[greenyoda]

"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.

[Udo]

> That "False Positive" that you can "quickly fix" (by firing them) is a human being.

I would assert that's not the reason why we currently prefer false positives and don't care about false negatives. It's mostly about risk aversion and personal responsibility of the person who's doing the hiring. If you hire someone who doesn't work out, it's a failure that falls back on you. If you pass on someone amazing, nobody will ever know.

In my opinion, this is also the mechanism behind the "we just can't find enough good people" trope we hear so often. The sad truth is people who interview amazingly well don't even work out nearly as well as they hope. So instead of taking bigger risks on candidates who don't fit the risk aversion profile, they become even more conservative in the future. The climax of this pathology can be observed inside inefficient but high-profile companies who only hire top university grads so they can tell themselves "we only hire the best of the best at Acme Inc".

We're not really in danger of implementing the hiring model you criticize any time soon. But since you bring up the human cost of that hypothetical model, I disagree. Jobs are fluid to begin with, and that trend is going to intensify. It's not a problem as long as the company is generous with both relocation and employee exit procedures. Those who are not generous deserve to be called out anyway.

[danieltillett]

I think the solution here is be very explicit about your expectations as an employer. If you tell the employee what will happen if they don't meet your expectation before they are hired then it is on them if they don't meet them. Hiring is a two way street and both parties need to be as honest as possible in the process. Still doesn't solve Dunning Kruger problems though.

[ubernostrum]

During my recent job search I ran some companies operating on the "better to reject 100 top-tier people than hire one not-top-tier person" philosophy. Mostly this is Google, FB and companies trying to model their hiring on Google and FB.

What seems to be becoming more common outside of that world is a trial period as a contractor, which seems to have a bit less feel-bad if it doesn't turn into full-time employment (and also usually gives you more time to search for another job if you think/know it isn't going to work out).

[makeitsuckless]

Also, this callous attitude will run afoul of labour protection laws in most civilized countries that aren't the US.

[Udo]

> Also, this callous attitude will run afoul of labour protection laws in most civilized countries that aren't the US.

I can only speak for Germany, but here it's normal to have a trial period ("Probezeit") for jobs, it's specifically designed for employers and employees to find out if they can work together. Once that trial period (which can last for months) is over, there are additional protections for the employee, but you can still fire someone, it just costs more. It's not a bad deal (and I say this as someone who once had to fire an employee for what I would call malicious incompetence: we still had to pay severance, but after that both parties went on their merry way).