Re:No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-in...
by hvidgaard on Friday February 07, 2020 @02:17AM
(#22263873)
> I don't think false negatives are good. How many positions go unfilled for months and years? A lot. At a larger company, it won't take long before they remove the position entirely. They might not be wrong to do so either. Eventually your bus factor goes to zero, and whole teams go away.
I'd rather that happen, than hire unqualified people. Hire and then fire someone is damn expensive - months of salary and a lot of hours wasted. If you don't get them out of the door fast enough, the damage they can do with incompetency is even greater.
Re:No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-in...
by safety-third on Friday February 07, 2020 @05:52PM
(#22271999)
I have personally hired false positives. Like you say, they are expensive. I have never once hired someone who was literally incapable of doing the job. It's never because of work directly. A person who was incredibly professional in the interview turned into a massive asshole at the office. One fought good coding practices because he thought it was over-engineering. Another spent all day playing online poker on their phone. One spent their entire time at the office making Forth interpreters.
Doing 7 hours of whiteboarding interviews for every candidate won't flush out any of these. Not a single one. If you can tell me the magic 8 ball I need to shake to fix this, I am wide open to suggestions.
Re:No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-in...
by celticmusic on Friday February 07, 2020 @11:06PM
(#22273780)
> One fought good coding practices because he thought it was over-engineering.
You would have considered me a false positive then, despite the success of my career.
Re:No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-in...
by perl4ever on Saturday February 08, 2020 @12:07AM
(#22274035)
Nobody is perfect for every job.
A phone app is one thing, ERP or accounting is another, avionics is another.
Re:No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-in...
by celticmusic on Saturday February 08, 2020 @05:00AM
(#22274985)
ahahahahahahahahahaha, the arrogance in this comment cracks me up. You have no idea the software I write, don't make assumptions.
I don't think false negatives are good. How many positions go unfilled for months and years? A lot. At a larger company, it won't take long before they remove the position entirely. They might not be wrong to do so either. Eventually your bus factor goes to zero, and whole teams go away. I have never seen anything beyond FizzBuzz, experience, and conversations be predictive for actual work. Even these only weed out the most outrageous candidates.
I work in the chemical engineering industry. They sort resumes, ask questions, and call references. They don't ask them to do sophomore level process energy and mass balance with multiple components and vapor-liquid equilibria on a whiteboard. Most aren't Professional Engineers either. Junior engineers used to be a crap shoot. Now there are so many graduates compared to junior positions that most companies will only hire people that interned with them.