>> Our interview process is optimised for zero false-positives at the cost of many false-negatives.
Why are false positives worse than false negatives? Optimising for either exclusively sounds like a very good way to fill up with mediocre people: either you miss too many of the best (what you do), or you hit too many of the worst (what you try to avoid doing).
Of course, there's no hard-and-fast rule about the quality of a hire. You can hope to have zero false-positives, but you can't really count on it.
What you should aim to optimise is the ratio of the people you really wanted to hire over the people you actually hired. This would allow you to improve the quality of your hires over time so that it approaches the high point of some measure of goodness.
Realistically speaking, that's the best result you can expect to achieve. Any tactic that purports to give a better outcome (zero false negatives? Really?) should be regarded with suspicion.
Why are false positives worse than false negatives? Optimising for either exclusively sounds like a very good way to fill up with mediocre people: either you miss too many of the best (what you do), or you hit too many of the worst (what you try to avoid doing).
Of course, there's no hard-and-fast rule about the quality of a hire. You can hope to have zero false-positives, but you can't really count on it.
What you should aim to optimise is the ratio of the people you really wanted to hire over the people you actually hired. This would allow you to improve the quality of your hires over time so that it approaches the high point of some measure of goodness.
Realistically speaking, that's the best result you can expect to achieve. Any tactic that purports to give a better outcome (zero false negatives? Really?) should be regarded with suspicion.