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Comment by sarchertech | Hacker News Reader

What really needs to happen is that we need to hire fast and fire fast.

Stop it with the 7 rounds of interviews. Assume after some discussion and basic verification that the person isn’t lying about past experience. Hire the first candidate that passes your bar instead of interviewing and ranking 20 candidates.

If it turns out that you have hired every tech employers worst nightmare, a person with great experience who can talk everyone into believing they know what they’re doing but can’t code their way out of a paper bag, fire them.

Trust me, it’s faster, takes less manpower than 7 rounds of interviews with 20 candidates, and in my experience produces better results.

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> but can’t code their way out of a paper bag, fire them.

This is a bit of an inhumane way of looking at it. Sure, it's "business", but asking someone to quit their current job to come work with you should only (IMO) be done if you have the intention of actually keeping them there and not "seeing how it works out"

The tech industry is not a charity, and it shouldn't be financially supporting people who can't do their jobs. Another way of looking at it is that if someone managed to scam their way into their previous job by sweet talking, then you've done their previous employer a favor by getting them to quit. You've also done a favor to the competent but unemployed people who are looking for a job and now have an opening.

I don't want anyone to be destitute, and I fully support social services to help the unemployed, but on the other hand, shouldn't incompetent people be driven out of tech? They can work in some other industry where their abilities and skills are more appropriate and useful. They might not make as much money, but that's the nature of capitalism and competition.

I’m not talking about hiring anyone and seeing how it works out. I’m talking about hiring people based on experience and stated ability the way every other industry does.

The people I’m talking about firing are the people who represent the stories that people talk about when they insist that tech interviews can’t work the way interviews in other industries work.

Someone who materially misrepresents their ability to do the job.

> we need to hire fast and fire fast

You'll end up having more trouble hiring when candidates don't want to relocate or leave their current job because it's too risky to join your company which has a reputation to easily fire its employees even though they passed their tests.

If I were unemployed and I wouldn't need to relocate, sure, I'd be willing to give it a try for a few weeks and see if it's a mutual match, that'd be ideal. If I need to relocate or leave my current stable job, you'll have to pay a big premium over my current compensation to make it worth it.

That’s an easy fix. Don’t require relocation.

As for easily firing employees, I’m only talking about during a probationary period. And then only for employees who misrepresented their ability to do the job.

There's still the "leave their stable job" problem to solve. I've been in this situation more than once. Do I stay with the company I know: where I'm not getting promotions or raises, but it's a known quantity with a 9-5 work environment, I'm not in perpetual crunch mode, I'm not getting yelled at by a boss as he snorts coke in the conference room. Do I leave this nice stable, boring, no-growth company for yours where they're known to fire fast if they happen to think I misrepresented something? Do I do it for a +10% pay bump? How about for a +50% pay bump?

I’ve never left anywhere I didn’t hate for 10%.

If we are comparing apples to apples though—same job with an option for 2 interviews, no coding interview, no take home test, but there’s a 90 day probationary period. Versus no probationary period with a 2 month long 7 round interview cycle, I’d take the probationary period in a heartbeat.

you can already hire and fire fast in the US but nobody does it. there is just a bunch of BS talk about "cost of hiring" and "risk".

i also found that "verification" consists of "trick questions". if you can't answer the trick question, then people assume you are lying or a fraud. this doesn't work very well and optimizes for people able to answer trick questions and for those who get turned on asking these type of questions (i.e. people who are labeled "smart").

I’m not talking about trick question interviews when I say verification. I mean a chat with an experienced developer about past projects and verifying past job history.

You’re right that it’s already possible in the US. It boggles my mind how risk averse companies are with respect to hiring compared to nearly every other aspect of business.

I have had experiences where a so called experienced developer "tests" me by asking a "trick question" related to something I created to verify whether I indeed created the thing. If the "thing" you built in the past has any level of complexity, you simply cannot remember all the details of what you built, and only the most recent aspect will be fresh in your memory to recall. So chances are very high you will fail the trick question. This is why trick questions don't work.

long interview cycles with lots of coding interviews make sense only when you have someone who has built nothing, and you need to find out if he would be able to build something. as soon as you have built something of any substantial size, coding interviews are no longer necessary especially if you have a CS degree and have reasonably good grades. the interview behaviour we see makes sense for countries where the cost of hiring and firing is very high, and this is not the case for the US.

Yes I don’t think long interview cycles make sense at all in the US.

When I say a chat with another dev, I’m not talking about trick questions. I’m talking “hey what’s something you built that you’re proud of” or “what kinds of systems have you been working on for the last few years”.

Trick questions are always stupid.

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