[nradov]

In professional sports there are objective metrics and performances are largely in public. In knowledge work there are no reliable metrics that apply on an individual level and you have to rely on candidates themselves (plus perhaps some unreliable references) to understand work history. It's a fundamentally harder problem.

[tracerbulletx]

I agree it is much harder, but no less important. Engineering orgs at most companies are no where close to even being good at identifying success or talent in their existing employees.

[Solvency]

And yet those sports teams still spend millions of dollars and expertise on it (recruiting). So what's techs excuse? It's harder so we don't bother?

[LargeTomato]

We can watch players play previous games. We can see their progression as a player over time.

For tech, it's hard to know if someone is good in just a couple hours of interviewing.

[azemetre]

Why could you use someone's previous work or portfolio?

[nradov]

The best developers don't have any portfolio that they can share. It's all locked up in former employers' code repositories.

[nradov]

It's not an excuse. Everyone in tech acknowledges that effective recruiting is important. But beyond doing basic stuff right like not ghosting candidates, that knowledge isn't actionable. No one has found a reliable, repeatable, scalable solution. If you can figure that out then you'll be a billionaire.