[MuffinFlavored]

What if I don't read books? Am I instantly not allowed to be on the team? :(

[cik]

All joking aside that's one of my filters for any hiring, and whether or not I'll work with someone. Someone who doesn't read, or hasn't read recently (tech, econ, whatever), I find is then missing all sorts of other things that make it a bad experience.

[imsofuture]

As an insatiable reader: yikes!

There has got to be such a poor correlation between reading and being a good hire, I'm shocked you'd admit to seriously using such an awful filter for hiring. Hiring people that are most like you in appearance, philosophy, mannerisms, hobbies is a TERRIBLE way to hire.

[smallbigfish]

I bet they should also be the same color.

[kareemm]

I find there to be decent overlap between readers and intellectually curious people. It's hard to be intellectually curious if you don't read.

[watwut]

Many if not owerwhelming majority of people who read do read same story or kind of book over and over. It is called preference.

[slimsag]

Funny, that is one of my metrics to measure the pretentiousness of a work environment and whether or not a company will be a SV flop or not.

[internet_user]

Companies where people pretend to be well-read are SV flops, or otherwise?

Not obvious where the "funny" part is.

[dvtrn]

That's an interesting filter.

(tech, econ, whatever)

So if it's "whatever", if you asked me if "Do you read?" and I replied "I read several street signs on my way over here", would that count?

[JAlexoid]

Reading books is overrated. I don't read books, but read a tonne of papers and magazines. I bet I'm much more in tune with current tech and econ, that someone that reads books released 5-10 years ago,

[dumpsterdiver]

If you don't read books then how are you qualified to label them as overrated?

[noirbot]

I'm legitimately curious what books you'd recommend as tech reading? I'm sure it's out there, but outside of reference docs/books, I'm not sure I've really read much of any books that were directly relevant to my job from a technical perspective.

I've read plenty of articles/post-mortems, watched tech-talks, and read docs for new tools and languages, but I've had job applications specifically ask about the last technical book I've read and I've never known what they thought I should have been reading...

[invalidOrTaken]

Talking to a friend recently I realized the last book-book I read was Developer Hegemony, which heavily subscribes (as do I) to Rao's concept of the corporation as an entity pathological by nature...maybe not the best thing to allude to in a job interview.

[baud147258]

Does reading HN count? That the most tech/econ/whatever reading I'm doing

[aogl]

Whenever I answer that in interviews, the interviewer (if a techy) always smiles and nods. So I guess so.. HN counts..

[craftinator]

So if I am blind...