Comment by BitGeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BitGeek | Hacker News Reader

I am increasingly becoming convinced that facebook, and most tech businesses-- are totally clueless about interviewing.

Its definately much worse than it was 10 years ago.

Companies are starting to get proud of the fact that they are incompetant at interviewing-- because they think someone "failing" their process means they have a high bar... but the reality is, they let in clueless people with trendy skills and exclued the people who had a clue.

And thene the clueless interview based on trends and the company becomes yahoo (or facebook- they are heading for a fall.)

What do I mean by clueless trendy people? I expect that if I interviewed at facebook, and told them in the interview that I thought unit tests were a waste of time, I wouldn't get hired.

The reality is, I know unit tests are a waste of time, and I know abetter way to develop software. But unit tests are the trend (a trend created by pointy haired idiot non-programmers, believe it or not) and now the clueless will exclude the superior based on this-- and be smug in doing so.

I guess this is the natural way of things-- popular music devolves from mozart to britney spears.

So what you're claiming is that established companies and startups are wasting time hiring people with bogus qualifications -- they're all paying a productivity tax that you've found a way to evade! Isn't that great news? Shouldn't you be thrilled?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves: we can have a big party after the company you start to hire all these great undervalued programmers finishes up its IPO.

Uh, no, I'm just saying that their hiring practices are messed up nad thus they often hire good people for the wrong reasons and exclude good people for the wrong reasons, and sometimes hire bad people for the wrong reasons.

Like Zuckerman saying only hire young people-- some of the people he'll exclude that way would have been an asset to the company, and some of the people he will hire because of that policy are going to be a drag.

Facebook has done a shockingly good job of handling their growth and it was mostly young hard core unix hackers that did it. You can't argue with the results.

Just be honest: you're angry at Facebook because you think they wouldn't hire you due to your age. Just like you're angry and jealous that YC is making "kids" (as you call them) rich by giving them a huge headstart.

You indirectly compare yourself to Mozart. Claim to have an amazingly great way of developing, but of course don't say anything about it. Flatly claim Facebook developers are "clueless" and your methods are "superior". You're too much man, I already have Comedy Central.

Sigh. Confusing correlation with causation is exactly the kind of foolish error that I'm talking about.

I think its a very childish response to accuce me of being angry or jealous because I have a different opinion, tht is strongly held.

But its simply dishonest to put words in my mouth like that.

I have not made claims to be great, and I have not said my methods are superior to facebook... nor have I said anything derogatory about YC, especially when YC funds college age students-- I think the college age generation are the perfect candidates for the YC program.

Its really quite sad that you have demonstrated exactly the errors I am pointing out in facebook in your defense of them-- you have reacted in a narrow minded and judgemental way-- attacking me personally, rather than the position I have taken. This kind of political correctness is exactly what Facebook is doing when they don't hire people based on skills, but based on other factors such as age and, well, ideology.

Further irony comes from you attacking my skills when I have not relied on argument based on my "superior" skills, and further, what skills do you have? Not that they would be relevant-- but if you had sufficient skill you should be able to make a counter argument based on the state of the art and advanced techniques. In short, by attacking me, you show you do not understand the technology well enough to make a technological argument, ironic since technical skill is where you criticized me.

Even saying I'm jealous is a childish pathetic personal attack on my skills.

Anyway, for the past 20 days I've been off doing... and you'll notice I have no posts here in that time period. Meanwhile you have made 28 comments here in just the last 3 days.

How's your startup going?

The job market is pretty much like the used car market. There's asymmetrical information. The seller knows all about the product, the buyer knows nothing. What happens in these markets is that the buyer is willing to give about average price, since he knows nothing about the product quality. This way, high quality products are pulled from the market, pushing the average quality down even more, and so on.

To say this in a simpler way, if you are better than average, it's not worth applying for a job, because you'll get a lower price than what you're worth.

Did you read the link? I don't see where it mentions anything about unit tests.

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