4 ms·

Ask HN: How good are you at judging resumes?

• tptacek 12y ago
  We gave up on them entirely.
  • leeny 12y ago
    heh, disutility of resumes is a very possible result here.
  • Spoom 12y ago
    Could you provide some more insight on what you're using instead? Cover letters? Github? What if the candidate has only worked on proprietary code?
    • tptacek 12y ago
      No, we don't use cover letters. No, we don't look at Github. We used standardized interviews and work-sample tests. We hire resume-blind. We're not interested in the status indicators our candidates have collected. We want, very specifically, to know how well a candidate handles the kinds of problems they'll actually face working here.
      • kasey_junk 12y ago
        My own experience backs this approach up. That said, I think you are downplaying how brutally hard coming up with good work-sample tests are. I've found that bad work-sample tests are as bad, if not worst, at pipeline biasing than more traditional means. I suspect it took you a very long time to come up with these tests, and if you were hiring at a bigger scale you would see things like work-sample sharing/coaching/plagiarizing that might poison the approach. I also think that while you guys have done a phenomenal job at building a novel hiring pipeline, you also have a natural advantage in hiring in that your field has a natural cachet amongst many tech. folks. That same advantage might not apply to insurance companies/banks/etc. I guess what I'm getting at, is that I think your hiring practices have evolved to a great spot for your uses, I'm a little worried about how well they scale.
        • tptacek 12y ago
          My responses to those concerns are a better coffee conversation than message board conversation. :)
          • kasey_junk 12y ago
            I'm still waiting for an invite to join your hiring gamification startup ;)
      • Spoom 12y ago
        Thanks, that makes sense. I'll have to see if you've written a blog on this before.
• zubairq 12y ago
  Try nemcv.com, they make the formatting easy, you just enter the content. A nice looking resume and photo are important
  • tptacek 12y ago
    I was talking to a friend about this recently and he informs me that photos are standard practice in Europe and Asia. I find that ridiculous. What could a photo possibly do except to bias the hiring process? I would stop interviewing immediately at any firm that demanded a photo.
    • Spoom 12y ago
      I would imagine that an HR department in the US would be reticent to even look at a resume that included a photo to avoid the appearance of discrimination.
      • dragonwriter 12y ago
        You don't know it includes a photo until you've looked at it, and refusing to look at it further invokes the appearance of discrimination. It would make more sense to have the photo removed or obscured before anyone doing substantive review of the resume got a hold of it, though that may be difficult if the term "HR department" is an exaggeration and its really just one person (unless the HR department isn't actually responsible for substantive review, just tracking, and the working manager over the position does substantive review, which arguably ought to be the case for all kinds of other reasons -- in that case, a one-person HR "department" isn't really a problem, as all they have to do is receive, track, and make sure that things like that are dealt with before the real reviewer gets the resume.)
        • zubairq 12y ago
          Actually the advice NemCV gives is totally opposite to almost everyone. Having a clear photo is important to show someone as being a professional, which is why NemCV is the only service with a 100% success rate for finding people jobs