from Hacker News

Hiring based on merit, excellence, & intelligence (MEI) elicits muted response

by crackercrews on 6/15/24, 10:25 PM with 8 comments

  • by austin-cheney on 6/15/24, 10:43 PM

    That is certainly the correct approach but most companies I have worked for, or interviewed with, claimed to only hire the best talent. Then reality hits and one of two things happen:

    1. They hire only super talent but do not define what talent is. The result is a compatibility contest to the unspecified technical experience or desired style of the interviewer.

    2. They settle just to fill a seat. They look at what’s popular to developers and then hire the 60% segment in the middle of a bell curve. This is problematic because once you get there by definition you are not allowed to be the best without ignoring internal processes/tech and alienating your peers.

    MEI only works if there are qualified definitions of those terms and all hiring and rewards are limited against those definitions. Other industries solve for that with a combination of licensing and/or industry based metrics.

    I have never seen unbiased MEI in practice either myself or from people I have talked to. It could exist, but if it does it is beyond exceptionally rare.

  • by rvz on 6/16/24, 8:20 AM

    Should have always been like this, through merit. Just like how companies like Coinbase have also done.