KILLS me (I can play it, but I don't like it). I had a HR person demand my current salary "so the company could protect itself", but didn't like when I asked their number "so I could protect myself". (I have a NDA that covers my current salary, but the HR person told me I should tell him anyway and "they won't know".) They respond to every CV. THANK YOU. This should be automated for all companies.
shaggyfrog 12y ago
4. Verbal offer and acceptance. 5. Email offer letter and acceptance. 6. Official offer and acceptance. 7. Send contract over in advance to review. This seems like the wrong order, as I would call that the opposite of "in advance". Job seekers should see a contract before accepting any job.
- walshemj 12y ago
  This is common in the UK you have an offer letter outlining the basics and accept on that basis You have to have a contract within a month or 6 weeks(I cant remember off the top of my head) of starting.

36 points by nemesisj 12y ago

This is pretty interesting, I haven't really seen a place that filters out the Degree Pedigree and name from the CV. I'm curious if they actually have any in depth data on this, because the hiring manager working the job sounds great in theory for them to know a lot about the job, but it can also really create an environment where everyone thinks the same way.

nemesisj 12y ago
We don't have any data on the blinded vs. non-blinded looking at CVs, other than the anecdotal (and deeply embarrassing) realization that in the past there may have been instances where we were favoring "normal" names or becoming overly impressed with specific universities. These types of subtle biases exist, no matter how much we wish they didn't, so we thought we'd try to remove them as much as possible. We like the hiring manager to know how to do the jobs they're managing/responsible for, but the expectation is that the person working the job should be and needs to be better. So for the first few weeks they work how the manager did things, then we specifically ask them to step out and start experimenting. It seems to work pretty well. Someone told me 37Signals has a similar policy in place, not sure what it is exactly.
basseq 12y ago
I found this interesting as well. I'm sure it removes biases, but it removes a data point as well. A more prestigious university tends to be more selective and reflects a history accomplishments/drive. Of course, a "good name" doesn't mean the person is a "good hire", but when why not censor the name of previous companies ("Ooh, he worked at Facebook!") or other pertinent data?

sportanova 12y ago

So they've hired 150 people over the last 10 years, and currently have 13 people.. Turnover much?

nemesisj 12y ago
Heh, sorry if that wasn't clear. Our team (through working at various other organisations) has hired more than 150 people over the last 10 years.
- sportanova 12y ago
  Haha that was my guess, but then I looked at your website and I didn't see anything about recruiting

AnSavvides 12y ago

Thanks for posting this; I submitted an "Ask HN" entry a few days ago to ask other start-ups how they go about hiring technical people (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7978111) - it didn't get much traction but this might be a good opportunity to find out a bit more :)

cpwright 12y ago

Under the important things they've learned, "A startup is a war. ... lots of life changes shouldn't be made together", and then a biblical quote saying that a newly married man should not be set to war. Doesn't strike me as truly the bias-free process they were earlier promoting.

nemesisj 12y ago
Yeah, was wondering in retrospect if that would be a bit bizarre without the context of the talk. Essentially, we were saying that this idea of making sure we're not hiring people who are undergoing lots of change in other areas of life isn't a new idea, and has been recognised by ancient cultures long ago (hence the quote from the Old Testament). If you can find any similar quotes from a long way back, let me know and we'll add them!
- DoubleMalt 12y ago
  Don't change the airframe and the engines at the same time ;)
- illogical 12y ago
  The fact that it happened in ancient times and worked doesn't mean that it's fine to replicate. I know that people who work in start-ups tend to be of younger age because companies want them almost exclusively for themselves and not for their girlfriend/potential wife/family but acceptable forms of discrimination are still forms of discrimination.
- jamesdutc 12y ago
  This seems unwise to publicise. There are a few common life changes for which you cannot legally discriminate against a candidate in hiring (in the US.) I'm not even sure why you would allow hiring manages to ask the questions necessary to discriminate against these candidates. More fundamentally, there seems to be a conflict between candidates who assure that they are committed to the position and hiring managers who assume they cannot be. "We were willing to hire you and put the success of our company in your hands, but we don't really trust you when you say you'll work hard, because you'll probably just go sneaking off to go spend time with your family." I think candidates would prefer a company that trusts the judgement of its employees.

Dewie 12y ago

> 3. Interview > 1. Review blinded CVs (remove name and university whenever possible) Interesting that they remove the name of the university, considering the seemingly widespread habit of name-dropping Ivy League universities when people want to show themselves in a good light/give indirect credentials, or is talking about someone who they want to show in a good light. Though I've seen this behaviour on "The Internet", and The Internet is more American than Scottish.

socksy 12y ago
Trust me, the British obsession with prestigious higher education establishments matches or perhaps even exceeds the American obsession.
- walshemj 12y ago
  Does it? on here I have seen a lot of comments that you have to go to the right University in the USA. And getting a good law job seems to require an extra degree from a small number of law schools And I suspect that France is worse give the lock the tiny number of universities like ENA have on the Civilservice

danielweber 12y ago

"We strongly value reliability, so we're testing this with every email..." What if the candidate is in an all-day meeting at the job he's currently working and doesn't have time to open his personal email? This process seems to involve a lot less of the weird psychological-tests-designed-by-non-psychologists, but it's still there.

nemesisj 12y ago
I think reliability is different than promptness. If someone says they'll get back to us on a certain day, we take note of that, and if it doesn't happen without a reason given, that's a concern. We wouldn't want to treat a customer that way, for example. We're totally fine with people letting us know (and this in fact just happened with a candidate recently) that their train is delayed due to mechanical failure, and they'll be late. That's a huge plus for us vs. just arriving late without forewarning.
- tribaal 12y ago
  Wait, that's basic social competence! Sorry, but I don't think any interviewer in the history of job interviews would give a guy a job if he showed up late without warning - how is your "testing for reliability" any different?
watwut 12y ago
What if the candidate actually does work in his current job and thus spend a lot of time focused on coding, writing etc (as opposed to dealing with personal mail constantly)?

kubiiii 12y ago

"Culture fit is really important." We could discuss hours about culture fit but this might reveal an uncontroled bias on your (remarkable) bias free hiring process because it is highly subjective. How do you ensure a recruiter assesses culture fit correctly (i.e not by the way someone dresses for example or just by ensuring that the candidate looks sufficiently like him).

jlees 12y ago
They specifically mention defining company values and having predefined interview questions to test for every value.
- kubiiii 12y ago
  Looks like I skipped that part, thanks. I would love to have a snippnet of the questions though.
dreamweapon 12y ago
Better to admit that you're touchy about "culture fit" than to pretend that you're not.
- kubiiii 12y ago
  I really suck at pretending I am not. Well I am more touchy about wrong culture and wrong fit than about culture fit.

mkhalil 12y ago

"We don’t claim to be experts on HR.." then they list some prerequisites to hire and say "Don't have these prerequisites? Don't hire. Period." ...couldn't read past that. I really despise the "our way is the only right way" opinions.

sergiotapia 12y ago
You're misreading the slide. That's the criteria they use internally. "Hey Bob, you need a new team member right? If you don't check these boxes then you don't really need one." It's not directed towards outside people. It's just their internal process.
- mkhalil 12y ago
  Not sure if you're reading the slides correctly. Company Organization Chart, Company Handbook, Company Values. This isn't something "Bob" comes up with.
  - sergiotapia 12y ago
    You're not really getting it.
dreamweapon 12y ago
I really despise the "our way is the only right way" opinions. I didn't read it that way -- it sounded like they were just trying to be very, very clear. So many people in the business world are, as we know, just so rush and slapdash in, well, pretty much everything they do. Especially recruiting and hiring.

e12e 12y ago

Interesting to see they're using jobscore.com, but as far as I can tell doesn't have a presence on careers.stackoverflow.com. While I've yet to apply for a new job, I've so far found the good ads on so to be far superior (in terms of how informative they are, in letting me classify them as a probably good/bad fit right off) to pretty much any other job ads I've come across. Ultimately I suppose the main thing is to get good talent to apply (and to a lesser extent, not waste everyone's time with those that clearly are a bad fit) -- so posting something like this on HN is probably a good strategy vs placing an ad pretty much anywhere else.

Peroni 12y ago

>The CEO must be personally involved in the first 150 hires. Is this a typo? Should it have read 'first 15 hires' because 'first 150' is absolute nonsense.

jonnathanson 12y ago
In fairness, it really depends on the CEO's level of involvement in those hires. If the CEO is taking time out of the day to interview each of the first 150, that might be inefficient (or it might not be, depending upon the length of time during which those 150 were hired). On the other hand, if the CEO merely has to give a thumbs up or final approval to anyone who's made it through the gauntlet, that seems like a more modest timesuck.
- Peroni 12y ago
  Modest yes but also completely unnecessary. If the CEO hasn't spent one-on-one time with the applicant then they shouldn't be the one holding the final decision.
boling11 12y ago
This seems doable if the CEO is the final interview. I can't imagine the CEO overriding the team on more than 30% of interviews, so it's ~200 interviews on the high end. I know the Palantir founders still interview every candidate and they seem to be doing fine.

basseq 12y ago

Additional things that struck me (in addition to my other comment on censoring university name): They give transparent pay ranges up-front. The salary game KILLS me (I can play it, but I don't like it). I had a HR person demand my current salary "so the company could protect itself", but didn't like when I asked their number "so I could protect myself". (I have a NDA that covers my current salary, but the HR person told me I should tell him anyway and "they won't know".) They respond to every CV. THANK YOU. This should be automated for all companies.

shaggyfrog 12y ago

4. Verbal offer and acceptance. 5. Email offer letter and acceptance. 6. Official offer and acceptance. 7. Send contract over in advance to review. This seems like the wrong order, as I would call that the opposite of "in advance". Job seekers should see a contract before accepting any job.

walshemj 12y ago
This is common in the UK you have an offer letter outlining the basics and accept on that basis You have to have a contract within a month or 6 weeks(I cant remember off the top of my head) of starting.