Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence.

I think that's all true except for the "more than competence" part and it's a good thing. Competence is directly related to loyalty. When you recommend someone for a job and they excel, it makes you look good. It makes you loyal to them and giving the opportunity makes them more loyal to you. If someone isn't recommended you for job openings they know about, it's because they think you might make them look bad, either through experience with you or the lack thereof. Unfortunately, it takes time to prove you're competent and gain that loyalty.

Sometimes nepotism can creep in and someone can use their influence to get someone under qualified into a position they shouldn't but that influence was, generally, built through competence, including a history of recommended qualified and competent people.

> The best advice someone could give? > 1. Achieve impressive things > 2. Never give anyone a reason to dislike you

I think the real advice is be reliable and don't be abrasive. A recommendation for a position goes a long way because it alleviates the risk of hiring an unknown person that may be unreliable or not be able to work with other people.

Loyalty, like love, can be blind. One of the best SREs I work with, is just a stellar performer. Over delivers, solves complex problems quickly and with well thought out and reliable solutions. We needed another SRE, so we hired his best friend. Terrible employee, both in what they deliver and how they act. Night and day difference from the first SRE.

> We needed another SRE, so we hired his best friend.

Well there was your mistake. You should have hired the best SRE he knows, not his best friend.

I’m good friends with many software engineers, but the strength of our friendship has no correlation with their engineering capabilities.

I think the point is that they were brought on on the strength of the first person's recommendation, not because they were the best friend.

I agree. There is different mindsets though. If someone was my best friend, I would not recommend them because of that, if they were a bad fit. That would be unfair to both the employer and the friend.

Not sure why anybody would do that. Even for inexperienced people or people that need more guidance in general there's usually spots, just in other other companies.

Companies still hire people that chose the completely wrong career and fields. And in many companies there is demand for them for all sorts of reasons. Worst case they have to do shitty jobs, nobody else wants to do.

With the current lay-offs I think it's mostly the result of "hire everyone" during covid.

Obviously I left out that the bad apple came from his recommendation. That's where trusting the judgement of a great employee can have blind spots.

I agree. Hiring friends and family is dangerous in my view, unless you are running your own small company.

Alan C. Greenberg, former CEO of investment bank Bear, Stearns & Co. said (to paraphrase): "The problem with hiring friends and family: You hire 100% of the dummies." Bear had an incredibly strict policy about not hiring friends and family. As a result, I am always suspicious when people recommend to hire friends and family.

And I bet you didn't ask that guy next time you needed to hire someone.

Seconding this. I'm wondering if the person you are replying to might be having a bit of a dunning kruger issue

I only recommend the people that I have worked with that I would want to work with again. Not because of loyalty, but because they are good, and will make me look good for recommending them

To clarify for other users, "dunning kruger issue" means:

    The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2] whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Reply on news.ycombinator.com