<story><title>Hiring Is Broken?</title><url>https://software.rajivprab.com/2019/07/27/hiring-is-broken-and-yours-is-too/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Retric</author><text>I have generally been rather disappointed with Google&amp;#x2F;FANG software developers.  These companies generally though not always avoid the bottom 1&amp;#x2F;3 of the talent pool, but that’s about it.&lt;p&gt;Effectively they simply select for people willing to hack their hiring  process, which also excludes most actually talented developers.  Resulting in a few very talented people, and an overall average workforce.&lt;p&gt;This is also why most internal projects at these companies are about average for the industry and these companies focus so heavily on acquisitions. Consider the differences between iOS, Android, and Windows phones was not so much about software quality as much as business models.</text></item><item><author>esotericn</author><text>This article appears to be an extremely long-winded way of stating that you don&amp;#x27;t have to pick from the top-end.&lt;p&gt;Which is true. Companies know this.&lt;p&gt;Most of the stuff I read here is basically made up of people who aren&amp;#x27;t quite the best moaning that they couldn&amp;#x27;t get a job at Google or whatever. Life goes on. It is impractical and not a good thing for every software developer, even the very good ones, to pile into the same companies.&lt;p&gt;Not everything is set up as a perfect procedure for you.&lt;p&gt;And even if it was - OK, so you get the job and the Stanford grad doesn&amp;#x27;t. You swap places. Does that make a better world?&lt;p&gt;I encourage new developers reading these sort of posts to just ignore the fluff and plug on. You&amp;#x27;ll get there.&lt;p&gt;And if not? In five years you might want something else entirely.&lt;p&gt;I wanted desperately to work at an investment bank as a new grad.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m very happy with the path my life has taken instead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>esotericn</author><text>Wouldn&amp;#x27;t surprise me at all.&lt;p&gt;Fundamentally, companies do not hire for raw technical ability.&lt;p&gt;Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He&amp;#x27;d be bored in days.&lt;p&gt;You probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t want a supermodel as a life partner.&lt;p&gt;The whole thing is about selecting model employees. People who will rock the boat in the correct ways; need money, but are neither impoverished nor independent; are reliable; and so on and so forth.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;hiring is broken&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;you misunderstand what employment is&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hiring Is Broken?</title><url>https://software.rajivprab.com/2019/07/27/hiring-is-broken-and-yours-is-too/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Retric</author><text>I have generally been rather disappointed with Google&amp;#x2F;FANG software developers.  These companies generally though not always avoid the bottom 1&amp;#x2F;3 of the talent pool, but that’s about it.&lt;p&gt;Effectively they simply select for people willing to hack their hiring  process, which also excludes most actually talented developers.  Resulting in a few very talented people, and an overall average workforce.&lt;p&gt;This is also why most internal projects at these companies are about average for the industry and these companies focus so heavily on acquisitions. Consider the differences between iOS, Android, and Windows phones was not so much about software quality as much as business models.</text></item><item><author>esotericn</author><text>This article appears to be an extremely long-winded way of stating that you don&amp;#x27;t have to pick from the top-end.&lt;p&gt;Which is true. Companies know this.&lt;p&gt;Most of the stuff I read here is basically made up of people who aren&amp;#x27;t quite the best moaning that they couldn&amp;#x27;t get a job at Google or whatever. Life goes on. It is impractical and not a good thing for every software developer, even the very good ones, to pile into the same companies.&lt;p&gt;Not everything is set up as a perfect procedure for you.&lt;p&gt;And even if it was - OK, so you get the job and the Stanford grad doesn&amp;#x27;t. You swap places. Does that make a better world?&lt;p&gt;I encourage new developers reading these sort of posts to just ignore the fluff and plug on. You&amp;#x27;ll get there.&lt;p&gt;And if not? In five years you might want something else entirely.&lt;p&gt;I wanted desperately to work at an investment bank as a new grad.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m very happy with the path my life has taken instead.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ptasci67</author><text>This is one of those statements that is too broad to be true. We can&amp;#x27;t wave a wand and just say developers at FAANG companies are better than the bottom 1&amp;#x2F;3 and no more.&lt;p&gt;You do have a point here which I do agree with which most of those companies would refer to as &amp;quot;culture fit&amp;quot;. Agree with it or not, having an employee that gels with the team is a critical aspect to hire for. You could have 10 Jeff Deans and get nothing done if they refuse to work together.&lt;p&gt;A significant problem I see here is that we are trying to define &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; on a linear scale which makes no sense to me. Is candidate A better than candidate B based on 6 hours of interviews about the same topics or a single take home test. Even Madden breaks down a person into dozens of traits and uses that to compare people. Tech companies like to flaunt how data driven they are but why hasn&amp;#x27;t that made it into hiring. For the most part, these decisions are still made on personal feelings of the interviewers which...yeah, that&amp;#x27;s not going to be very consistent and reproducible.</text></comment>