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Comment by sigmaml | Hacker News Reader

When I interview people, I ask them to describe one of their difficult work projects. I also ask them if they ever developed anything just for fun. I take their responses to both the questions into account when making a decision on taking them to the next round.

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>When I interview people, I ask them to describe one of their difficult work projects

This only leads to a "rich get richer" kind of situation, where people who happened to get jobs that provides them with the kind of impressive difficult projects will keep working on difficult projects.

That's not meant to see who works on impressive projects. It's meant to see how you work in projects you find difficult and how you face that kind of difficulty.

This is just a reality of hiring, I think. People with more experience tend to find it easier to get hired, thus granting them even further experience.

IMO, the best way to avoid this chicken/egg is with government subsidized technical internships like we have in Ontario. It's a great deal, businesses get junior technical labor at 50% on a fixed contract, and the students get access to learning they'd never have during school.

why is that signal on how well they'll perform at the job? If someone doesn't code for fun but is a great programmer you don't want to hire them? Why is that considered acceptable?

You parsed it incorrectly. It is the other way, in fact.

Several times, people do very interesting personal projects, but fail to perform at the same level at work. That gives a clue that it may have been an unsuitable work environment that impeded their performance. It could also be a difference pertaining to their orientation to structured vs. unstructured working conditions. It could be related to explicit objectives with tight deadlines vs. exploratory development with open deadlines. And, more.

Knowing what my work environment is, I usually could understand their medium-to-long term fitness.

Hope this clarifies what I meant.

So, if you have a candidate that thrives at fun projects but not at work you put them to the next round, because you think your work environment is sufficiently different to make them thrive at work instead of their fun project?

Did you mean to say "in addition to" rather than "instead of"?

If yes, then the answer is: sometimes, depending on the other factors.

They didn't parse incorrectly. They made a guess about what your poorly worded communication meant.

The fact that someone builds something of their own volition is an excellent marker of initiative, of breadth. If there is a choice of potential hires, this signal factors in.

That's only true if they have the same work experience and other hobbies, which you can't know.

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