Comment by locknitpicker

Comment by locknitpicker 6 hours ago

> I must ask once again why we are having these 5+ round interview cycles and we aren't able to filter for qualities that the work requires of its talent.

Hiring well is hard, specially if compensation isn't competitive enough to attract talented individuals who have a choice. It's also hard to change institutional hiring practices. People don't get fired by buying IBM, and they also don't get fired if they follow the same hiring practices in place in 2016.

> What are all those rounds for if we're getting engineers who aren't as valued for the team's needs at the end of the pipeline?

Software development is a multidiscinary field. It involves multiple non-overlapping skill sets, bot hard skills and soft skills. Also, you need multiple people vetting a candidate to eliminate corruption and help weed out candidates who outright clash with company culture. You need to understand that hiring someone is a disruptive activity, that impacts not only what skill sets are available in your organization but also how the current team dynamics. If you read around, you'll stumble upon stories of people who switch roles in reaction to new arrivals. It's important to get this sort of stuff right.

johnnyanmac 6 hours ago

>It's important to get this sort of stuff right.

Well I'm still waiting. Your second paragraph seems to contradict the first. Which perfectly encapsulates the issue with hiring. Too afraid to try new things, so instead add beuracracy to leases accountability.

Reply View 2 replies

locknitpicker 5 hours ago

> Well I'm still waiting. Your second paragraph seems to contradict the first. Which perfectly encapsulates the issue with hiring. Too afraid to try new things, so instead add beuracracy to leases accountability.
I think you haven't spend much time thinking about the issue. Changing hiring practices does not mean they are improve. It only means they changed. You are still faced with the task of hiring adequate talent, but if you change processes them now you don't have baselines and past experiences to guide you. You keep those baselines if you keep your hiring practices then you stick with something that is proven to work albeit with debatable optimality, and mitigate risks because your experience with the process helps you be aware of some red flags. The worst case scenario is that you repeat old errors, but those will be systematic errors which are downplayed by the fact that your whole organization is proof that your hiring practices are effective.

Reply View | 1 reply
- johnnyanmac 5 hours ago
  
  >Changing hiring practices does not mean they are improve.
  No, but I'd like to at least see conversation on how to improve the process. We aren't even at that point. We're just barely past acknowledging that it's even an issue.
  >but if you change processes them now you don't have baselines and past experiences to guide you.
  I argue we're already at this point. The reason we got past the above point of "acknowledging problem" (a decade too late, arguably) is that the baselines are failing to new technology, which is increasing false positives.
  You have a point, but why does tech pick this point to finally decide not to "move fast and break things"? Not when it comes to law and ethics, but for aquiring new talent (which meanwhile is already disrupting heir teams with this AI slop?)
  >those will be systematic errors which are downplayed by the fact that your whole organization is proof that your hiring practices are effective.
  okay, so back to step zero then. Do we have a hiring problem? The thesis of this article says yes.
  "it worked before" seems to be the antipattern the tech industry tried to fight back against for decades.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies