Thread

1. jonas21 · 1790183511 · focus · HN ↗

   Every time I've hired someone at a big company, it's taken multiple months to get candidates through the pipeline, and it was not uncommon to have to go back to the candidate pool when someone would accept an offer and change their mind before starting. 90 days to fill a role would be considered relatively quick.

   1. sporadicism · 1790185455 · focus · HN ↗

      What an absolutely insane way to do business. Everybody is out here trying to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of software teams to the point of shipping garbage. Meanwhile managers, executives, and hr are operating under the belief that taking literal months to move "candidates through the pipeline" is eminently reasonable.

      1. SpicyLemonZest · 1790186767 · focus · HN ↗

         Hiring the wrong person in corporate roles is very, very, very expensive. New hires are expected to be unproductive right out the gate, and it's hard to measure productivity in general, so you can easily end up in scenarios where it takes months to notice there's an issue and a year or more before you can get the person back out the door. So you really do have to double and triple check that a prospective hire is the right choice.

         It can move faster than months, of course, when everyone's willing to prioritize it. But as anyone who's worked in hiring can tell you, the set of people who want hiring to move faster is much larger than the set of people who are willing to accept inconvenient interviews and fill out their feedback promptly.

         1. johnnyanmac · 1790218619 · focus · HN ↗

            It's only expensive because we destroyed our abilities to train workers. It really shouldn't matter in 95%+ of roles if someone isn't a perfect fit. If they have the fundamentals, they should be up to productive speed in 6 months at worst. That's 1000 hours of training. For reference, a semester of classwork for a single course is recommended to take 140 hours (we can make it 200 hours for engineering work). A company really can't get someone with the basics up to speed in 5 college courses?

            Well, no. Because we abandoned the idea of fostering talent. We instead insist natural talent exists who will swoop in, be productive in our proprietary systems day one, and outdo all the pathetic engineers who spent years at the company. Almost like we're drafting for a sports team instead of training a workforce.

            But at least sports teams spend time making teams feel like teams.

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