[sai_c]

> This person should already have enough of a reputation to get a job at many companies, if their work is public enough.

But then why do people with that kind of reputation still (at certain companies) have to jump through these hoops?

https://www.theregister.com/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_our...

> What do you suggest for the 99%+ other candidates?

What about (instead of forcing a months long decision process upon the candidates and the company) bringing them into the company after a short interview (maybe 2hrs), and making sure they can afford housing, food and everything else they need. If you like their work, they stay employed. If, say after one month, you do not like what you see, you can easily let them go. Of course you tell them upfront what the deal is.

We could call it, I don't know, maybe trial or probationary period.

[grogers]

That's a big overhead for both the candidate and the company. Only an unemployed candidate could do that, and even then they'd have to stop interviewing at other places to dedicate the month. No thanks.

[NikolaNovak]

True Probationary period / uncertain employment is

1. Untenable for employees - of I have a mortgage or family or plans or obligations let alone a current job, taking this kind of risk is unacceptable

2. Untenable for companies - that's way too much investment.

Companies do have probation periods formally but they are exceeeeedingly rarely invoked, for above reasons.

[Dudeman112]

Might I introduce you to Europe?

Works here. My org recently ditched a bad hire with it.

[NikolaNovak]

I think we'd need to share more detail (and fwiw, I'm half from europe and half from Canada :).

Certainly companies have probation periods. And on paper, that reality and what's proposed in previous post are similar.

But I think there's a massive real world difference between "Default stay hired" and "Default not stay hired".

Probation, as it has currently been implemented in most companies I've worked in, exists, is formal, can and has been used, but is an exception. It's used when there's a massive, unanticipated, egregious problem in performance.

What is sometimes proposed in these threads is effectively replacing long/multiple interviews, with a probation period. While such probation period may look similar or same on paper, I think it's a completely different approach: "We're sure of you (though possibly wrong) so we're hiring you" vs "We're not sure of you so let's hire you and see!". I for one would have only touched the latter with a 100ft pole maybe once in my life. Certainly, I imagine anybody with current job and monthly obligations, would be quite wary in taking a "we don't know so let's try it!" approach to hiring. No, let's figure it out first please :)

[vidarh]

I've only done the latter in the form of being brought on as a contractor at (high) contractor rates but with the understanding they'd prefer to have me join full time, at a time when I was already doing contracting and had other clients in parallel covering parts of my costs. In that situation I was not taking on any more risk than I had already chosen (and planned for) by contracting, so it was fine.

It's the only kind of context in which I'd ever consider the "we don't know so let's try it" approach.

[hiq]

> But then why do people with that kind of reputation still (at certain companies) have to jump through these hoops?

Your article points out that in this example: "I'm not allowed to check in code, no... I just haven't done it. I've so far found no need to.".

> If, say after one month, you do not like what you see, you can easily let them go. Of course you tell them upfront what the deal is.

> We could call it, I don't know, maybe trial or probationary period.

You make it sound like it's a better solution for candidates, but it's way worse for many of them and it has been explained by other commenters already.

How many companies actually do this? At which scale?

Some companies increased their difficulty to hire by having aggressive PIP objectives. Likewise, having a "real" probation period where you fire, say, 10%+ of employees is not gonna make you competitive when candidates compare their offers.

[willcipriano]

My expectation with such an arrangement is that if you do decide to hire me, since I am now a known quantity you won't have an excuse to pay anything other than top of the market rates. "You said you hire only the best right, and you've seen me work, you want to hire me, looks like the best make $X."

[rat9988]

> But then why do people with that kind of reputation still (at certain companies) have to jump through these hoops?

They don't. Your link is not about the interview.

[throwaway2037]

It would be fair if the company has to pay you 5-11 months of salary if they decide no after the evaluation period. That would leave ample time to find another job. Also, in many jurisdictions, this kind of arrange isn't legal, for good reason, as the company has way more power over the individual worker.

[WorldMaker]

We could make sure that a person only has to do that trial once in their career and then every other company should accept that they've done it because they've proven they've done it. We could call it an Apprenticeship or an Engineer-In-Training stage. (Where have I heard those before?~)