Ask HN: How do I find and recruit the talented, ambitious, bright and young?

[stevejobs]

I am an HR manager for a large west coast firm. I'd like to find a way to effectively recruit those who are talented, ambitious, bright and young and place them in to our executive/manager career tracks. However, even though we post on job boards and our own website, the quality of the candidates is underwhelming.

Moreover, just looking at a resume doesn't tell me the mindset and motivation of the person. While I can usually grasp what kind of skills a person may bring to the job, I have a hard time deducing the soft skills like attitude, communication, and teamwork one has.

Therefore, it is tough to know beforehand whether the person will work out as hoped and if we should invest our time and effort into bringing on a person who we know so little about.

The problem is that the interview process is a highly artificial and IMHO flawed way to assess a candidate from both the POV of the employer and candidate.

Do you know of any better way to find and employ the best candidates out there?

[mindcrime]

  Young?

So you're saying you intend to practice age discrimination? Well, as a Libertarian I think you have the right to do so if you want, but I think you should ask yourself if it's really a good idea or not.

Maybe just going for "talented, ambitious and bright" would be good enough? Actually, Donny Deutsch said something in his book ( http://www.amazon.com/Often-Wrong-Never-Doubt-Business/dp/00... ) about how the thing to do is hire older (30+) folks who "haven't done anything yet" and are hungry to prove themselves, given an opportunity. I personally think there's a lot to be said for that approach... but what would I know, I'm an old fart (37 in a week). :-)

[AmberShah]

Honestly, the answer is to recruit FOR a company that is interesting and engaging that those people are clamoring to come work for you. Look at Google and 37Signals. The best and brightest aren't interested in working for some no name company that is doing boring things. Yes, you will still have to cut through the lame people, which is a skill in itself, but you have zero chance of getting the best and brightest if you're not interesting to them.

[famousactress]

Yes. Yes. Yes. You can't expect great people to work for you unless you're a great place to work.

[famousactress]

If you're looking for really great minds, you ought to expect the quality of _most_ of the candidates you run into to be underwhelming. The trick is getting past that.

I kind of agree with your comment on resumes, but I'd twist it... If a resume doesn't tell me the mindset and motivation of the person, it's a 'No'. In specific, I tend to look for two things on a resume for someone early in their career:

1. Passion & Personality, _somewhere_. The last great resume I got had the following objective: "I want to work with smart people on a great team making awesome software." Perfect. Any resume that uses the words great, awesome, love, or even hate gets my attention. I need someone who cares.

2. Demonstrated interest. It's unbelievable how many people will tell me they love writing software, but they've never written any that wasn't for an assignment or a work project. Especially when it comes to young people, they better have written something. I don't care what it was, or how well it went.. I want to see that they're interested enough to have materialized passion and enthusiasm as a project. If you're not hiring in the software field, I'm sure there are other facets.. evidence of attempts at entrepreneurship, demonstrated leadership in community activities, etc.

Suuuper fast litmus tests that can be done at the resume, or 10-minute-phone-screen level.. and they'll weed out a depressingly large number of candidates.

Beyond that, I'd suggest that interview processes vary wildly and it's possible (no offense) that yours is highly artificial.. doesn't mean they all are. Change your process. Specifically, find ways to get candidates to demonstrate Doing The Job in their interview. It's hard, but it sounds like it's your full time job, so sweet! You ought to have the time :)

For the record, the resume I mentioned was someone that we hope to hire.. and we found him via one of the HN: Who's Hiring threads - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1438505

Cheers.

[rada]

Sorry but I have to call you out. In a recent post, you said:

I've been browsing job boards and I come across time and again a requirement for a college degree to land the position. Yet when I read the description of what the employer wants of its employee it is not clear that one (the degree) has anything to do with the other (the job).

Yet as an HR manager yourself, you essentially say, anyone over 30 need not apply. I just don't get it - how do you reconcile criticizing others for asking for a college degree (possibly irrelevant) all the while placing a requirement on youth (unethical, and downright illegal)?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488213

I am not ranting by the way, I really just can't get my mind around the two posts being made by the same person. Can you explain?

[LeBlanc]

How about instead of using the resume / cover letter combination you ask a series of interesting questions similar to the YCombinator application?

This will 1) weed out all of the people who spend minimal effort on a job app and just spam their resume / cover letter everywhere, and 2) will give you answers to questions you actually care about. The more unique/interesting the questions the more unique/interesting candidates it will attract. UChicago used this method in their "uncommon application" to attract a class of really smart, unusual people who were passionate about learning.

I haven't had a chance to use this method though ( I just thought of it recently), so I make no guarantees. Good luck!

[GrowWebs]

Yeah, I was going to say something like this as well. Make it challenging to apply.

[pjy04]

I'm on the west coast and I see a wide range of talent at events that I go to. I primarily go to events in tech and entrepreneurial related topics like docstoc events, marketing/seo talks, lean startup, etc. I'm looking to network and meet people I can possible partner up with for future projects. I usually get to know the person and get some references after i've met them but it beats having to read a resume and read through the BS. I've met some great companies and people so far and references are always rock solid when I ask for help through these people.

[ysh4u]

Look at what they've done. A portfolio, a (completed) project, a (completed) website can say a lot about their attitude and approach to things.

I'd say for someone to really fit your bill (talented/ambitious), they would have to have some tangible deliverable accomplishments somewhere. Not just talk, grades, etc.

Look for what they've done in their community. If they're young (i.e. from college) those that excel at communication are usually pretty engaged in the community and have held some leadership positions. Resident Life? Coaching? TA?

[wilhelm]

Be where they are. Discuss with them. Exchange code with them. When you find the best, the ones you're interested in hiring, ask them to come work for you. I've hired a dozen excellent people to my department in the past couple of years. Only half of them have applied on their own without any prior interaction.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Internship!