from Hacker News

How to Hire

by jrkelly on 1/2/16, 2:26 AM with 11 comments

  • by greenyoda on 1/2/16, 3:59 AM

    "We should not be afraid of False Positives. We can quickly fix a False Positive hiring decision."

    That "False Positive" that you can "quickly fix" (by firing them) is a human being. He or she may have left a job they were reasonably happy with to join your company, or even moved to another city. The experience of being fired after a few weeks will cost them money and inflict emotional pain on them (and their family, if they have one). I wouldn't want to work for a someone who had such a careless attitude toward hiring and firing people.

  • by makeitsuckless on 1/4/16, 7:11 AM

    "Hire Doers vs Tellers". I agree with the statement, but I disagree with the method.

    You can separate doers from tellers by how they talk about the work and how they (non-verbally) react to certain questions. However, separating them by creating a totally artificial and unrealistic "doing" situation, be it via role playing or coding tests, will result in a lot of false negatives.

  • by msoad on 1/4/16, 7:43 AM

    "Fire fast" is the horrible advice that has made Netflix and companies with similar policies a very stressful place to work at.

    What if someone who is amazing at their job is going through a divorce and underperforming? Would you fire the "not doer"? There is no way for you to know what's going on in one's personal life and that can impact their performance heavily.

    If your tolerance is just a few weeks to fire someone it's just immoral.

  • by Jemaclus on 1/4/16, 6:34 PM

    I really enjoyed this post, partly because I agree with almost everything. The section that jumped out the most for me is the "Hiring for Strength vs Lack of Weakness." The author is absolutely correct. Hiring is not (and should not be) a democracy. It's the decision of the hiring manager. Everyone else's job is to provide quality feedback so that the hiring manager can make that decision effectively. As a side note, the hiring manager's other role here is to cultivate actionable feedback from her interviewing team. The better her team gets at interviewing and identifying strengths, the easier her decision gets.