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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

1. The photos in that post are really distracting.

2. "We're trying to build a team here, not hire individuals." I can't stress how important this is, and how many companies SAY this in the interview and then do jack squat to foster a team environment once someone is hired. It's also hard in an industry where individual merits matter so much and we all know that our individual skills are such we can walk and be hired somewhere else immediately: the motivation for individuals to become team players can be lacking, especially when it's not made clear what the benefits of being a team player will be.

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I really like the photos. It reminds me of the internet how I remember it before it was taken over by the mono-culture of social media. Where blogs was a means of personal expression. She (I assume) doesn't care if the photos turns a few people away, because that's the way she choose to write the blog post.

I miss people just expressing who they are with all their quirks and originality. I feel that the internet is too bland these days. Or maybe I should just stop frequenting medium.com....

It reminds of the days of Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, when everything was possible and even dogs could build websites: https://philip.greenspun.com/panda/

Since there are multiple complaints about the photos in this thread, I think I should point out that the photos appear to be a metaphor for the hiring process. All of those highly-diverse ice cream cones look dazzlingly yummy, but we can only pick one.

It's totally okay if you didn't get the metaphor... there's lot's of symbolism that goes over my head in lots of media, but I don't think it's fair to say the photos aren't relevant to the content.

>I should point out that the photos appear to be a metaphor for the hiring process

I took it more along the lines of a metaphor of the power dynamic of the interviewee/hiring manager. Whereas the interviewee may be stressed and concerned about getting a job to put food on the table to feed their family or keep a roof over their head, the person in power doesn't give a shit about you...its all about them and their desire, which happens to be eating ice cream while flexing their power to deny you a job.

In the authors own words:

>Why take the outcome personally?

Yeah why take the outcome of your career and livelihood personally

I've screened a lot of people for technical roles.

When I reject someone: It's not about me, it's about your ability to do the job.

Getting a technical job is like dating: I had to interview at a lot of different companies before I chose the company that I work at. It took me about 6 weeks, full-time, to find my current role.

Software engineering involves some learned skills, but also an aptitude that can not be learned. The same is true for athletics, musicianship, entrepreneurship, ect.

If you're frustrated in your job search, it may be time to evaluate both the kind of career you're trying to have, the lifestyle it affords. Sometimes making ends meet means living more frugally with a more appropriate career.

>Getting a technical job is like dating:

The author said something very similar in her blog.

Maybe interviewing and hiring isn't anything like dating, and the people in power who treat it as such should reflect on that.

>It's not about me, it's about your ability to do the job.

If it were, you probably wouldn't equate it with dating. Or you wouldn't hear SV companies continually talk about cultural fit.

The reason why the pictures are distracting is because it turns, what arguably is the best blog article I've read in years about hiring, into a glamor post. The pictures changes the tone from "it's about our business" to "it's about me."

There's a easy way to adjust the tone: Keep the headshot at the beginning, and crop the ones in the middle of the article to just the ice cream.

After the conclusion, include a blurb that says something like, "hiring is like choosing an ice cream cone; you can't have all the flavors," and then put in a ton of face shots with ice cream.

Keeps the focus in the article and still allows personal expression!

I think an important theme of the article is that there are human beings making the decision. A list of hiring procedures under a banner is a very different article.

Theme and tone are two different things. It's why everyone's complaining about the pictures. They set a tone that distracts from the theme.

(And, otherwise, it's a damn good article.)

Also, they're fun and serve to lighten the tone

> The photos in that post are really distracting.

It was as if you were reading along and then every paragraph your coworker would tap you on the shoulder and shout "ice cream!"

Maybe I'm reading to much into it but they seem to be purposefully chosen.

* 3-tier ice cream cone - fancy club

* vanilla ice cream - looking for scarcity

* multi-flavor ice cream cone - assembling a team

* giant scope with tons of flavors and toppings - different level

* 3 scopes with one on the side - team fit

* just a cone - low bar

You’re hired.

The photos really creeped me out. I like ice cream too, but sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I am under the impression that she eats an ice cream cone when interviewing candidates.

“We found that interviewing at Ben&Jerry's removes most of our circadian bias (a.k.a. how an empty stomach turns us back into evil predators), while reducing candidates anxiety.”

Perhaps the photos are an unusual way (to you) to convey the same (augmented) message of the text they sideline.

Only, you don't know how to read them. And that distracts you.

It makes sense/speaks to me, in a reassuring way.

And it reminds me how the web was, a few years ago, so free from judgement in how "messages are supposed to look such or such".

> And it reminds me how the web was, a few years ago

The web was never a place where technical blogs included vapid selfies. There'd be a bio pic at the most. What message do the vapid selfies convey on this page? What sense do they make to you that others are missing out on?

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