<story><title>Note that I wouldn’t pass the listed minimum requirements</title><url>https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1409576956828405760</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&amp;gt; Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python instead of Java, or had been working on a C++ project one year less than the person leaving the team.&lt;p&gt;Companies paying top dollar for the best engineering talent aren’t having inexperienced HR drones or automated software filter resumes. They have dedicated recruiters who have a proven track record of being able to properly interpret resumes and work with candidates to accurately understand their backgrounds. They’re also very good at working with engineering hiring managers to understand the actual requirements of the job.&lt;p&gt;That’s more or less what John Carmack is trying to say here: The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass&amp;#x2F;fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position.&lt;p&gt;I’ve only worked for one company that had inexperienced HR people screen resumes. It was standard practice among engineering hiring managers at that company to use external recruiters for this reason.&lt;p&gt;Hiring managers aren’t dumb. Companies paying high six figures or more for engineers aren’t dumb.  We don’t want to miss out on good candidates. I personally read every single resume that comes through applications to my job postings, and I know I’m not alone. Hiring is hard, and it’s not worth letting someone else screw it up just to save a little bit of time.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you’re applying to a local dinosaur of a tech company that pays below-average compensation and takes 3 months to respond to candidates, all bets are off. You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes. But you also don’t want to work there if you can avoid it.</text></item><item><author>skytreader</author><text>General SE hiring comment: One thing I realized, for most IT&amp;#x2F;SE jobs, the more accurately you describe your current stack in the requirements (or maybe the person you are replacing), the smaller your candidate pool is. You might even find that your candidate pool is exactly the people you are already working with.&lt;p&gt;Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python instead of Java, or had been working on a C++ project one year less than the person leaving the team.&lt;p&gt;Could it be then that this is a communication problem between the Engineering team and the HRD? After all, the Eng&amp;#x27;g team writes the requirements for the job post, HRD just checks it and makes it look attractive.&lt;p&gt;(Though honestly, I don&amp;#x27;t think this general comment applies to the job post in Carmack&amp;#x27;s tweet. Honestly I can&amp;#x27;t fault the job post for the way it was worded. I say the higher you are in an SE-org chain, the less this is a problem.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Wildgoose</author><text>My brother has a very senior role (non-IT).  Probably in the top 5 in the UK, possibly even top 3, out of perhaps 30-35 jobs?  Proven long-term record.&lt;p&gt;He was going to transfer to a different company and was told that company rules meant he had to go through HR &amp;quot;as a formality&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;He was blocked by his HR interviewer on the grounds that he was too successful and therefore wouldn&amp;#x27;t be &amp;quot;hungry&amp;quot; enough for such a competitive position.&lt;p&gt;He couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it.  They didn&amp;#x27;t want someone with a proven record of repeated long-term success?&lt;p&gt;The person who was trying to recruit him was furious, but as my brother said, this was indicative of a wider problem, and so he declined to move there.  Instead he won his Industry Award for the following year at the company he did move to....</text></comment>
<story><title>Note that I wouldn’t pass the listed minimum requirements</title><url>https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1409576956828405760</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&amp;gt; Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python instead of Java, or had been working on a C++ project one year less than the person leaving the team.&lt;p&gt;Companies paying top dollar for the best engineering talent aren’t having inexperienced HR drones or automated software filter resumes. They have dedicated recruiters who have a proven track record of being able to properly interpret resumes and work with candidates to accurately understand their backgrounds. They’re also very good at working with engineering hiring managers to understand the actual requirements of the job.&lt;p&gt;That’s more or less what John Carmack is trying to say here: The requirements aren’t being used internally as a strict pass&amp;#x2F;fail criteria before anyone is considered for the position.&lt;p&gt;I’ve only worked for one company that had inexperienced HR people screen resumes. It was standard practice among engineering hiring managers at that company to use external recruiters for this reason.&lt;p&gt;Hiring managers aren’t dumb. Companies paying high six figures or more for engineers aren’t dumb.  We don’t want to miss out on good candidates. I personally read every single resume that comes through applications to my job postings, and I know I’m not alone. Hiring is hard, and it’s not worth letting someone else screw it up just to save a little bit of time.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if you’re applying to a local dinosaur of a tech company that pays below-average compensation and takes 3 months to respond to candidates, all bets are off. You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes. But you also don’t want to work there if you can avoid it.</text></item><item><author>skytreader</author><text>General SE hiring comment: One thing I realized, for most IT&amp;#x2F;SE jobs, the more accurately you describe your current stack in the requirements (or maybe the person you are replacing), the smaller your candidate pool is. You might even find that your candidate pool is exactly the people you are already working with.&lt;p&gt;Which makes it problematic when we make HR people do the initial screening. They would filter out a lot of good candidates just because they used Python instead of Java, or had been working on a C++ project one year less than the person leaving the team.&lt;p&gt;Could it be then that this is a communication problem between the Engineering team and the HRD? After all, the Eng&amp;#x27;g team writes the requirements for the job post, HRD just checks it and makes it look attractive.&lt;p&gt;(Though honestly, I don&amp;#x27;t think this general comment applies to the job post in Carmack&amp;#x27;s tweet. Honestly I can&amp;#x27;t fault the job post for the way it was worded. I say the higher you are in an SE-org chain, the less this is a problem.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>srvmshr</author><text>&amp;gt;You could indeed be up against automated hiring software and people who don’t know how to read resumes.&lt;p&gt;I was interviewed by MedTronics in 2015 by a HR fellow who asked me if I used &amp;#x27;C++11&amp;#x27;. He had trouble believing that the &amp;#x27;C++11&amp;#x27; was a language standard (adding features to the language) &amp;amp; not a language by itself.</text></comment>