So what is a good/correct hiring criterion? I was under the impression that nobody really knows.
And I am not convinced that it is a bad idea to look for "cultural fit". For example I don't dismiss anybody as a programmer who has never heard about Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky, but certainly consider it weird and it's probably at least a minus in my book.
> So what is a good/correct hiring criterion? I was under the impression that nobody really knows.
Actually I can't believe you can say this with a straight face. It is well known what a good hiring criterion is (e.g. productive, smart, not an asshole, can work with different people etc). All these things can be sussed out during the interview process quite professionally without resorting to questioning people's musical tastes and what they do in their free time.
> And I am not convinced that it is a bad idea to look for "cultural fit".
You just might be young and inexperienced but it is also possible you are socially inept and can't get along with professionals whose character and background don't match yours - and don't get me wrong - this is just the read I'm getting from your posts, it's not meant to be an insult.
If anything terrifies me in this world it's intolerant, prejudiced, xenophobic people who can't get along with anyone who is not exactly like them. Absolutely detestable stuff.
And I for one don't really care about having dinners with my coworkers, going clubbing together and similar nonsense. You're paying me to do a job for you and I will deliver my end of the deal. Beyond that I owe you nothing, especially not things like entertaining you and inflating your ego in your free time.
"productive, smart, not an asshole, can work with different people etc"
People seem to struggle to determine those things during an interview, though. If you don't understand me, I can only diagnose a lack of curiosity on your part. Otherwise you would have read some of the countless articles on hiring issues by now.
" people who can't get along with anyone who is not exactly like them"
I never said anything like that. I just think it is a good idea to judge people by what you know. What else can you do? It's completely random to hire somebody you don't understand or where you don't know where they are coming from.
"And I for one don't really care about having dinners with my coworkers, going clubbing together and similar nonsense. You're paying me to do a job for you and I will deliver my end of the deal."
It's nice that you don't care about your coworkers as people (having dinner with them or becoming friends). I am sure there are loads of companies that are perfect for you, because they only require blue collar programming drones.
But why should what you prefer be good for every company? Why shouldn't a company be allowed to aim for co-workers who become friends? Why not let the market sort it out (maybe the drone companies will outperform the friend companies, maybe not).
> It's nice that you don't care about your coworkers as people (having dinner with them or becoming friends). I am sure there are loads of companies that are perfect for you, because they only require blue collar programming drones.
First of all, I care about my coworkers to the extent it is necessary to work together. Also, if they ever run into hardships, I am willing to help out if I can. It's just basic human decency that I will afford to anyone in my life, not just coworkers. But at the end of the day, I am primarily seeking a mutually profitable business relationship, not an emotional relationship.
Second of all, I don't have the need to become friends with my coworkers. If it happens spontaneously then fine. Work is a good place as any to make friends. If it doesn't happen, I'm really not going to lose my sleep over it. I don't have an obsessive need to be friends with my coworkers.
Also, I think you'll be surprised when I tell you I actually work for a company building cutting edge stuff. The fact that you assume that you need to work at a particular kind of startup with a particular culture to have that just shows how prejudiced you are. There are plenty of amazing and rewarding jobs that don't require these things.
> But why should what you prefer be good for every company? Why shouldn't a company be allowed to aim for co-workers who become friends? Why not let the market sort it out (maybe the drone companies will outperform the friend companies, maybe not).
Fair enough. I respect your opinion. However, if you're going to screen people based on arbitrary criteria, why don't you go ahead and put those criteria in the job ad? What's preventing you from making the process transparent by writing say, "Only people who are like us and seek to become friends need apply"? Or perhaps "Only people who listen to Michael Bolton and like drinking beer on Fridays...". That would be perfect because people who are not interested in those aspects could just skip your job ad and move on without having their precious time wasted jumping through hoops in a lopsided game with oblique rules. Don't you think that simply listing technical requirements in the ad and then turning tables on people and changing the rules of the game once they're sitting in the room with you is unfair and disrespectful? Are you afraid that listing those criteria would make your company look ridiculous?
I would assume "liking each other" is usually a given job requirement. Also putting too many criteria into a job ad increases the risk for discrimination lawsuits, so it's probably better to just be generic.
Also, saying such things beforehand would make them too easy to fake.
I am btw not advocating to hire based on musical taste. I only mentioned it because it seems to be something people often talk about when they get to know each other, and because it might indicate likelihood to get along.
"The fact that you assume that you need to work at a particular kind of startup with a particular culture to have that just shows how prejudiced you are."
Where did you get any of that? I never mentioned startups, nor did I say one culture is better than another. I just think people should be free to choose.
> I would assume "liking each other" is usually a given job requirement.
Not really. I've had plenty of co-workers over the years I did not particularly like, but with whom I've had very productive working relationships. I'm not saying I actively disliked them, but they are not the type of people I would have become friends with in other situations.
There was the guy who was super into his micro-brewery, had to make sure everyone knew about it, and had a critical opinion of every restaurant in the county. Super annoying, great programmer, we worked really well together. One of my favorite co-workers.
There was the lady who went on and on about her pugs. She always smelled like she'd just expressed their anal glands. Very self-absorbed as well. You could depend on her to take care of any issue that came to her desk in a timely fashion, with excruciating attention to detail.
There was also the one office assistant who was the nicest, friendliest person on the floor. She never got anything done. You either had to nag her about something, work around her, or just do it yourself.
Of course, often times when you take the time to get to know someone you find that your initial impression was wrong or shallow, and you end up really liking them. However, your "culture fit" portion of the process never gets beyond that shallow impression. Learning to get along with people you don't "like" is one of the hallmarks of maturity.
Not for one of the three I chose as examples, but yes for others.
One guy was very awkward socially, over confident in himself and under-appreciative of everyone else. At least that is how he appeared in the interview. My team at the time rotated three people through as a hiring board to spread out the work of finding people and I was on the board that interviewed him. He was a very weird guy, and I mean more than your typical loner/introvert with underdeveloped social skills. We were a little worried about his ability to work well with the team, but on technical merits he was fantastic. He also didn't show any red flags, just general weirdness. So we hired him, and he was a good fit. Definitely in the top half of our team as far as quality and timeliness of his output.
I'm also glad that the people managing the hiring process for the other two employees I mentioned was willing to look at their professional record and not at their "culture fit" because pug-lady and microbrewery-guy were some of our best people. When I left the company where I worked with microbrewery guy, he was the one to whom I handed all of my outstanding projects.
>I just think it is a good idea to judge people by what you know.
Do you know how to do your job, how to stick to a deadline, and how to work with other people?
>It's nice that you don't care about your coworkers as people (having dinner with them or becoming friends). I am sure there are loads of companies that are perfect for you, because they only require blue collar programming drones.
So if I don't drink with you, I must be a terrible, low-end uncreative programmer?
"So if I don't drink with you, I must be a terrible, low-end uncreative programmer?"
I didn't say that - I said that there are surely companies where you are a good fit. But why would every company have to want to hire you? Why shouldn't some companies be allowed to say they want a more friendly atmosphere? I am not even saying I would prefer that myself.
While I agree with some points you make, and disagree with others, you are rubbing people the wrong way by using statements like "I am sure there are loads of companies that are perfect for you, because they only require blue collar programming drones" denigrating companies/people that aren't like you.
I personally have made friends at work, but it had nothing to do if they read Spolsky, they snowboarded or listen to whatever things you are implied are a positive filter in the interview process. From everywhere I've worked, I would say 99% of the people you work with won't be your friends, and that is fine, heck, even a positive thing in my opinion and assuming that people that don't conform to your idea of a worker are just 'drones' does make it hard to agree with you on other points you make.
The "worker drone" description was in reply to "And I for one don't really care about having dinners with my coworkers, going clubbing together and similar nonsense. You're paying me to do a job for you and I will deliver my end of the deal."
What else than a worker drone environment is that?
My talk about musical taste or whatever was just a random example, because it is something people often talk about in the initial stages of getting to know each other.
What I mean is: why should it be a bad idea to hire based on how much you like somebody (given that you checked the required skills)?
If it really is a bad idea to hire based on who you like, then it seems to follow that ideally hiring should be done by a computer? Has any company tried that yet? For sure many already have automated filters on application, is that a good thing?
People here some to think I suggest a checklist including "same musical taste" and hire based on that. That is not at all what I mean. I just think it is ridiculous to recommend that you should hire people you don't like.
I do not think that great programmer necessary reads a lot of what amounts to soft "programming/founder lifestyle" blogs. Especially since those two seem to be behind the peek of their fame. I do not remember their names appearing in major tech sites nor on any smaller topic/framework focused ones last years.
Plus, you would discriminate against tech oriented programmers that focus more on technological side of the things over soft-quasi-management one. Both of them are arguably smart and experienced, but their blogs are more opinions then need to read text books full of practical tips.
So what blogs would a modern programmer read? I learned a lot from Joel, and I am not really aware of any blog that compares.
I don't get why it is supposedly a bad thing to judge people by their preferences, either. Why shouldn't I prefer to mingle with people who like the same things as I do? By definition, I probably wouldn't like the things those other people like, which would make for awkward dinner conversations and so on (what if they cherish Michael Bolton????). It's good to sometimes leave the filter bubble, but maybe hiring (where you will be stuck with somebody for years) is not the right place for it.
Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy? I would expect him to read blogs/news sites related to technology he used in past, because it basically means he educates himself about technology he uses.
Other than that, he can read what he please. I have no reason to care whether his knowledge came from business book, programming book, Joels blog, random browsing or coursera videos, as long as that knowledge is solid (relatively to position he is taking).
There is nothing awkward about dinner conversation with a person with different preferences, unless you lived in mono-culture whole your life. Politely state that you do not like Michael Bolton and optionally specify what you like. For some reason, people always managed to find things to talk about, even as hiring managers did not cared about leisure time readings or movie preferences.
And seriously, most of your time together should be spend working, not chatting about music. If startups really focus on dinner conversations more then on product and sales, then they are as dysfunctional as big bad corporations.
I admit that there are types of personalities I had hard time to work with, but the problem was not in us reading different blogs nor using different programming language nor movies nor music.
I have a hard time imagining somebody who truly cares about programming to learn about Joel's blog and not devouring it (I mean the earlier days, when it was still about programming). I could let it pass if they never heard about Joel, but they know lots of other interesting stuff. Or anything else, really - it is the basic difference between somebody just doing their job and somebody curious about everything. If somebody is a Java developer and only reads about Java programming, he might be a good fit for some jobs. But I am different - I constantly read about new programming languages and development trends.
Why should it be good for me to work with somebody who only cares about Java? And what would you take about during lunch - Java development?
I am not saying you should hire based on musical taste, but I am waiting for a solid argument for why you shouldn't.
More specifically: why is "hire who you know/is like you" supposed to be a bad heuristic? If you know you yourself are efficient, it seems likely somebody like you is also sufficient. At least it seems more likely than that a random stranger (or somebody who explicitly isn't like you) is efficient. Please show me data to the contrary if you disagree with that heuristic (especially, as I said in my first comment, as nobody really seems to have a clue how to hire).
Back to Joel: it seems more likely that somebody who knows Joel is a good programmer than somebody who doesn't know Joel. Would you disagree with that assessment? Look at it in reverse: how would a good programmer not know about Joel's blog?
"But isn't there a basic curiosity in some people?"
Someone who does not read the same old blog as you is not curious? That does not make any sense. I checked out Joels blog now (after years) and there does seem to be anything exceptional or different then what is on gazillion other blogs.
If anything, Java guy reading about Java could learn about map reduce, full text search, security, compilers, algorithms, sound processing, text analysis, artificial intelligence and million other things in the process. There are java libraries for all those things and when you follow java news you are primary learning about those.
Mastering full text search library in ruby is easier if you already mastered another full text search in another language. The underlying concepts are going to be similar.
I get it, you care more about language itself, but that does not make you more curious nor better developer. It makes you slightly different.
"And what would you take about during lunch - Java development?"
I would try various topics until I find the one we can talk about. Plus, discussion with someone who knows different things then me is more interesting usually, I learn new stuff from it. Listening to the same ideas I read about yesterday does not make for a compelling lunch.
"I am not saying you should hire based on musical taste, but I am waiting for a solid argument for why you shouldn't."
I'm willing to bet that you don't live up to your own standards of being friendly with people. But I think you don't even understand what I am trying to say.
"I would try various topics until I find the one we can talk about."
I am not talking about meeting once and making small talk. I am talking about meeting every day, for 10 years straight.
Curiosity: if somebody can give me a good reason why they don't like Joel, OK. But if they have never heard of him, it seems likely they are not curious about programming. Btw please mention some of the other gazillion blogs that say the same things? (Refer to the top list he has in the sidebar)
"You might as well hire on color of their eyes."
You think people have as little control over their musical tastes as over the color of their eyes? If they like death metal, it is just a random variation that says nothing about their personality? Or if Gangster Rap is their thing? Musical taste says nothing about personality, is that really what you believe?
> Curiosity: if somebody can give me a good reason why they don't like Joel, OK. But if they have never heard of him, it seems likely they are not curious about programming.
You are conflating with what you are interested in with what everybody should be interested in. Some people just don't care about Spolsky or aren't big fans of his writing. That doesn't mean anything about those people's interest in programming or computers.
The whole point of this article is that companies and teams are creating cliques out of cultural preferences and setting up those that fall outside of their preferences as inferior for not liking what they like. The last several posts you had in this thread reenforced this idea: well gee I found this thing interesting/useful, anyone who doesn't clearly isn't any good.
"That doesn't mean anything about those people's interest in programming or computers."
Of course it does. Joel advocates a certain style of development. If you don't like him, you likely don't like that style of development. If your company works "Joel style", why should you hire somebody who doesn't like that development style.
Sorry, but the criticism here is ridiculous. It's clear people don't even think about what they write.
It sounds like your answer to question "Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy?" is "I'm hiring a drink/lunch buddy".
If you still work together 10 years later, your topics will be much different then. Whatever you read now is irrelevant. However, with company hires being focused on dinners and lunches small talks, the company is not likely to stay together 10 years later on. Not unless huge changes in culture happen.
As for music taste and personality, I do not see much of reliable and relevant to employment. If they would act like jerks towards anybody who does not share their passion or would insist on playing it loud despise other people objections, yeah I would have the issue. Other then that, nope. As far as I'm concerned most people listen whatever was the thing where they grew up.
You think people have as little control over their musical tastes as over the color of their eyes? If they like death metal, it is just a random variation that says nothing about their personality? Or if Gangster Rap is their thing? Musical taste says nothing about personality, is that really what you believe?
I've always enjoyed finding out what's on the playlist of the great developers I work with, because I am always surprised.
anecdotally, yes, i've noticed very little correlation betweeen people's personalities and their tastes in music. why would you even expect there to be one?
How do you propose to hire somebody you don't understand? It seems to make a lot more sense to judge people based on the things you know.
If you believe X is important for programming, why on earth would you hire somebody who doesn't like/know about X?
It's possible that you are mistaken about X being important. But then you are screwed anyway. But if you start hiring based on things you don't know, you are also screwed.
At the end of the day everything you do is based on your beliefs. Maybe you started an IT consulting company because you believe Rails is the best thing ever. Then why should you hire somebody who doesn't believe that? If you think about it, the whole premise of the article is completely ridiculous.
It seems to make a lot more sense to judge people based on the things you know.
So do that. Stop pretending you are a psychologist, and capable of figuring out what kind of personality is good at this job, because those are things you don't know.
Instead, give work-sample tests. Those are something you can know. You can look at the results the person emits. Then hire based on that. Personality only needs basic things like "doesn't spit on other people" and "doesn't say racial/sexual slurs to coworkers/clients."
There's no reason to think that a psychological test designed by non-psychologists is even as good as random guessing. On the other hand, work-sample tests have been studied and are a very good guide. Commenter 'tokenadult has FAQd this up for us: http://www.focus.vc/tokenadult-recruiting-faq/
So you would also say that it is best to leave all hiring to a computer, as I suggested in another comment (to summarize all comments I received)? After all, human perceptions seems to be too flawed?
A computer can administer a psychological test, and it can administer a programming test. Problem solved?
Other than that, again: you can only act based on the things you know. So the conclusion is nobody is qualified to hire (since the article talks to everybody)? Of course it is possible that there are some clueless people in the business of hiring. But people can only do what they can do. I don't see any practical advice in that article.
"I only know how to do ad-hoc personality tests, so ad-hoc personality tests must be how I can hire."
The very practical advise is to deliver a work-sample test. Tell the person exactly what you are looking for up-front("we want this code to run as fast as possible" versus "we want this code to be very readable") and then measure on what you said you looking for.
If you do a lot of code maintenance, pull up a piece of your code with a bug and have the candidate hind it. If you do a lot of OOP, describe a recent problem and have him design the class.
I think you're missing the premise of the article. It doesn't say don't hire qualified people based on a set of characteristics. The article brings up various examples where people are totally confused about what those signals and characteristics of qualification actually are. Dress code, common taste in music, beer, literature, etc. are definitely not those characteristics.
The article also doesn't say don't hire people you will get along with. You should try to hire such people but a workplace is a professional environment and not an extended family like some places like to paint themselves. First of all such places should be avoided because no workplace is an extended family and second because they are being unprofessional and exploitative if they pain themselves that way. The recent github fiasco is a good examples of what happens when people forget that workplaces are professional environments and github is actually one of the better places where work and life balance is highly valued. So yes if you're hiring a Rails developer then you should look for someone that understands Ruby and Rails but you shouldn't really care if they are a devout follower of the church of DHH because that has no bearing on their ability to do the job.
The "GitHub fiasco" would not have happened if they had only hired people who are like them. Bad example :-)
I personally don't think there is much to be learned from it. It was just a normal situation where employee and employer don't get along anymore - it happens thousands of times every day. I don't think because of that people should now shut down all emotions at their workplace and only focus on their work and never talk to each other.
You can not really demand that every employee has to be happy at every company and vice versa.
>Why should it be good for me to work with somebody who only cares about Java? And what would you take about during lunch - Java development?
Knowledge depth, for one. The time you spend reading about new trends and languages is time not spent getting deeper knowledge about the skills you already have.
Maybe you spend just as much time as he does gaining knowledge depth in your chosen language and spend some of your free time reading about trends and languages, whereas he might spend time with his family instead.
You're still basing this decision on an arbitrary signal like "Reading about trends and languages makes you a better programmer", which is a very difficult thing to prove, the least of all reasons being that there are no hard lines drawn in the sand regarding programmer skill levels and the positions that they qualify for.
But then someone with this same attitude comes along and reads about trends, languages, and computer science developments. That guy won't hire you because you don't read about computer science developments because he thinks those three sources of knowledge makes you an even better programmer. He spends the same amount of time gaining knowledge depth as you do, but spends even more time reading about trends, languages, and CS developments, regularly sacrificing an hour of sleep.
And then someone comes along and reads about trends, languages, CS developments, and hardware hacking[, and social engineering][, and UI/UX theory][, and mathematics developments].
You can see how this can quickly fill someone's entire waking hours in a rat race to be the guy casting down judgment.
>Back to Joel: it seems more likely that somebody who knows Joel is a good programmer than somebody who doesn't know Joel.
You can hang around forums and parrot whatever other people are talking about and blend in without ever having to elaborate or think about Joel's blog (not to mention actually practice any of it). This is the same sort of signalling that SV is using according to the article.
Having that bit of knowledge quickly skyrockets my perceived skill level above "the crowd". I'm an insider now, someone to get a little excited about hiring, and for no more work than it took to read a blog.
Then I start rattling off other things I've seen on here, reddit, and other places that make me seem intelligent and well-read. Now they're tittering to give me an offer.
Then they get a nice dose of reality when they learn I'm still pretty new with regards to actual skill.
If I wanted to be an SV insider, I'd follow the same procedure: read about what signals they are looking for, mimic those signals, and play it by ear the rest of the way. I guess if I had to code actual projects to make it then I can't be as deceptive because I'll actually know how to do something. (To save some of my dignity, I actually have done that!)
@facepalm I would much rather hire someone who reads in-depts books that those shallow blogs. Too much time spend on blogs and discussion forums is not that great thing.
You are right about forums. Although I have the impression many of the people who are very frequent writers on HN are also very good developers. So at least it's not necessarily a negative signal.
But it shows you are willing to read blogs to further your knowledge. Presumably even voluntarily. Would you really say that is just a weak signal, especially in a profession that changes as quickly as IT?
I think it's a weak signal. It should be a nice-to-have, not a deal-breaker. The article's signaling is even weaker in my opinion, and those are deal-breakers of the most superficial kind. It's too easy to gain significant credibility for so little actual work.
>Well I initially said "if somebody doesn't know Joel or Graham, I would probably count it as a minus", not a deal breaker.
Oh, sorry. I still think it can swing opinions too much being what it is.
Well I initially said "if somebody doesn't know Joel or Graham, I would probably count it as a minus", not a deal breaker. But why should it not matter to my estimate whether somebody knows that or not. Would you believe somebody who claims they are passionate about physics but have never heard about Einstein (to make an obvious example)? How would you go about probing a candidates enthusiasm and determination?
I am asking you why you think it is important. I am not really interested in "beliefs". It seems curious that it is automatically assumed that diversity is beneficial. As I said, maybe there is a reason why your pals are your pals and you work better together with them than with strangers.
I guess I believe that a company does not have a moral obligation to foster diversity and social mobility. It is possible that a company can benefit from that, though (ie wider candidate pool - lower wages, and so on).
"Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most.
But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.
Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."
There's been quite a bit of research into group composition and dynamics and their effect on problem solving. In short, the main body of research seems to suggest that diverse groups show a higher group intelligence than homogeneous groups (have a search on google scholar). This is likely to do with a diverse group having a wider range of experiences, and more view points, to draw on in solving a problem. Ultimately, it's not about who you work better with, but how the group as a whole performs.
Secondly, if you can only work with people you would be close friends with, you are massively reducing the talent pool available to you. If multiple companies are behaving the same way then you will be paying more for less skilled staff.
Meanwhile it's hard to see what the benefit of hiring from such a limited pool is? They're your work colleagues, not your party buddies, so who cares if you don't want to go to the same clubs? Just hire good professional people, surely? If they're pros, then any intra-group conflicts are manageable.
That's just a handwavy reply (look up the research). I know the kind of research, and it is very hard to separate the ideologically motivated one from the worthwhile ones.
"Just hire good professional people, surely?"
So why have any hiring process at all, if it doesn't matter who works for/with you?
Some people realize they spend most of their waking hours at work, so they want to get along with the people they work with.
I don't know what's going on with the 'reply' button, but I don't seem to be able to reply to your latest comments.
Firstly, "google it", well actually "google scholar" it. Go to the public research body rather than the general internet and spend some time finding some reviews (I mean proper peer-reviewed reviews), look for ones that are highly cited and ~5-10 years old. Then start following up, with standard procedures. This seems an important topic to you, and you're unwilling to follow the modern wisdom - which is completely fine, no criticism from me over that. So I would recommend spending at least a couple of weeks on this, go down to the primary experiments that the reviews draw on and see what the researcher's are really debating with each experiment. Look how the experiments being done have informed recent reviews and why viewpoints are changing. Make sure everything you're reading is peer reviewed, or you will waste a lot of time. Without two years+ in a subject, filtering the bull is hard.
I would also be very careful about whether the researchers are indirectly or directly being paid by the recruitment industry rather than centrally funded, since commercial funding makes the validity of the results more uncertain.
So I'm not saying "Google it". I'm saying do some bare minimum reading on the research corpus.
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Just to go back to the above message. I'm not saying have no hiring process, obviously you need to evaluate the candidate. But for me, once I've checked for egregious personality flaws, they don't need to be my friends. Think of it this way: falling out with friends is terrible and likely to be very destructive to morale on your team - people will take sides and within the space of an hour your company has been ripped apart. Office politics will be much greater, while bad decisions based on emotion - "can't fire him, we had a real heart to heart last night", "let's do this because I like x more than y" are much more likely.
If you're pros, then melodrama becomes much less likely. Furthermore, you know you've been hired to be great at your job rather than because you behave in a certain way. Better motivation to focus on the job rather than the politics.
If you went through the Google Scholar thing, haven't you saved some articles you approved of? Why not point me directly to it? I don't really have time to become an expert in this by dozens of articles.
Discussing things used to be a good way to gain understanding. You know, back in the day before PC, when people were still willing to have a real discussion.
Discussing things is still a good way to gain understanding. But your unwillingness to acquaint yourself with actual research done on the topic tells me you aren't really interested in gaining understanding, just yelling your opinion louder than everyone else.
In response to your "hard data" reply: then point me to some specific articles to look at. "google for it" is just not good enough. You can find proof of anything by googling for it (global warming and anti global warming, creationism, evolution theory...).
Point me to some specific data. otherwise, how can I possible reply?
I don't seem to be able to reply to your reply to me further down the thread. So I'm just going to ask one question: "What is the point of asking for hard data when you're going to dismiss it since it doesn't agree with you?" If you don't believe the body of research, you are not going to agree with anyone's opinions here (unless of course they match your own).
The result has been repeated ad nauseum, it's not exactly hard science, though getting into the precise details is. Otherwise, the old mantra is, if you don't believe it, try it yourself.
I think the deeper nested a comment is, the longer it takes for a reply button to appear. It's a HN heuristic, they think deeply nested threads are possibly flame wars and they want to slow them down.
Well you can give some reasons for your beliefs. Sure, at the end you probably always arrive at some core belief that is the basic for everything. But that core (axioms) might be more or less deep. You are asking me to believe something at face value, just because it is politically correct.
Are you hiring a pal or a professional? Maybe it's useful to have someone different than you who can spot a different kind of flaws than you in the latest fad framework. Who gives a damn if it is Michael Bolton in someone else's earphones.
Some people seem to expect more from their job than just a place in a cubicle where they can do their duty for 8 hours and then go home. They want to have fun, be together with cool people and so on. If you can't bond over music, there is one fun factor less (btw Michael Bolton was a reference to the movie "Office Space").
If you manage to run your company as a factory where individuality doesn't matter, only code output or whatever, good for you. I don't see why it should be the go-to model for everyone, though.
I seem to remember blog posts about the music system at GitHub. Not sure if they play music over speakers? If anybody would put Michael Bolton on, the feelgood atmosphere might receive a serious dent.
"If you manage to run your company as a factory where individuality doesn't matter". - You don't see the irony of this in the context of your argument for rejecting people because they have different musical taste? (not programming language preference but musical taste). The point of the article and its title "mirrortocracy" is that these people are building clones of themselves because of their narrowmindedness and that's increasing their chances of failure.
This is no different than any narrowminded and now dead organisation of the past that failed to survive because they couldn't take on people who weren't "the right type". As a result they failed to even find out what they don't know, let alone how to fix it and were completely surprised when history passed them by and they became the butt of the joke. (Mind you the 42 floors article is a parody in itself so we don't have to wait for the joke)
"The point of the article and its title "mirrortocracy" is that these people are building clones of themselves because of their narrowmindedness and that's increasing their chances of failure."
I know that is what they claim, but is there any proof? Anything at all? That was my question. The claim is that you should hire people you know nothing about rather than people you know something about. Like if you are from Harvard, you shouldn't hire other people from Harvard, you should hire people from some community college, who are as different from you as possible.
"This is no different than any narrowminded and now dead organisation of the past that failed to survive because they couldn't take on people who weren't "the right type". "
Which organizations you talking about? Name at least one example, please. I am not aware of such a story.
Another way to phrase the question: should you hire people you could likely be friends with? If not, why not?
I too used to be into Joel. Then I realized two things. Firstly, I didn't know a single person who used any Fog Creek products. And secondly that it simply was not credible that top-notch programmers would choose to work on something as dull as a glorified time sheet system. Nowadays, I would consider evangelising Joel to be a red flag for inexperience.
Some people live and breathe valley culture and others don't. I have met great programmers and just generally smart people on both sides of the fence. It's not the particular cultural understanding that makes them good or bad. It is usually something else. I wouldn't hold it against you if all you did in your spare time was paint portraits but for your day job you were a programmer. In fact that kind of variety in interests is indicative of intelligence whereas idol worshipping is not. Smart people tend to know there are no sacred cows and also tend to come from all walks of life with all sorts of passions and interests.
The point of the article is that superficial matters like dress code are the last thing you should be looking at when trying to hire and that monocultures in general are something to be avoided. You can't do that though if you are only ever hiring people that think, talk, and in general act like you.
So where is the fundamental argument against monocultures? The paypal founder seems to disagree? Is it just political correctness, or is there some hard data?
In theory I am all for diversity, but I can imagine that in some endeavours it helps if you get along with the people in your team. I don't think "hiring what you know" is really that much of a mistake. I would hire my friends, for example, because I already know I get along with them.
The fundamental argument is that if you hire more similar people, you will get similar results. Are you a billionaire yet? If not, maybe you should hire some different types of people in order to deliver different results.
People with different mindsets will challenge you. They will disagree with your decisions. They will think of different approaches that may be much better than what you are doing. If you let them, they may drastically improve your business.
Are your friends the best fit for the job? What if someone likes different music and whatever but is ten times as effective at that type of position? I would consider the latter far more important. You're hiring people to do a job, not socialize with.
Programming test, discussing past experience (things they did, things they're proud of, where things went wrong, etc), etc.
You're attempting to determine passion and curiosity by doing a "joel test", which is poor because you're biasing it towards people who have the same history as you. A better alternative is to ask for opinions, people who have opinions about programming practices/paradigms/languages/etc is a good signal for someone who is curious about their craft. Uncurious people never think deeply about what they're doing. People who care form opinions and ideas about what is good vs bad. It doesn't really matter what the opinions are, just that they have them and have some rationale for backing it up.
Examples: What is your opinion of Javascript as a lanaguage? * Whats your favorite language/least favorite language that you use/worst feature of your favorite language? Whats your opinion of the state of web development/how would you improve it? Static vs Dynamic typing? Functional vs Object oriented?
I think that's the point of the poster you're replying to. You examine the merits of someone's argument, not the fact they're one of the paypal founders. That is specifically the cult of personality referred to.
Some people on this site seem to be desperate to fulfill the rituals they think will lead to success. Most of success is pure luck, combined with some preparation and ability to deliver.
"That is specifically the cult of personality referred to."
But you are merely doing the same thing, except that you revere the author of the article more than the PayPal founder. Why should the article writer be more right than the PayPal founder?
This is the 'atheism is just another religion' argument, or the 'not being racist is just another racial preference' argument. You can't see the difference?
I don't know anything about dkarapetyan other than I agree with them that too many look to a cult of personality to give them the rituals to achieve the same sort of success.
Whereas "paypal founder" is an intended signal, that if you do what they suggest, you will have similar success as "paypal founder."
Probably should have replied here rather than above. Anyway, as I mentioned there, there is a ton of hard data showing mono-cultures generally being outperformed by diverse groups. Lots available as public research, you just have to look for it. You may have to pay for some journal access though. Hiring-what-you-know has been pretty much nailed down as a major mistake with hard data, but is also one that most people make.
I've been in both kinds of environments and I much prefer diversity. It's way too easy to burn out in a monoculture. I like working with people that have hobbies and passions both within and outside of work. It's just better on all sorts of levels to be in that kind of environment instead of one where people just parrot whatever is on the front page of HN. You learn more and consequently grow more as an individual in that kind of environment. That's all anecdotal but I'm not sure what you'd search for to find actual research on the matter. Micro studies show diverse groups often come up with better and more creative solutions when faced with novel problems.
Well I am all for people hiring or entering companies based on their preferences. If you prefer diversity, sure, go for it. I just don't see the sense in dictating people their preferences.
It's a good thing that there are all sorts of companies. There are companies where everybody has to wear a uniform all day, and companies where people work in their underwear all day (because they work from home). Some people might prefer the one, others the other. But then to write "everybody should be working in their underwear at all times" is just bullshit.
Maybe the underwear people will outperform the uniform people. In 20 years there would be only underwear companies left. Or vice versa. Or there will always be a mix. But if you want to predict that ("I claim that underwear programmers will outperform uniform programmers"), you should provide some very good arguments.
People do what it takes to get a job. With the exception of 3 or 4 people you really know, that friend of yours, thats not a real friend, he couldn't care less about you. What you have is an employee skilled in pretending to be your friend.
It was the only job requirement!
You met him because you "accidentally" ran into him. You get along with him because he is a great performer. He likes the same music, wears the same cloths, has the same hobbies etc etc. You don't know who he is, it is all make believe, he doesn't even like organic carrots. When you close the door behind you he is glad you are gone.
You've recruited a psychopath[0] who smiles pretty when you desire it. If he doesn't smile you might fire him! Smiling at you is the only skill required to get the job and the tenure. He doesn't have real skills or at least very crappy ones.
If he didn't start out like that you can still make a real friend into one. Might take a few years before they get tired of your ravings about organic carrots. That way they can gradually practice the act you desire from them.
That's a zero value argument because psychopaths will mimic whatever criterion you have. So the argument "psychopaths will hack your criterion" is worthless.
And the point in things like musical taste and blogs is that they are not that easy to fake. You have to make a real investment (spend time listening to music, reading,...). That's the point of signaling, which is what muscial taste is.
I never said you shouldn't have a work-sample test. But I doubt everybody who can code is an equally good hire for every company.
As for work sample tests, there are also those who criticize programming tests because they say people might just be bothered by the interview situation and in reality be much better programmers. If you let the candidate do it at home, they can fake it by letting somebody else do the coding.
I personally would certainly want to see some demonstration of programming skill.
And I am not convinced that it is a bad idea to look for "cultural fit". For example I don't dismiss anybody as a programmer who has never heard about Paul Graham or Joel Spolsky, but certainly consider it weird and it's probably at least a minus in my book.