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Comment by llimos | Hacker News Reader

It looks awesome, and very necessary. But isn't it sad that we've got to the point that so much effort - and a whole industry - has to go into this very meta side of work, time that is not spent doing something that actually produces something? All of this just to get to the point where you can get an interview to get a job to then start doing something productive for the world?

Again, not to take anything away from the book itself, which looks great. Just a comment on the work world today, I guess.

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As the author: I could not agree more. I wish we had a system that's not as dependent on resumes as the current one is. I actually dedicated the last chapter (that I'll probably make public) on advice on how to make the process better, if and when you'll be a hiring manager.

Anyone who feels the pain on how broken the system is: please, try to not forget this. And when you'll have the opportunity, try to improve it.

I see solutions along not immediately rejecting when the resume is not a "fit", but carrying on looking for signals.

As of today - in 2020 - the best way to not have to rely on a resume is to have a referral. The first part of the book stresses this a lot. A trusted referral "I know this person" will probably make a resume redundant, at least for smaller places.

We're working really hard on solving this specific problem. Resumes show you surface/hard facts, but not the "soft stuff" that really matters for whether or not people will be happy in their new role. Things like shared values, ideal work culture, priorities, etc. Our efforts have been well-received so far - 90k people have signed up to be matched with companies this way.

Editing to add that we're at http://www.happymonday.com/ & feedback is always welcome.

Just curious: how many companies have signed up to be with people that way?

The company numbers are smaller as initially we were functioning more like recruiters. Now adding more scaleable and self-serve options.

Companies do depend a lot on referrals and I personally have basically not needed a resume except for pro-forma purposes for 20 years. One downside of that though is that companies hire solely from what would be called the old boys network, which probably wouldn't sound so ideal in other contexts.

I think you bring up a great point, and I think especially with the advent of more advanced AIs (like GPT-3), there will be a lot more noise in the system, and the gap between signal and noise will be much smaller.

Therefore, As a society, I think we've reached the point of needing to add extra weight to our real-life connections. They say making deals in business has always hinged on "who you know," and going forward, I think being anonymous is going to actively count _against_ people, rather than personal connections being a plus.

Maybe that'll mean having less "meta-work" to deal with, because your real work will stand on its own, and you'll have professional connections who can back you up. This change will make it harder to break into the system, though, and will make it harder for under-performers to succeed.

I guess it's due to a relatively new, high-skilled profession, but on the other hand, still unregulated. Without a "bar" (like in law), a lot of work will go into screening individuals on a relative basis.

Is there any less individual screening in law? Passing the bar is the minimal standard for an applicant, but I’m sure they still need to demonstrate a lot of other things to get hired.

I'm sure there's plenty of screening for law positions, but probably not for the basic knowledge they studied in college. Asking a lawyer with 10 years of work experience to recite some fundamental law trivia would probably be unusual, while it's common for programming interviews to ask fizzbuzz and standard algorithm questions.

There are 'certification' programs in many areas, but they're not universally viewed as positives. My experiences getting some certifications... gosh - 10 years ago now - I did it, but half the hiring folks I talked to didn't care at all. Given the time/price, I don't think it was a bad cost/benefit ratio. I needed it for a specific job, but outside that specific job it didn't help me much. With that said, I already had... 12 years of experience and had a moderate-sized network of experienced colleagues already. I think certs can help less-experienced folks get a foot in the door, but again, only at places that place any value on certs in the first place...

You could, as in the case of much of civil engineering, have a more widespread requirement for professional engineer and other certifications for people past some minimal level of work experience. (There actually is no software engineering PE at this point or it's at least being phased out.)

But now you're requiring 4-year degrees and making it very difficult for anyone to switch over from another profession.

It's sad but this is just one part of the overall very broken hiring process. Eventually technology will be able to match publicly available data about ones background with open roles well but that seems to be a long way off.

The nice part is most of the time your resume just needs to be good enough. Not having any major red flags is enough for a conversation if you have some experience under your belt.

Is it sad though? I mean, in the end this is the obvious consequence of an increase in the supply of devs.

If anything gives me hope is a world with more devs!

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