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The only way you can truly be sure of your hiring process is to pick a random sample of people who fail, and hire them anyway.

I see a couple of issues with this:

- Could it get you in legal trouble?

- Are you capable of evaluating who are the best employees AFTER they are hired?

- Only a large corporation would have the resources to gamble on hiring a random sample of people who failed their interview process.

Here's one half-hearted way to do it. Pick a random sample of resumes you reject, and give them phone interviews anyway. Pick a random sample of people who fail your phone interview, and give them an on-site interview anyway.

Here's what happens at my current job:

The boss assigns me 5 tasks. I ask him what is the priority (offering my guess). He tells me the priority, and I do them in that order, and he understands that the low-ranking stuff might not happen for a few days.

Here's what happens in a toxic environment:

My boss assigns me 5 tasks. I ask what is most important. He says they are all equally urgent.

The 2nd example shows an ignorance of how programmers work. You do one thing, finish it, then do the next thing. If you try to do 5 things at the same time, it'll take much longer than doing them in order.

What you have to do is make sure your boss tells you what is the most urgent stuff, and let the less urgent stuff slide.

Rule of thumb: If you are sure you are going to be living in the same place for more than 7-10 years, buy. Otherwise rent.

Remember that, instead of buying, you can rent and invest the difference. If you made a spreadsheet with all fees and costs, you'll come up with 7-10 years as the breakeven point.

People should be allowed to make any sort of private contract they want (as long as they don't hurt anyone else). Why are marriage contracts any of the government's business?

I haven't seen cubicles in awhile. It's been all open offices, every place I interviewed in the past several years.

I thought MS was planning to phase out private offices and go open office for everyone?

That's one advantage of bootstrapping. When you do decide to raise money, you can make sure you cash out some of your own shares as part of the deal.

Since they were already cashflow positive, they were free to say "no deal!" to any offer.

How much of a time commitment is it for the candidate? I.e. are you expecting a 20 hour coding test?

If it's free for candidates, how do you make money?

He missed my favorite sleazy tactic. One of these technical recruiting companies is advertising a job ... and you have to sign up for it with their alpha system. It usually is so buggy that I can't complete the process.

Why are universities graduating people who can't pass programming 101? Why are they so grossly negligent? They diluted the value of my degree, by graduating too many clueless people.

I did lots of problem sets, homework, and coding projects in school. Why do I have to do it again FOR EACH JOB INTERVIEW? Especially since the projects are usually less on-topic than the ones I did in school.

I.e., I do a homework project for a class, and if I don't get an A, I usually get a reason why not. I do a coding interview project, it goes into a black hole and I never hear from them again.

>> ...we can't afford to send people we're unsure about to companies

>Does every applicant in this system really have to go through four rounds of screening before even talking to someone who works at the actual company? I can't imagine doing that unless I was desperate.

And from the candidates' viewpoint: That headhunter made me waste 3 hours on screening and didn't even get me a phone interview. Why am I wasting time on this?

I realized another problem. You're trying to predict WHICH PEOPLE WILL GET HIRED BY YOUR CLIENT. That's a completely different outcome than trying to pick the people who are the best workers. If the employer's process is defective, your pre-screening is just reinforcing that bias (albeit improving your "efficiency" as headhunters).

Why are those people getting CS degrees? Shouldn't they get flunked out?

When schools allow students to do coding projects in groups, it's possible to graduate with ZERO ability, provided you can find someone competent to partner with.

When you get a coding assignment, you have no idea if they're going to give honest feedback if you submit a solution, or if they're just going to say "Thanks for applying, but we decided to go in a different direction."

If only there was some way that people could spend a couple of years proving they had basic competence, so they didn't have to prove basic skills on every interview.

Why did I get a CS degree if every interview starts with the assumption that I'm an unqualified loser?

If 90% of the people pass the take home test, then why was that step necessary in the first place?

I've also soured on take-home test. I recently did a C/C++ one, I know I aced it, and I didn't even get a phone interview.

I figured out afterwards what they were doing. They were giving the take-home test to EVERYONE who applied. Then, after you submit a solution, they read your resume. After looking at my (correct) solution and my resume, they decided I wasn't worth a phone interview.

No more take home tests for me.

Trillions of dollars in bank bailouts?

The military/industrial complex?

The prison/judicial complex?

For example, approximately 0.5% of the NYC population works for the NYPD. So, a tax rate of 0.5% should be sufficient to maintain order in a city like NYC. Add in some overhead and you get to 1%.

Roads are similar, can be done easily for 1% or less.

That only costs a couple of percent. The rest is waste/fraud/theft.

Don't forget taxes. If your total taxation rate is more than 50%, then you're spending half your working hours for yourself, and the other half working as a slave for the government.

Add up income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc, and it goes over 50% pretty quickly.

Once they were a success, investors did come soliciting. They didn't need it, as they had sufficient cashflow.

If Notch had solicited VC before he was a hit, the VCs probably would have just laughed him out of their office.

You can get a gaming unicorn (Minecraft). However, Mojang didn't start getting interest from investors until they had enough cashflow to sustain their own growth.

There have been some recent IPO successes (Zygna, King). (And king.com is starting to look like a one hit wonder with Candy Crush Saga.)

Don't aim for 1 word english domain names. Those are taken and you'll pay big $$$.

Instead, pick a 2 or 3 word phrase that describes your project, and use that.

Another tip: Don't do a "domain availability check" until you're ready to buy the domain. I did that once and someone else, seeing I did the request, grabbed the domain. It turns out that the list of "domain availability checks" are sold to squatters.

Also, pick your proposed domain name and Google it. Look at the first couple of results. If they're all low PageRank, go ahead and take the domain. Most people use Google now instead of typing the domain into their browser, so you want to be #1 in Google for your domain name.

If a superrich person was hanging around with an average joe (or even a 1%er), it would be an unequal relationship. It's like asking why supermodels don't hang out in ordinary bars.

If more people said "This test is insulting!" and walked out, then employers would eventually get the hint.

Also, I'm saying that, if an employer uses the Wonderlic test (or any other 3rd party test), it's negatively correlated with being a good job, based on my experience and evaluating other factors of the interview.

In a free market, there never is a shortage. There only are people who don't want to pay the market rate.

If your candidate pool is people "recent college graduates with experience in exactly the technologies we are using", then there is a shortage. If you're willing to consider older workers or people who aren't a perfect keyword match, then there are plenty of candidates.

It also has a damaging effect. An H1-b visa work is MORE ATTRACTIVE than an American citizen, assuming the same salary and competence, because they're tied to the job.

I.e., if you're going to invest in helping your employee acquire skills, it's better to hire the indentured servant rather than investing in an American who can switch jobs as he gains experience.

Is he expecting you to answer at 3am?

If he expects you to answer at 3am, it's time to find a new job.

If he's willing to wait to get an answer, then don't worry about it.

I turn of the sound and vibrate on my phone, so I don't get interrupted while I'm sleeping.

He's probably just trying to show off about how dedicated he is. Don't get tricked into overworking yourself to match him.

Are you serious? Not only are people expected to know algorithm brainteasers for interviews, they're also expected to practice every stupid IQ test ever invented?

Instead of studying for interviews, focus on something useful, like learning a new language or framework.

For a year, I had two part-time contracts, one for 3 days a week and one for 1 day a week. It was nice to have an extra relaxation day per week. It wound up ending when I got a full-time job for a 30% hourly increase.

It also made it easy to interview for a new job. I scheduled all my interviews on the off day.

As South Park said, this is the problem with all freemium games. You need to make the game somewhat fun (so people will pay), but not too much fun (so people don't feel obligated to pay more so it's more fun).

When you design a freemium game, your target audience isn't the guy who plays it for free or pays $10. Your target audience is the person who gets addicted and spends $1000+, due to the power law nature of spending.

I don't know why someone downvoted this. The wonderlic test IS ridiculous.