[j3]

We're engineers -- not pretty people. We don't care what your face looks like, but watching you explain who you are and what you're good at can give great insight into your personality.

The application is more about whether you feel like a good fit for the team than it is your programming skills. It doesn't mean "do you look good", it doesn't mean "is your English great," and it doesn't mean "Does this look like I 'expect' a programmer to look?"

We're trying to find out "is this a person I want to spend every day of my career with?"

We'd LOVE to bring everyone out for one of our in-person sessions, but are expecting a thousand applications for our 24 spots. Getting all those people in one place would be a massive undertaking and a huge waste of time for the 976 who aren't selected.

[vaksel]

No it doesn't...you honestly think anyone would record a video off the top of their head?

Those answers will be calculated to sound the way you want to hear. "Of course I enjoy working, if I can't get 90 hours of work in, I feel depressed that I'm not living up to my potential...taking days off is also completely unacceptable, since I don't want to let my coworkers down."

And getting a feel for a person from a video is not too smart either. In one case, you are friends with the person just talking. In another they are trying to essentially beg for a job talking into a camera, alone in a room.

And if you are getting 1000 applications, it's completely dishonest to require all those people to spend days creating their applications. You are not going to watch 8000 hours worth of video and read all those essays...so why do you require people to do busy work?

And if you are going get 1000 applications, you won't be picking non-programmers either(well maybe one). So why get all those people's hopes up and waste their time? There is no way I'd believe you'd pick someone with a biology degree over someone who already has the basic programming knowledge, where you don't have to explain what an IF statement is or how to create a variable.

[j3]

To be honest, if it were up to me I'd take only people who didn't have a programming background.

If you look at our community, so many great people don't have the traditional background. Chad was a professional saxophone player. Others studied philosophy, education, economics, or didn't study at all.

We're trying to solve the single biggest problem in our industry: talent shortage.If we accept only programmers, then we're not growing the pool. People with a CS background will get jobs as developers somewhere, I want to find the amazing people who aren't yet a part of this community but are hungry (zing) to join us.

Logistically, LivingSocial has a massive recruiting and HR team who can help out with the screening. Add in a team of a hundred engineers who are eager to find their next awesome colleague, and we have plenty of labor.

[Kittynana]

I want to thank you for this. I hadn't ever tried programming until I watched some videos for a Stanford Java course a year ago, and I've been working my ass off at it ever since. It turns out this is something I really enjoy and want to continue doing. I'll definitely be applying.

[ThomPete]

Kudos for thinking hard enough about this problem to not do what everyone else is doing.

[Shenglong]

I can kind of understand their logic. They'll definitely watch the videos of people they're interested, but it'd be somewhat tedious to ask people that they may be interested in to submit a new set of videos. Yeah it might be a bit of a time sink, but putting together a few videos shouldn't take all that long (2-3 hours, tops?)

Plus, you can get a feel for someone after a couple of seconds of video. Even if they don't watch the whole thing, they probably have people screening. Did you know that Paul B looks at the YC application videos before anything else? In any event, think of all the other applications that we spend ages on, where most get very brief reviews.

As for the programmer part - I'll tell you what I'd do. A certain percentage of the 24, I'd take good proven programmers. A smaller portion I'd dedicate to people who don't know advanced programming, but have undeniable potential, and a basic understanding. Because, really, basic code (if, else, while, for) takes an hour at most to learn.

Why? Here's an anecdote: My friend's father was recruiting developers and received among many applications, one whose only previous job experience was delivering pizza, and he didn't have a university degree. He was bored and intrigued, and decided to interview the guy. He turned out amazing. Perhaps they're trying to hedge their risk, while hoping to chance upon someone brilliant :)

[doktrin]

To be fair :

1,000 applicants x 8 minute videos = 133.33 hours, not 8,000

In addition, it's common knowledge that interview questions - whether in person or on youtube - are crafted for the benefit of the interviewer. i.e.

"what's your biggest weakness?" "well, I find it hard to delegate (because I'm such an awesomely hard worker, etc)"

This is inevitable, and not a flaw specific to this format.

However, I think your last point is valid. Realistically, they will be picking people with some background in programming. That said, it's unlikely that applicants to a RoR bootcamp will have absolutely -no- exposure to programming. They might not be professional developers, but I think most of the applicants will have had some exposure to web technology and/or scripting.

[edw519]

Thanks for the quick response, j3. I sure didn't mean to be snarky and it looks like you didn't take it that way. I believe you just added more data to my argument. Let me explain...

If there's only a 3% chance of getting accepted into something so important and life-changing (for both of us), then as an applicant, I want to make damn sure I put my best foot forward into a process that gives me the best possible chance. This just isn't it...

I already know that there's no way anything I put onto video or any underwear (my term for source code) can put me in as favorable competitive light than what I can do for you. I'd just lose out to those who can present better than me.

Compare your application to those of the many incubators and accelerators like yc or techstars. For overachieving builders (the exact people you want to attract), it's the exact opposite experience. Filling out those applications is an enriching experience that gets the juices flowing and generates the excitement that you can compete.

Making videos to be judged by strangers on your "team worthiness", on the other hand, is very hand wavy and a total turn off to precisely the people you're trying to attract.

I believe that "fitting in" is overrated and "being excellent" is underrated and that your process is optimized for the wrong metric.

But then again, what do I know? I'm sure you'll try to prove me wrong (and probably will).

[sequoia]

So no videos, no essays, no code ("underwear") reviews; those all just tell how well you "present"... I'm struggling to figure out what you do think a good way to measure your suitability for a programming job is. Just hire you and see how it goes?

I hope this doesn't come off as callous, but I think you need to grow a thicker skin (heyoo!). Like someone said above, you are getting sounding defensive and hurt before anyone has "hurt" you.

Perhaps living social is not looking for a basement dwelling hacker who doesn't feel comfortable on video. In that case, weeding out people who don't feel comfortable presenting themselves is an asset, not a liability. Perhaps they want people with the right motivation and attitude, and then they'll make them programmers (some of them). This seems to be exactly what they want. I think the insistence that you be able to communicate and have the confidence to sell yourself is intentional, not accidental.

[pnathan]

hi edw519,

I think that presentation is an important skill for anyone to have in a professional environment. I need to be able to communicate with my teammates, and they need to be able to communicate with me.

That's one of our criteria for hiring where I work - can you communicate with us?

You might be insanely brilliant, but if you can't stand up and talk with us about your brilliance, it doesn't do us much good when wiring your stuff into our stuff.

We also need a decent amount of 'fit' on our team. Fit for us more or less means "cares about the software, cares about reliable software doesn't get into arguments over unimportant stuff, feels relaxed with us, takes showers". Nothing too outre, I don't think. Interpersonal conflicts is something we really - really - don't need. We have enough challenges in the technical arena. :)