9 ms·

and maybe a follow up question (to measure the false negatives) Do you check the applicants who were denied based on their test and see where they ended up wor

and maybe a follow up question (to measure the false negatives) Do you check the applicants who were denied based on their test and see where they ended up working at. E.g. you are a mid tier start up who rejects someone who ends up working at amazon as a high level engineer – do you mark that a failure?

daviddever23box 5y ago
I'd be careful to call that out as a negative; if the culture fit wasn't right, and the candidate would have been a net negative to the team, it shouldn't matter where they end up next, unless (of course) the candidate that was actually hired ends up being an even worse fit (ergo the need to fix your hiring process).
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  On the other hand, "they would not have been a good fit" sounds suspiciously like a blanket, non-falsifiable denial of failure. I other words, bullshit.
  - chaosharmonic 5y ago
    See also: "you don't have enough experience," one which I most recently heard myself after four interviews and a technical assessment, in which my (passing) solution included a bugfix to the test itself.
  - sosborn 5y ago
    Is it bullshit if it is true? Hiring the wrong fit can bring a team down.
    - kspacewalk2 5y ago
      It's not bullshit if it's true. It can be true, or it can be bullshit. Which makes it such an awesome bullshit excuse.
  - kovac 5y ago
    "Culture fit" has become like the currency of recruitment. Supposedly what you may have to pay with for a potentially great engineer (technically) about whom the hiring team didn't feel comfortable with. I think the original question is a great one. Do we actually put these intuitions to the test?
- RNCTX 5y ago
  > I'd be careful to call that out as a negative; if the culture fit wasn't right, and the candidate would have been a net negative to the team, it shouldn't matter where they end up next I'd be careful to presume you can know these things from an interview. > unless (of course) the candidate that was actually hired ends up being an even worse fit (ergo the need to fix your hiring process). Total lack of self awareness in the corporate world really is an amazing thing to behold. I suppose this is "iterating" (in HR speak, not code speak): taking a set of criteria which generates a wrong conclusion, and then applying all that to ancillary things to find more wrong answers.
francisofascii 5y ago
We would mark that as a success. Someone good enough to get into a top tier place, wouldn't last a year at our shop. :)
999900000999 5y ago
Let’s think about this for a second, if I apply to be a mid-level engineer at Billy Bob’s software development firm, but I’m capable of getting a job as a senior engineer at Amazon. Odds are I’d only stay at Billy Bob’s software up until I’m able to get my Amazon job, considering on boarding a software engineer can easily take six months, that means you only get six months or so of actual work out of this person. If that, they might just work at Billy Bob’s for three months until they get their FAANG offer and then just leave Billy Bob’s off the résumé

daviddever23box 5y ago

I'd be careful to call that out as a negative; if the culture fit wasn't right, and the candidate would have been a net negative to the team, it shouldn't matter where they end up next, unless (of course) the candidate that was actually hired ends up being an even worse fit (ergo the need to fix your hiring process).

kspacewalk2 5y ago
On the other hand, "they would not have been a good fit" sounds suspiciously like a blanket, non-falsifiable denial of failure. I other words, bullshit.
- chaosharmonic 5y ago
  See also: "you don't have enough experience," one which I most recently heard myself after four interviews and a technical assessment, in which my (passing) solution included a bugfix to the test itself.
- sosborn 5y ago
  Is it bullshit if it is true? Hiring the wrong fit can bring a team down.
  - kspacewalk2 5y ago
    It's not bullshit if it's true. It can be true, or it can be bullshit. Which makes it such an awesome bullshit excuse.
- kovac 5y ago
  "Culture fit" has become like the currency of recruitment. Supposedly what you may have to pay with for a potentially great engineer (technically) about whom the hiring team didn't feel comfortable with. I think the original question is a great one. Do we actually put these intuitions to the test?
RNCTX 5y ago
> I'd be careful to call that out as a negative; if the culture fit wasn't right, and the candidate would have been a net negative to the team, it shouldn't matter where they end up next I'd be careful to presume you can know these things from an interview. > unless (of course) the candidate that was actually hired ends up being an even worse fit (ergo the need to fix your hiring process). Total lack of self awareness in the corporate world really is an amazing thing to behold. I suppose this is "iterating" (in HR speak, not code speak): taking a set of criteria which generates a wrong conclusion, and then applying all that to ancillary things to find more wrong answers.

francisofascii 5y ago

We would mark that as a success. Someone good enough to get into a top tier place, wouldn't last a year at our shop. :)

999900000999 5y ago

Let’s think about this for a second, if I apply to be a mid-level engineer at Billy Bob’s software development firm, but I’m capable of getting a job as a senior engineer at Amazon. Odds are I’d only stay at Billy Bob’s software up until I’m able to get my Amazon job, considering on boarding a software engineer can easily take six months, that means you only get six months or so of actual work out of this person. If that, they might just work at Billy Bob’s for three months until they get their FAANG offer and then just leave Billy Bob’s off the résumé