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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

FWIW: the practice of having prospective employees do a probation period as a contractor is (take your pick) unreasonable and/or counterproductive.

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It does seem like the mechanisms people have come up with for this so far are counterproductive. But the underlying problem seems to me a real one, and a hard one: how can you tell whether someone will be good to work with? The only way to know is to actually work with them. So (the argument goes) rather than relying on bogus predictors, let's just test the hypothesis "this person will be a good addition to our team" directly.

Since you think about hiring a lot, I'm curious: do you think the above is accurate? If no, how would you phrase it differently? If yes, how would you recommend testing that hypothesis instead?

I think it's very accurate, and I think the idea of temp- to- perm hiring is seductive for exactly that reason.

In addition to the argument that the economics of temp- to- perm don't work out in this market for tech talent, there are also fundamental problems with the approach.

Most importantly: lots of people can perform well for short periods of time, especially if they don't have to deal with interpersonal conflicts (which take time to develop) or technical design disagreements (which only happen at inflection points in product/service design; ie, it might take 8 months to discover whether someone can "disagree and commit" to work on a team where they disapprove of some technical decision). Also, lots of people can work well on a project for a couple weeks before they get bored, and some of those people lack the ability to kickstart their engagement back up again once they feel "burned out" by a problem domain.

I think those are some of the most likely failure modes of new employees, and they also happen to be different from the failure modes that classic interviewing and work-sample testing are likely to suss out; ie, you can cover the non-psychological non-work-ethic concerns about new candidates with a relatively straightforward hiring process, so temp- to- perm might not even buy you much even if you don't assume that the approach is costing you the best candidates.

I'm not sure I see the difference between the freelancer->fulltime and contractor/probation->fulltime progressions. Is is just because in the latter case they weren't already a freelancer/contractor? Is there a big terminological issue I'm missing?

The two issues (unfairness and inefficiency) are somewhat orthogonal. So let me just guess that you're referring to the "inefficiency" side of the problem.

The problem is that companies looking to fill full-time slots are looking to fill full-time slots, not to engage a succession of contractors.

By requiring candidates to perform in a contractor role prior to signing on full-time, companies are effectively disqualifying most candidates that are currently employed. That's because very few people sniffing around for a better job than the one they have now can afford to drop out of the market for months or even weeks delivering work as a contractor. That's not how most people switch jobs; instead, most people search for their new job from the comfort and security of their current job, knowing that if (say) interviews don't work out, they can take their time looking for the next lead, knowing that they can continue to execute on their current job.

This is a problem for employers because virtually everybody you'd want to hire in this market is already employed.

And those who aren't full-time employed may not bite on the contract-to-perm offer either. Because in my limited experience "here's our contract-to-perm offer" usually translates to: "Please freelance for us at sub-market rates, under our poorly-thought-out non-negotiable boilerplate contract with unclear deliverables."

Typically they offer to take a slightly-low full-time weekly salary+benefits number, divide it by 40, and pay that as an hourly rate. Oh, goody.

No company wants to pay a contractor the going rate for contractors, and then face the unenviable task of talking that contractor's rate back down again when making them a full-time offer. Nor do they want the bother of haggling over the details of a contract deal that will almost always prove, one way or the other, to have been a wasted opportunity. (If the worker proves to be competent, the contract will be replaced by a full-time offer as quickly as possible. If the worker is incompetent, the contract will be terminated at the earliest practical date. In no case does anyone care much about the contract. It is a consolation prize for everyone involved.)

My personal philosophy is to treat contracting and employment like oil and water. Both can be tasty. But they are different things and one does not merge seamlessly into the other.

So the difference is whether you started off in a full-time job, and come into the deal hoping for one? If you're a freelancer, the chance of a fulltime position is one you can take or leave at your leisure. But if you start off as a fulltimer somewhere else and come into some contract-to-hire scenario, that's what you don't like. Amirite?

Anyway, I learned. Thanks.

Contrary to the other comment, moonlighting is just as easy for someone FT employed to try as someone who is no employed. The FT employed can make 20-30hrs available a week to try out a company on a set amount of work and get a feel for it. The alternative is to go through a set interviews (that if you read the google article, are useless) and then change your job (effectively putting a bullet on your last job) only to find out that you hate your new job and now you are stuck there. Try outs are safer and available for all.

So now we're talking about constricting the flow of candidates down to those who are willing to accept a second job for weeks to mitigate the concerns of future employers.

The problem here is obvious: the best candidates don't ever have to put up with stuff like this. They're actively courted by prospective employers.

Sure, not every candidate can be "one of the best candidates". But why would a rational employer select a screening process that overtly rules those candidates out?

Calling it a "probation" period is creating a loaded discussion. It can be in the developer's interest to find a job that really interests her rather than give a full-time commitment based off of an interview.

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