Ask HN: What about fixing recruitment?

9 points by phdiot 8 years ago | 4 comments

While my latest, slowly-growing startup runs without my help, I started looking for either a new business idea or a job in a more exciting startup than my own. I got in touch with a few headhunters and I realised how broken recruitment is. During the last 10 years I collected a considerable experience in hiring smart developers (being a programmer myself helped a lot). Is it worthwhile to try to fix how tech recruitment is done? Why do so few tech people become recruiters?

bsvalley 8 years ago |

I think in 2016 it was one of the biggest themes for YC startups. They've founded a lot of startups in the recruiting field trying to innovate. Problem I see so far is that they don't tackle the actual problem. Automation and online coding tools to "evaluate" candidates aren't real solutions.

Someone has to stop at some point and stand. By that I mean Google, Facebook or any other influential companies. Enough of these stupid technical interviews. No more college like questions, no more stupid puzzles, stupid algorithm questions. We don't like white boarding crap, we don't need it. Last time I wrote a function on a whiteboard I was 12 years old learning how to code. Today I'm in my mid-30's. Slack actually did it, they stopped evaluating candidates like that, but it's a tiny player in the space. As I said we need big players doing the same thing. It all started with Google back in the early 2000 and everyone followed. It is such a mess honestly... a startup itself wouldn't fix it. It has to be fixed by each and everyone out there.

dozzie 8 years ago |

> Is it worthwhile to try to fix how tech recruitment is done?

Good luck. The problem is that companies want to replace having competent staff with mediocre, untrained idiots following some magical process and that is expected to give good outcomes, which obviously won't fly.

Funny enough, the same stands for producing software in big companies: mediocre programmers plus magical methodology is supposed to give good software reliably.

> Why do so few tech people become recruiters?

The same reason as why so few tech people become managers or accountants: we want to keep working in our field. Is it surprising?

git-pull 8 years ago |

IMO KeyValues' approach helps a lot: https://www.keyvalues.com

Some of the things I like: customer first, open source contributors, remote-friendly, open communication, etc.

But the thing is, KeyValues let's you pick stuff you like, based on stuff employees generally look for. And it shifts more burden onto the employer to define and explain their culture.

I think employers would fare better if they holistically evaluated people.

That part of shifting the employers to think and interact more is essential. Just throwing around code golf while they accept 1000 resumes and repost every month, when only one space is open - isn't a talent quest - it's spurning a class of sincere developers who are job seekers.

tmaly 8 years ago |

I was interested in this field, and I conducted 30-40 customer interviews back in 2014. I went through the data, and I could not find a common problem.

There could be something there as a few of the people I interviewed had highly custom systems. But I think the ones that could make something work even with tools like Salesforce were ultimately the more successful.