Hacker News Reader

> Recruiters should not recruit programmers if they, the recruiters, have not worked in a programming context.

Ran into this the other day, a company reached out, and while I wasn't job hunting, the senior role they were trying to fill was basically exactly a perfect fit for me from a skills and background on a Venn diagram.

The first two calls were young, non-technical women (they shared linkedin links), and they clearly did not understand what they were hiring for and couldn't answer questions. They insisted on their scripted questions, and didn't want to talk about the companies where I did the exact role they were hiring for.

I was not rude or arrogant about this but the next day got the "Unfortunately, we've..." email. It's actual pretty funny, I'm just glad I didn't really need the job.

Companies, stop letting HR be your first contacts and screening before technical folks. It doesn't work. No wonder your pipelines are full of the fakers and liars like many of you lament.

I dunno, I find non-technical screening helpful. Otherwise way too many candidates reach the tech interview stage that shouldn't, and are a waste of my time...

(I agree screening by non-programmers is flawed, but there's always a compromise. Involving programmers at this early stage can be a source of frustration and wasted time).

My point would be that engineering manager, etc are the ones who vett folks to be talked to. I'm pretty sure every job I've gotten in 25 years was initiated by engineering lead or manager.

Hm, interesting.

In my career, some have and some haven't. In my current job, there's a screening by non-tech recruiters, then managers, then me and possibly others for the real tech interview. My EM is technical but cannot go in-depth as we can.

The landscape is large and wide - various realms of software dev/engineering are walled gardens compared to others, which are more public markets.

Imagine the recruitment industry around Munich or Melbourne or Singapore. Similar fish, very different kettles.

>The first two calls were young, .. they clearly did not understand what they were hiring for and couldn't answer questions. They insisted on their scripted questions, and didn't want to talk about the companies where I did the exact role they were hiring for.

Indeed, this is what I believe is endemic to the recruitment industry - the scripts are there to get the "# of interviews done" statistic in line with some expectation; the interview itself being successful, is secondary to the purpose.

I have personally saved myself huge headaches by flunking a recruiter who wasn't really doing the job, just pretending to.

Recruiters are fine at recruiting but they shouldn't be a substitute for a technical evaluator.

In my experience, recruiters seldom recruit programmers, they just find them and do a screening, but there's a technical interview done by technical people.

Are there companies that skip the tech interview step?

The screening is part of the recruiting.

Yes, but the comment I was replying to and disagreeing with was this:

> Recruiters should not recruit programmers if they, the recruiters, have not worked in a programming context. The best software development recruiter is another programmer.

I don't think recruiters must be programmers, or even that that's a good idea. Recruiting and doing the tech interview are different steps.

A recruiter who doesn't know what a good programmer does and how they work, won't necessarily recruit good programmers - but indeed, rather leave that identification to the tech interview - which is why a tech-savvy recruiter can offer a better service than a non-tech-savvy recruiter would, by removing a seat in the game of building a great development team/groups/department, at scale.

Also, this is changing now, radically, with AI/ML tooling - we programmers can indeed cut out a lot of middlemen now.

"recruiters must be programmers" - this absolute is not a policy, rather a test against the nature of the relationship being offered. If I, as a developer, am mis-represented by the recruiter to the tech interviewer, then it is an inadequate recruitment.

If however, a tech-savvy recruiter does the tech interview and understands the nature of the systems being built/technology needed for specific cases, then the process is smoother - not just for the company, but also for the individual.

This pre-supposes, of course, that the interview candidate is taking the process seriously, and identifies faulty onboarding practices. If you're not asking pointy questions about why a recruiter is being involved, or finding out whether or not the recruiter understands your Resume/CV well enough to represent you, then you're putting yourself on the wrong foot.

Developers/technologists being managed by non-devs, is a huge source of friction - and bloat - in the software industry.

What is Flynn factor?

I meant Peter principle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

So you meant to talk about "Peters principle", not "Peter principle"... I can't find anything on the first, that isn't really the second.

It really is applicable, whether you say "Peter/Peters".

The point is that if you're getting interviewed by someone who cannot understand your job, they are in the throes of a Peter principle manifestation, and you are very likely to end up in the same situation if you don't identify the incompetence - you'll inherit it.