Your Best Hire: It May Surprise You
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
good lord. do people really think like that? if so, i think they've got much bigger problems than merely hiring people like themselves.
if you ask me, the author of that article is not part of the solution, she's part of the problem. she's describing a framework where decisions are made based on ego and pride. exactly the sort of environment that the average hacker news reader wants to avoid.
then she goes on to describe how you might fix one small part of this -- by deigning to hire someone not exactly like yourself. while leaving the rest of the ego-based framework intact, no doubt.
i'm guessing the real problem she's describing is deep insecurity. i'd prefer to see her tackle that one, rather than some tiny insignificant facet of it, as she's chosen to do here.
These days the challenge with any community is that once the masses find out about it, it's all downhill in a matter of months, unlike years before.
I'm serious. I'd actually see more hackerism here.
Why Hacking Exists: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247513
Well, nobody ever drove me to school when it was ninety degrees below We had to walk buck naked through forty miles of snow Worked in the coal mines twenty two hours a day for just half a cent Had to sell my internal organs just to pay the rent
Let me tell you something, you whiny little snot There's something wrong with all you kids today You just don't appreciate all the things you've got We were hungry, broken and miserable and we liked it fine that way
There were seventy three of us living in a cardboard box All I got for Christmas was a lousy bag of rocks Every night for dinner, we had a big 'ol chunk of dirt If we were really good, we didn't get dessert
Didn't have no telephone, didn't have no FAX machine All we had was a couple cans and a crummy piece of string Didn't have no swimming pool when I was just a lad Our neighbor's septic tank was the closest thing we had Didn't have no dental floss, had to use old rusty nails Didn't have Nintendo, we just poured salt on snails Didn't have no water bed, had to sleep on broken glass Didn't have no lawnmower, we used our teeth to cut the grass
What's the matter now, sonny, you say you don't believe this junk? You think my story's wearin' kinda thin? I tell you one thing, I never was such a disrespectful punk Back in my time, we had a thing called discipline
My dad would whoop us every night till a quarter after twelve Then he'd get too tired and he'd make us whoop ourselves Then he'd chop me into pieces and play frisbee with my brain And let me tell ya, Junior, you never heard me complain
Wierd Al -> Digg
Monty Python -> Slashdot
Randall Munroe -> HN
Except that by doing the latter, she is implicitly doing the former. You don't make big changes in life, you make lots of small ones.
So, how does your company hire people? Double-blind standardized testing?
Humans don't make every decision based solely on ego and pride. But ego and pride are always there. Just because you don't mention their names doesn't mean they've gone away. And it's not like they can be surgically removed, even if you wanted to.
What the article describes is how to acknowledge that your ego and your pride may be tending to steer you in a certain direction, so that you can compensate for them.
having said that, some of the follow-on comments are showing me how you guys might get something out of this article that i didn't. it sounds to me like a place where i'm glad i'm not anymore.
Can you explain what exactly about the hiring process there what unique? In particular, how can we try to replicate it in our workplaces?
it's important to remember this not just in a business setting but in a social one as well.