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by maeon3 5345 days ago
Read Joel's epic post here describing the phenomenon: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html

The 'dead sea effect' is caused by this phenomenon: http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...

Hiring managers get the technical competency part right but they completely miss the most important things: work-ethic, tenacity, responsibility, team skills, organizational and planning ability, cultural fit, and decision-making. When you hire based on qualities that have no relevance (as all companies everywhere do), you might as well get some monkeys to throw darts on the wall. it'll speed up the process! http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/newsletter/ran...

1 comments

I don't think either of those two blog posts support your point that randomly picking candidates is as good as actively trying to select for good ones. If none of the candidates applying to YC were good enough to pass some minimal threshold, pg and co. just wouldn't take anyone, unlike the horrible companies in your links who will always take what they think is the top 1%.

I think your last sentence doesn't make sense either. Since when did technical competence not count for anything? Both competence and teamwork are necessary, but neither alone is sufficient.

Point is, randomly picking candidates is a crap idea.