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Comment by corytheboyd | Hacker News Reader

I’m a little confused, because first you challenge me, but then come to the exact conclusion that resumes are largely unreadable. I’ll look for something they claim to have done to dig deep on, see if it’s BS or not, but I’m not reading every X by Y% with my jaw on the floor. FWIW I’m generally on the back side of the process, where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

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> where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

I think that's a mistake, personally. Each interviewer needs to make an independent decision and relying on the judgement of a screener early in the process is giving that person disproportionate weight towards hiring for your team. Usually that resume screener is someone in HR. Would you trust them to decide who your team hires?

Your posts do indicate that maybe there is a larger segment of folks who don't read resumes than I realize...My amount of rigor may only come after being involved in some catastrophically bad hiring decisions. Like someone I made the deciding vote to hire was stalking multiple employees, was a heavy drug user, did zero work of value and ultimately crashed and burned by getting arrested for coming at someone with a knife. For years HR wouldn't let us fire that person because of their protected class and multiple false claims they made against a large number of employees.

If it’s truly only HR and then direct to full interview panel then I agree with you, but I’ve never worked somewhere where a technical person wasn’t involved in screening. Yes recruiters will winnow the inbound, but usually there a technical phone screen, hiring manager screen, or both.

FWIW this is what I assumed to be true when I said what I said.

And yet still that screening almost always has less technical depth than further interviews. It should not carry the most weight in the process, but because of practices like this it does.

Sorry, can't agree with this. The hiring manager's decision carries the most weight yes, but saying it's biased towards the screen is over-generalizing. I'm sure sometimes it is, but as someone who interviewed thousands and hired hundreds over a quarter century career at many organizations large and small, I can tell you unequivocally that technical feedback can and does regularly override my screening signal.

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