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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

We haven't seriously looked at a resume in 2 years.

Phone screeners --- who barely count for anything in our process, but don't get me started on that --- might skim a resume just so they have something to start talking about.

Otherwise, our hiring process is resume-blind.

We bring people in directly out of school, from random line-of-business programming jobs all around the country, and from networking jobs for people who want to transfer into something more developer-y.

I should mention: our work is not easy. I can hold my own in an argument that says we're significantly more technical and significantly more sophisticated than the median Silicon Valley startup.

Resumes are worthless. Do not bother. If you're screening with resumes, you're doing something wrong.

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A bit black and white there. I generally agree that resumes should not be a top indicator, but they can be useful to screen out some people.

For example, I once posted a job that included the word "Ruby". I thought the job posting made it clear that Ruby was a very, very small part of the job. But I still got several resumes from people who were Ruby experts or at least claimed to be, and that is all the experience they had given their resumes. They had little or no non-Ruby experience. At the time, I needed someone who could write Ruby code but had much more experience elsewhere.

So the resumes helped me screen out those candidates. And I also learned that my job posting was worded incorrectly.

And you talked to none of them? You just assumed that their resume told you everything you needed to know about their capabilities? And if it didn't, too bad for them for writing a shitty resume?

In this particular case, I received ~20 resumes for 1 job and 80% were not Ruby-only resumes. So yes the Ruby-only screened them out. However I would have gone back and contacted them if none of the other 80% of candidates worked out.

You will get better results if you build a process that doesn't screen people out because of their resumes. That doesn't mean you don't screen candidates, and it doesn't mean that you don't have a funnel that knocks out a big chunk of them before you get on the phone.

It just means: don't select people for their getting-a-new-job skills. Those skills aren't relevant to software development work.

Based on your other comment, does this mean you use a commercial or custom general mental ability test in the funnel before screening and interviews?

It would be helpful to know more about what you do versus what you don't.

We do not use "general mental ability" tests.

You can read about tptacek's company's process here: http://matasano.com/careers/. It really does seem like a good way to learn whether a candidate will be able to perform the job.

Is your recruiting process suitable for non-tech companies? Or huge companies? (Not criticising, genuinely curious.)

I wonder that a lot too. I have friends who have tried it for sales and are liking it, but it's too early to tell. (It's not my process, by the way; here's a link 'tokenadult found about it: http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...)

"but they can be useful to screen out some people."

Which is why I wrote that blog post. Just to make sure it stands less of a chance to get screened.

So every single applicant that sends something in will have a discussion with someone one your team? And you find that time is a worthwhile investment?

We hire at a faster tempo than a typical startup but slower than any big tech company, and the investment we put into recruiting has paid obvious dividends. We're looking for more ways to pour time into it, not less.

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