Building a product in the technical recruiting space? Read this first
blog.alinelerner.com
blog.alinelerner.com
One thing that I disagree with is the idea that filtering processes can't make candidates better. A properly created process should leave both sides of the equation happy, an engineer can learn new skills and a hiring manager can have a shot at making an offer to an engineer if s/he has the requisite skills. If the candidate doesn't have the skills then give them the tools to learn the skills and see if they come back showing mastery. Work ethic and being ready/willing/able to learn new things is the number one signal that an employee is going to work out well, at least on the teams that I have run.
Ideally I want a hiring "fun"-nel where a 6.2 can learn the skills necessary to become an 8.3 (or show that they've been an 8.3 all along) through exercises or reading assignments. Sort of an external training/hiring funnel. If nothing else it may also help as a way to build internal training processes and advertise the to the world some of the neat stuff you are working on. I think this is how Matasano recruits and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Pretty much no matter what there is a learning curve associate d with bringing on a new hire. Finding candidates that will attack those curves with gusto is key to building good teams, I think at least. Technical skills can be taught and refined, gumption is a bit harder to instill.
If potential employers divulge shortcomings in the interview then they may be slammed with a discrimination lawsuit.
If potential employers keep their mouths shut, then the overall incoming workforce takes longer to understand the rules of the hiring game.
At the CV stage you might be a 6.2, but the error bars on whether you're a good hire might be +/- 5.8.
As you progress you're not just filtering, you're also trying to reduce the massive degree of error.
I'm half joking, but yes, it's a serious problem. What sucks more, is that even if you clear the interview, you don't know what things you're doing well, because there is no feedback.
"There are good arguments for allowing experienced programmers to skip screening steps, and not have to continually re-prove themselves." [0]
How do you solve this problem? Surgeons, pilots, Infantry soldiers, classical musician have extensive and verified training that equips them for high levels of technical execution in each field. Each of these professions have some form of continual re-testing and evaluation. What makes technical candidates in software a special case?
[0] "Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9766816
Whatever this credentialing looks like, I hope it's based on ability rather than proxies.
No-one really knows yet how to consistently build good software with a normal workforce within commercially realistic timescales and budgets. For that matter, even what constitutes "good software" probably depends on the context; in the real world, it is usually a question of "good enough" rather than any absolute standard that applies to all projects. Therefore, I'm not sure there is anyone in the world who could write those objective standards yet.
Even if there were, there is a significant risk that they would be shouted down by the kind of consultants who don't actually make a lot of software and don't actually have a good track record of success in their own projects, yet have no problem writing books, blogging, speaking at conferences, or otherwise telling the rest of the industry how it should be doing its job.
That could lead to the worst possible outcome: an industry with de facto or even de jure regulation of who may practise, similar to other engineering disciplines for example, but where the regulation actively favours people who are buzzword compliant and up on the latest fads, rather than people who are actually good at building useful software.
In five years, an infantry soldier can go to bootcamp (BCT, 10 weeks), advanced infantry combat school (4 weeks). Then he'll go on to a combat unit, and train with them to prepare for a combat deployment. With a week or two of visits home, this will take up the first year. He could use the remaining four years to conduct up to two 18 months combat tours (with about six month back in country after each one), deployed in a warzone. At the end of his five years, providing everything went well, he will be considered ready to try joining the special forces, if his IQ and fitness are good enough. He could go to NCO school or officer school even sooner, after his first combat tour.
At the end of his five years, a just graduated engineer is considered too green to touch a production server, much less try joining the 'special forces' of our profession. The difference in autonomy in various professions after five years is striking. A surgeon would just start his internship, and assist senior surgeons, but a pilot would already be flying for several years!
Also five years in the military you aren't in school, you are doing your job. So if an engineering grad did five years of work study or coop, I think they could be trusted with prod servers as you say.
There is a culture in the SF community to have continual improvement, 1% a day.
"Also five years in the military you aren't in school, you are doing your job."
Exactly the point I was thinking of.
I'm not entirely convinced they'd get a job at Google if they applied now.
There are so many recruitment companies are out there on the horizon, especially in London right now.
It's a big space to dive into and a lot of people assume that they can tech their way out of it, but it takes a lot more than a fancy algorithm and a joint dislike of shitty recruiters to be useful.
in Silicon Valley? The entire US? Certainly not in Europe.
It would then be worthwhile to train and improve your employees, as they become a tradeable capital-like asset rather than a form of labour.
(The downside might be greater difficulty in quitting toxic employers; perhaps another job for the standards body / union.)
Thank you.
Edit: Btw I upvoted because I believe we should all try to refrain from making judgments based on incomplete information, WHEN we have the data in front of us but decide not to go through it all. I do this a lot.
But people do this all the time. When people argue in person, they spend most of their time not listening to the other side, but trying to formulate a reason the other side is wrong.
It's not the right thing to do, and I know that, and it's why I put "I'm really sorry" at the start.
By no means does she think that the only good engineers are credentialed.
2. Bring in 10 ugly on paper candidates, two get an offer, and one accepts - expect a stern talking to about your performance.
Imagine you're a Stanford alum (even dropout) working at Google. If someone from University of [current bad state] comes across your desk with their main work experience being enterprise consulting in Java, odds are you're going to pass and look at the next person.
Quickly filtering by these "important" things seems to make some sense except for the fact that none of these factors tend to be indicators of success or failure. You may be saving yourself some time but you're missing some good candidates too.
I went to an absolute shit school (like, bottom 150 of world ranked schools) an I had interviews that lead to offers with Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, among others, when I graduated. People from my graduating class are working at many of these companies, i.e. with the same background as me.
So clearly it can't be a horrible problem if they seem happy to employ people from my no-name, considered harmful, school.
Who knows, maybe every single one of us got extremely lucky, or some engineering managers just happen to know it doesn't take a M.S. from MIT to know how to write good software.
My school is in the 151-200 ranking on the Shanghai list, I don't know if that's from the bottom or what.
Although the company I'm at right now should be considered cool (or at least, to me).
Secondly, if it's a structural issue, creating a new startup based around technical-recruiting is absurdly pointless. If it's structural, your startup is going to accomplish _absolutely nothing_, because it's just going to keep sending in safe candidates, in favor of qualified candidates.
However I've read posts where you disagree with the same exact sentiment: credentials don't tell even the majority of the story of whether someone is qualified.