Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

>Most jobs are like that anyways

The difference is in the presumed defaults.

If you hire me, my assumption is that outside of company/organizational problems/changed of some sort, you'll keep me around so long as I'm reasonably competent.

Contract to hire on the other hand , sends off a vibe of we'll probably hire you if you wow us. Which, if someone already has a job or has other good offers in hand, is not going to sound like a great deal unless it's a company/position they really want and are very confident they can do.

View on HN

> sends off a vibe of we'll probably hire you if you wow us

Same with interviewing/take-home/whiteboard. It is just a better realistic view of the company. It not only makes it a "wow us" for the worker to the workplace, it is also the workplace to the worker. It is a two way street with a more realistic sample. It also reduces the friction of locked in employment.

Creative/programming/product/design are all creative fields, most projects/products like that have more flex/contractor style arrangements based on projects/products not necessarily the company such as movies, music, books, etc. Most of my career has been in games/interactive/agency style projects/products so it may make more sense there.

You can't judge creativity and product shipping capabilities with a take-home/whiteboard/interview very well. The sample is much smaller. The better way is the body of work and a real test that is longer or closer to the actual work and timeframes.

Programming is no more a creative field than other branches of engineering or the sciences--and in fact many white collar professional jobs. The sort of exceptionalism that gets attached to software is pretty ridiculous.

And yes there are agencies and consultants for all sorts of specialized work on a project basis. But that's not the majority of software and I'd guess the majority of programmers/software engineers don't want to be constantly looking for work especially if demand lets up.

Obviously, some things like games lend themselves to more of a project-based approach to staffing than other things do. (And certain other engineering projects do as well.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com