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Comment by jasonkester | Hacker News Reader

You use the term "apply for a job", which might explain the disconnect. The post you reply to isn't about applying for jobs.

You don't want to "apply" for things. You want your google VP to be having a beer with your ex-boss and worrying that his pet project was going to fail because they just can't find a guy who can really $X.

But your ex boss knows a guy who absoulutely can $X, and just finished $X'ing his company back from the brink of disaster. Lets give him a call to see if he's available.

HR will be told to give that guy an offer and, optionally, collect a resume to keep on file.

That's what we're talking about here, and it's where you want to get yourself if you want to build a career as an individual contributor.

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You've essentially described nepotism here - if FAANG would follow this model, they would never hire some of their best contributors because those contributors didn't live in the Valley their whole life to network with bosses. I prefer a process that's at least basically meritocratic to the old boys club type of hiring at any time.

Recommending someone you know who is good at his/her job is not nepotism. Nepotism is when you recommend your family or friends regardless of their qualifications.

You clearly don’t work in the industry.

Edit: I see from your other post you haven’t interviewed since 1999. Sounds about right. The hiring process does not work how you think it should.

Not true. I've interviewed for and landed several nice gigs since then. But as I said in that other post, always skipping the tech screen piece.

From talking with other devs in my peer group, this doesn't seem uncommon.

I think it's "uncommon", but I also think that one shouldn't confuse "uncommon" with "never happens". I've had more than one job land on my doorstep without some sort of crazy tech screen. But I also talk to front-door companies on occasion too.

He's a contractor. He comes in, does a specific task, and then leaves. That's all.

> HR will be told to give that guy an offer and, optionally, collect a resume to keep on file.

No, HR will be told to get that guy into the interview pipeline as soon as possible, so he can go through the same process everybody else does for a similar position.

The sad part is that the generic generalist interview will have nothing to do with X, and if you need someone great at X-ing, might yield painful false negatives or even worse, false positives (since you can’t hire specifically for X).

I would argue that if you’re in a position to be picky you would want to hire experts in X who are also good generalists. One-trick ponies don’t do well after project X is finished and they need to contribute to other efforts.

A PhD isn’t really a one trick pony, but whatever. Even if that’s what you want (specialists who are good generalists), those interviews don’t really check the specialist part, just the generalist one.

Since you mention Google, my understanding is that you still go through the standard hiring process

Again, always?

If they buy the company that you built specifically to get access to you, do you think you'll still end up getting screened out by some junior dev on a whiteboard? All policies have exceptions. Your goal is to be exceptional.

Yes, always. It is company policy. Google takes its standardized interview process more seriously than any other company I've heard of, except maybe Palantir.

So, you're telling me they made Vint Cerf do a whiteboard interview?

I don't know, someone would have to ask Vint. But it is a plain fact that Google interviews the engineers of a potential acquisition. For a small company, they'll pick and choose which ones to keep. For a large company, I don't know. The CEO may or may not go through the full interview process -- I've seen it both ways, seems to depend on whether they're buddies with the VP.

The problem is that exceptional isn’t a binary quality, exceptional at google is going to be another level than exceptional at some obscure contracting firm.

> If they buy the company that you built specifically to get access to you, do you think you'll still end up getting screened out by some junior dev on a whiteboard?

In this case probably not, but you'll have to do several rounds with the VPs. Of course the tenor is very different, more conversational / situtational instead of technical questions. But you're still being sniffed out. Unless you're already pals with the VP.

In my experience it's rare for even this kind of interaction to lead to an interview process-free result. The exception would be if "the guy" is brought in as a contractor (which these days should probably be your goal), but I've worked with a lot of large companies and HR almost always forces at least some portion of standard FTE applicant evaluation even for "the guy" type referrals.

> The exception would be if "the guy" is brought in as a contractor (which these days should probably be your goal)

Could you elaborate on that? Do you mean being a contractor should be your goal as "the guy" or the hirer?

That's completely inapplicable to permanent positions. The current company of a prolific employee is not gonna lay him off and send him to a competing company.

It can make sense for consultants, doing short gigs here and there. People can refer you elsewhere when the current work is completed, they ain't gonna keep you anyway.

We need more stories like this for the New Years eve.

The hero / rockstar / ninja narrative rears its ugly head again.

Some people will be at the top of their field. Most people won't.

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