Comment by midnightclubbed | Hacker News Reader

Comment by midnightclubbed | Hacker News Reader

midnightclubbed

So unless I'm reading the cached text wrongly 38 people read the given manual and answered programming questions based on it. They then met informally. Lets say they burnt a day on this.

27 of those people then suggested being taught how to program in APL (after building a classroom). I'm assuming anyone who didnt want to attend got cut. 3 additional days spent.

They were then given 3 weeks to solve some difficult problems. Estimating they spent 4 days solving those problems.

They then re-met and were interviewed. Another day spent.

So to get to the end a candidate had to spend best part of two work weeks doing nothing but learning and programming an obscure language. No time for interviewing elsewhere, earning a wage, or attending college classes.

I would really hope he cared about the majority of the candidates who spent so much of their own time and money to be rejected with nothing to show for it. Most companies would have interviewed a couple of times, given a few hours of programming/aptitude testing and made a decision as to whether to hire the person (and teach them the job while paying them a fair wage).

Feel free to vote down if I'm getting this all wrong or an being overly cynical.

Totally agree. They should have received a wage, as the learning program wouldn't result in a qualification, and was mostly a part of a hiring process.

If there were a wage involved, potentially more of the original applicants could afford to go through the hiring process.

At least the modern standard is to pay the potential hire as a contractor / consultant to do a few small projects, and then decide if you'd like to hire them on as an employee.

I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. The author was both willing to hire people with no experience, and provided free training to candidates. I realize that APL isn't a skill in incredibly high demand, but I think the author may have helped these candidates out in the long term. The ones with the most aptitude for programming were able to discover that aptitude (and "a number" of them were hired because of their investment), and the less apt candidates got a little bit of training and possibly an indication that if they are interested in programming they would have to accept putting in a bit more effort than the more apt candidates.

Don't confuse training with education.

Free job training is not equivalent to free education. The latter provides skills and knowledge for the future benefit of the student. That determination of future benefit is often made by the student. The former also provides skills and knowledge, but it is for the future benefit of the employer, and employer-directed. That represents a foregone opportunity. Any trainee could have spent the same time acquiring free education, traded it working in a job that does not require that marginal additional skill, or even wasted that time on leisure activity.

Trainees should always be paid. In this case, they were paid with in-kind services upon conclusion of the training program. To do less might have earned the author a reputation for unethical behavior.

Many companies seeking to hire within the software industry do not recognize the opportunity costs imposed by their hiring procedures. If you require candidates to waste an entire day or more on your interview process, yes, you do owe them something for their time. It need not be settled in cash, but if not, honest feedback on the results of the interview is the bare minimum acceptable payment. The interviewees are expecting their lost time to be an investment, not just a gamble.

..or give a nice paper certificate at the end and people will pay you instead.

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