[systemvoltage]

Hard take which is pretty much unpalatable to HN crowd: If I had a small dev shop, I would put out an hiring ad that says you must drop off your resume in person and we will only hire people from 50 mile radius.

Like they used to do in 1970's.

Not a fan of: 1) Global pool of candidates 2) Leet code bullshit 3) Remote work

Fan of 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us. 2) You will be part of our family, we'll build great things together 3) You'll get a decision when you visit us. Just drop by, no appointment necessary. We'll make time. 4) If you get rejected, we’ll tell you in the most honest way possible. No HR bullshit talk.

[lolsal]

Interesting take. I have some questions:

> 1) Global pool of candidates

Why not? global pool could potentially get you a lot more bang for your buck. I've employed folks from outside the US and it was a joy to get really talented folks and pay them stupidly well for their location. They were super excited to work with us for that and we were super excited to pay them a lower rate than hiring in the US. Win-win.

> 3) Remote work

Why not?

> 1) Permanent hiree after 3 months of time with us.

I think this works well on paper, but not so much in practice. I wouldn't be interested in wasting 3 months of time (even if I'm paid) just to find myself back in the job hunt process again. I can't imagine on a large enough or complex enough project that three months would be sufficient to be measurably productive. I'd rather use that time to find a longer-term place that is a better fit for me. This is just me though.

> 2) You will be part of our family, we'll build great things together

Oof, no thanks. I'm exchanging my time and experience for money. I don't need additional weird social hierarchy or hidden rules about behavior (not to mention the passive exploitation).

> 3) You'll get a decision when you visit us. Just drop by, no appointment necessary. We'll make time.

Gosh, as an employee there, this would signal to me that I might be expected to be interrupted and context-switch to an off-the-street interview. That doesn't sound like fun.

> 4) If you get rejected, we’ll tell you in the most honest way possible. No HR bullshit talk.

Sometimes that "HR bullshit talk" is to protect you and your company from lawsuits. Honesty combined with "HR bullshit" is possible and not mutually exclusive.

----

On another note, I appreciate such visible signals that I would not be a good candidate for your company.

[ghaff]

It's one thing to have a probationary period with the assumption being that, if things don't go utterly sideways, there's nothing to worry about. It's another thing to do a provisional hire thing where the implication is that if you wow us as much after three months as you did in the interview we'll fully hire you.

I'm fine with the former. Mostly wouldn't be with the latter.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I like that.

I was a hiring manager for 25 years. I hired experienced C++ engineers, for fairly hairy algorithm work (image processing pipelines).

Leetcode was absolutely worthless. There was no way to test for the stuff we did. The algorithms were nowhere to be found in most textbooks (they could be found in some textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars, though).

Also, our company was cheap. They offered "competitive" salaries. This probably reduced our candidate pool by 90%. We were a marquée imaging company (great to have on your résumé), so the only folks that applied, were fairly serious about the job.

I had to filter for folks that had the basic tech chops to get into our codebase, and also had the ability to learn the stuff we did.

It was challenging.

Also, once we hired someone, Japan wouldn't even acknowledge their existence, until they'd been on the team for at least a year. Training them on our algorithms was also a multi-year process, so I hired for the "long haul," and keeping people for many years was important.

I didn't look for people that would work crazy hours, but I wanted folks that would be dedicated enough to the job, that they would be conscientious in their work, and put in extra time, if needed (which I was careful not to do too often).

I looked for folks that I thought could work in an extremely diverse team; spread throughout the world, and that were capable of treating their teammates with respect; not competition.

I did OK. Never had a technical bomb, but I did make a couple of mistakes, when it came to folks that could integrate into the team. They generally found it uncomfortable, and went their way, but that still hurt, because of all the time we had to invest.

All very old-fashioned stuff, and probably not representative of most of today's companies.

I will say, that, towards the end of my tenure, there, the HR started to get really rapacious. They were run by the Corporate General Counsel, and tended to treat the employees as threats. Shielding my team from them was pretty important, and it meant that I was occasionally called on the carpet.

[endemic]

I'm amused at the juxtaposition of "you'll be family" with "no bullshit."

[corbulo]

That is a certain kind of family

[thesuitonym]

Even though I'd never go back to an office, I think this is a completely reasonable way to hire. It sets the expectation right off the bat that this is not a remote position, so candidates will self-select. Off to a good start.

Requiring someone to drop off a resume reduces friction and frustration--I can give you my resume that tells you everything, and I don't have to write it again into your weird HR software that requires me to set up an account for a job I probably won't get.

It gives you a chance to do a short prescreen as soon as the applicant drops off their resume, giving instant feedback to them.

Honestly, although that culture isn't what I'm looking for now, when I was starting out, I would have loved to see somewhere like this near me.

[cloudedcordial]

> 2) You will be part of our family

Treating business like a part of the family is a bad idea. You will end up with nepotism in the organization and shun out new ideas. Yet some real businesses embrace this mantra and bad things have been happening.

[systemvoltage]

It's actually quite the opposite, the stronger underlying bonds, the more space for arguments. The less you know someone, the nicer you are to them.

[elbigbad]

This is so on point, back in the 20s I got my first tech job by putting an onion on my belt (that was the style at the time) and going to the company with a resume and shaking their hand and not releasing until they agreed to give me a job. Kids these days don’t know the value of a handshake and a drop by. I grew with them as a family and still hold the job to this day. The name of that company? The International Business Machines Corporation aka Big Blue.

[yamtaddle]

I got... oh, three of my first four software jobs, by walking in and asking. Including my second full-time role post-college. The first of these would have been around 2000, the last around 2010 or '11.

The other one of those four just came to me directly through my network.

Now that I think about it, of the 7ish jobs I've held in about 23 years, I don't think a single one came from "fill out this online application form". I've done those, but it's never gotten me a job. Recruiters, responding to a very-basic listing on Craigslist that didn't involve some online form and was all-email, network, and just walking in. The "normal" process, not once, I don't think. But I also think the normal process takes a lot longer than any of my job searches have (longest was about a month? Most two weeks or less) to yield results, in most cases, so IDK, maybe it would eventually have worked for me.

I guess maybe the '00s are onion-on-my-belt-territory now, though.

[EDIT] Incidentally, I do think it helps to be fairly young when attempting this. Putting on my other-side-of-the-table hat, I'd probably be more likely to have positive feelings about a 24-year-old walking in like this and asking for some time, than a 34-year-old. 24 year old does it, "huh, interesting, they clearly have some amount of spirit or hunger to them, let's see what they're like, I can find a few minutes"; 34-year-old: "WTF are you doing?" I've not attempted it since crossing the 30-year-old barrier.

[ghaff]

On the other hand, you're more senior and you probably know more senior people. I got my last job (or at least got the process rolling) by emailing the president of the company who I had met at events and did some work for.

[yamtaddle]

Right, I'd kick up my event-attendance and mingling and leverage my network more now if I wanted to avoid the usual process, these days. That stuff tends to work less-well for those just starting out, but the "you showed up and personally showed interest" thing can still be huge for youngsters, I think, if not for ~immediately getting a job then at least for winning an internal advocate or two to grease the wheels on the process. Does require a smaller company, though. Big ones, you'll just get stuck in the lobby, I suppose, and you're not likely to run into anyone who'd care to help you out just hanging around the area. Probably a waste of time.

[lief79]

#3 doesn't seem to correlate well with being able to interview/meet with team members, unless hiring takes priority over emergencies, etc. Then again, with enough bodies that should be possible to do without much of a hit.

[systemvoltage]

I think the expectation is that living in a mid sized towns, you'll probably get 1 candidate per month if that. I am thinking of a shop that is 30 devs or less. You don't always hire and we would put everything aside if someone shows up at the door.

I think the risk would be that no one ever shows up. :-(