Why I Refuse to Use Resumes and What I Do Instead | Hacker News Reader

Why I Refuse to Use Resumes and What I Do Instead

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9 pointsjosephwesley11 comments

How has plum.io worked out for you? What kinds of things does it test candidates for? I admit, from the front page: my impression is that it's less like Moneyball for hiring and more like Dwarf Fortress.

Ha, that's funny.

The best way to use the test is to screen candidates to find the top 5 or so. Let's so you get 200 resumes. Instead of sorting through them all, you can have the applicants take the Plum.io test. Once the results come in, you'll have the candidates ranked from top to bottom. You don't have to make hiring decisions based on the result, but you can use it to narrow the five or ten you want to interview. That's the best use I've seen so far. It also helps to weed out people that have fluff on their resume. You'll know right away how intelligent they are from an IQ perspective and also how hard they work, in addition to other personality traits that will be useful.

You don't have to make hiring decisions based on the result, but you can use it to narrow the five or ten you want to interview.

It may or may not be wise to reject 95% of your applicants out of hand based on a psychological test [1], but it is certainly a "hiring decision". Don't apply a selection criterion, then try to tell yourself that you didn't.

You'll know right away how intelligent they are from an IQ perspective and also how hard they work, in addition to other personality traits that will be useful.

Yes, personality traits such as "willingness to jump through hoops, just to land an interview with the sort of boss who will ignore one's sales pitch and track record in favor of dubiously-relevant psychological tests." You've set up a very effective screen for this trait.

At least you do this up-front. I had a CEO spring a psychological test on me in a final-round senior-engineering interview, wasting more than a day of my time, not to mention his company's time. Absurdism at its finest: You go in prepared to talk about the business and how you might be able to use your existing technical expertise to score short-, medium-, and long-term wins in performance and revenue, and suddenly your high-school guidance counselor shows up.

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[1] Ranked "top to bottom", no less. That is disturbing. I would quote Mr. Spock and say that this phrase "reflects two-dimensional thinking", but it doesn't even get up to two dimensions.

Resumes are often flawed and imperfect, we get that.

But you might also think of the contemporary US style CV as a marketing document. By that measure, it provides valuable insights into individual writing, communication, and presentation skills. Intangible things we look for in good managers.

I disagree. I think it teaches bad habits where you write in a "CV" style. Instead, why not have people write a one-page document with short paragraphs and bullet points for why they should get hired. This can include GPA, results, and experience, but I personally just want to see it in a different format than a dry, bullet-pointed resume.

>bullet points for why they should get hired:

The resume (CV used interchangeably) is merely a tool for guiding the conversation on background & experience. Treating a job-seeker as a supplicant is a turn-off to professional candidates.

"or I ask for a one-page statement that uses short paragraphs and bullet points about why they’re a good fit for the job and why I should hire them."

Sounds like a cover letter.

In a way, yes, but with more emphasis on pitching why you're a good fit for the position.

Excerpt:

Why do I ask for a one-page statement instead of a resume? Because I want to mix things up a bit. I want to find out what makes the candidate stand out for the position, and I also want to see genuine interest in the job being advertised. What I don’t want is someone who’s spraying resumes to every available job opening. That guy’s not going to be a good fit for what I’m doing. But someone who’s willing to write up a half-page or one-page explanation of why he’s a good fit for the job, that’s what I’m looking for.

Which is basically a resume by another name. I have sympathy for his position but everything I have ever read indicates that good resumes that get jobs are customized to the position in question, are typically one or two pages, and do not necessarily follow any particular format. Format varies depending on industry, individual, etc.

Yeah, I found job-hunting hard. I don't really expect to ever do that again. Normal jobs seem to be a poor fit for me. That's true for a lot of people. There are plenty of professions where a portfolio is the norm rather than a resume.

Also, the Fortune 500 company I once worked for gave me a battery of tests to see if I could actually do the things my resume claimed I could do, in essence. So his idea of testing candidates is not really new-fangled or something either.

Even after I was a company insider, I could not figure out the job postings the company listed online. I find the whole job hunting process incredibly illegible and loathe it with the burning of a thousand suns. I now do freelance work and have a few personal projects I am trying to develop. I doubt I will ever apply to a normal job again. That really is not all that strange.

I agree that the whole process is flawed. In addition to the resume problem, job listings are ridiculous. They use inflated information about experience needed etc. and scare off people that might be a good fit.

From what I gather, that's true. When I was in GIS school, one of the administrators had an anecdote about how job listings were saying they wanted people with like 5 to 10 years experience -- with a product that had come out less than 5 years earlier.

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