Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is getting easier

Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by CheezeIt on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @09:10PM (#28056168)

You’re vastly overestimating the quantity of high talent internationally. Take a look at the proportion of Colombia’s students that can answer these math problems:

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/test-2012/form/

For example, 25% of Americans could solve problem 4, and 39% of Canadians, but only 2% of Colombians. (But 8% of Chileans, 15% of Serbians, 21% of Croatians.) Problem 5 is USA 9% to Colombia ~0% (Chile 2%). Problem 6, Taiwan is at 18%, USA 2%.

Colombia’s IMO team, drawn from its 50 million people, also gets trounced by Mongolia, population 6 million. And Mongolia isn’t just poor and polluted, half of that 6 million are horses. Only 3.3 million Mongolians are human.

Taking the 25% vs. 2% comparison, we could say Colombia’s quality-weighted population is effectively 50 million divided by 12.5, so it’s effectively a 4 million person country, measured in Americans.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by addicted on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @06:32AM (#28059391)

If 25% of Americans can solve a problem, you only need 2.5% of the rest of the world to be able solve that problem to have double the absolute number of non Americans vs Americans who can solve that problem.

You might need maybe 5% of the non US/non EU countries if we also exclude the EU countries, to get double the absolute number of non Americans who can solve it.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by reidjs on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @10:37PM (#28056593)

Do you think math ability is the most important metric to hire by? I guess it’s correlated to intelligence but I’m not sure if many businesses are looking for intelligence, unfortunately.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by CheezeIt on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @10:57PM (#28056715)

The context was software developers, so yes, that’s what’s relevant. The problems 1 through 5 are basic word problems and if you can’t reliably figure those out at 15, you aren’t going to be any good at software development. (I think, for problem 6, given a dysfunctional education system, you could excuse ignorance of what “average speed” means.) And businesses are looking for intelligence in other roles, too. That’s what gives you an advantage. Especially basic stuff like, being able to answer what is the smallest number in a chart.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by ulucs on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @02:50AM (#28058009)

A dysfunctional education system does much worse than failing to teach what average speed means. I seriously, seriously doubt the reasoning "Colombians can't math" is accurate, and don't believe the causes reliably imply "Don't hire Colombians for dev roles"

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by akomtu on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @11:07PM (#28056764)

For software devs? Yeah, absolutely. We aren't talking about cleaning crews here.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by nsonha on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @12:52AM (#28057416)

if that was true FAANG would have been hiring with math questions. In reality, by and large, math skills are not tested for software engineers, with the exeption of trading and such.

It is relevant only to the degree of whether or not you can do high-school maths, and the assumption is anyone who can write code can.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by upgrejd on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @03:56AM (#28058445)

But those questions on a PISA test Are below high school level maths. It's basic math.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by nsonha on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @04:55AM (#28058773)

look keep pushing for this nonsense, nobody cares, I doubt that a single person who can't do math read this site, nor apply for a dev job.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by abraxas on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @10:16PM (#28056490)

China is scoring very well and has a population that trounces all of the western world

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by addicted on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @08:28AM (#28060185)

Also, that test is almost entirely culturally driven. The kind of problem is far more common in North America with its standardized testing driven education, than pretty much anywhere else in the world.

I suspect if you asked someone to perform long division, or adding large numbers with decimals and carry overs by hand, instead, the non US countries would perform far better than Americans, who may not even have been taught how to do that.

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Re:Don't call it 'outsourcing': Hiring employees globally is... by hnfong on Wednesday August 04, 2021 @02:59PM (#28064815)

Not sure whether you're looking at the same stats, but Asian countries/cities seem to have the best scores...

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