Hiring Developers By Algorithm 326
Strudelkugel writes in with a story about how big data is being used to recruit workers. "When the e-mail came out of the blue last summer, offering a shot as a programmer at a San Francisco start-up, Jade Dominguez, 26, was living off credit card debt in a rental in South Pasadena, Calif., while he taught himself programming. He had been an average student in high school and hadn't bothered with college, but someone, somewhere out there in the cloud, thought that he might be brilliant, or at least a diamond in the rough. 'The traditional markers people use for hiring can be wrong, profoundly wrong,' says Vivienne Ming, the chief scientist at Gild since late last year. That someone was Luca Bonmassar. He had discovered Mr. Dominguez by using a technology that raises important questions about how people are recruited and hired, and whether great talent is being overlooked along the way."
"can be wrong, profoundly wrong" (Score:3, Insightful)
Hello, captain obvious. Yes, having a piece of paper doesn't mean you're good at what you do or that you even know what you're doing; plenty of college graduates are merely imbeciles.
A "Gilded" boost for Open Source Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like one more boost that will give impetus for more people to become involved in open source projects.
Re:By algorithm makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"can be wrong, profoundly wrong" (Score:2, Insightful)
My dad told me a good one the other day:
A PhD EE had a broken 15k board doing development work at a major electronics company.
He takes the board to his lab tech, who jokingly tells him 'All the resistors are in backwards!'
Said lab tech has a departmental meeting to go to.
When he gets back he finds the PhD sitting there, iron in hand, with a pile of resistors next to the board.
Exclaiming to the EE, 'What do you think you're doing, that's a brand new 15k dollar board!'
The EE replies: 'You said all the resistors are in backwards, so I'm putting them in the right way.'
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by too much conceptual and not enough practical experience.
Re:Then again... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, and how is an employee supposed to get experience without having employment? Spare time projects aren't enough anymore. You've got a chicken-egg problem there.
Re:"can be wrong, profoundly wrong" (Score:5, Insightful)
At my old job, we had a pretty revolutionary strategy for picking someone: We talked with them.
I've always done that too. Just get the interviewee to talk about their work, what was interesting about, the problems they encountered, etc. If a person doesn't know their stuff they won't be able to talk about it intelligently. Some people you have to coax out of their shell a bit, but that's it. If a person is reluctant I'll even ask them to pick something out of their resume to talk about instead of me suggesting a topic. I accept that most resumes have some exaggerations in them, so just let them pick something that isn't exaggerated. Also talk to them about the project they're being hired for, see what kind of questions or suggestions they have, etc.
It's purposely a low pressure technique. Some very good technical people don't do well being drilled about nonsense or brainteasers, or clam up if the interviewer starts playing Mr. Tough Guy and tries to trip them up on everything. Remember, you're trying to hire good technical people, not good interviewees. For other type of work this technique might suck.
It amazes me more companies haven't tried of this method.
Too simple and obvious - takes away the mystique of being a great interviewer. Also you've got to know your stuff to use the technique.
Re:If I have a day job? (Score:5, Insightful)
I kind of hate this recent assumption that all open-source programmers with work on github must be programming geniuses.
Re:By algorithm makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
You attitude is why we have abominations like Unity, Gnome3, and Windows8/Metro now.
Re:By algorithm makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
I know Slashdot isn't the place to say this, but almost all programming is menial.
No!
Most programming work is tedious, however most important decisions have to be made constantly, in the midst of that tedious work. You can't make decisions by yourself, then pass the work to an idiot -- he will not notice where he has to make a decision, and will do something random that seems right, and those decisions will eventually destroy everything.
Re:"can be wrong, profoundly wrong" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So this doctor goes from male to female (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, bigotry creates ostracization. Modifying your body doesn't intrinsically do that. These days, most people deal with trans folks just fine; the few Archie Bunker wannabes running around calling them names are still a problem, but are rapidly becoming a small problem.
Talented Introverts are Tough To Spot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Use your own algorithm (Score:5, Insightful)
some of the best indicators were clear, intelligent, structured English and an interest in music. There seemed to be almost no correlation between those factors and their achieving a degree, or their lack of one.
That is fascinating, thanks for the tip.
Re:Use your own algorithm (Score:5, Insightful)
And again, oddly enough, some of the best indicators were clear, intelligent, structured English and an interest in music.
Those would be good correlates. The English skills are an indication that they can read very well (useful for background research) and communicate (also really useful), and music skills are often associated with ability in math and logic; they appear to use the same area of the brain.
English skills could also be about attention to detail and caring about the quality of what you do. And both, but especially music, could be about not just being able to focus for long periods on one, solitary task, building it up a little at a time until it works, but of actually getting satisfaction from it. ie, it could be substantially an indicator of introversion.