Published on August 28, 2024 8:12 AM GMT
TLDR: Select candidates heterogeneously, then give them all a very hard test, only continue with candidates that do very well (accept that you lose some good ones), then briefly judge on interviews/whatever.
I'm no expert but I've made some recommendations that turned out pretty well -- maybe like 5 ever. This post would probably be better if I waited 10 years to write it. Nonetheless, I think my method is far better than what most orgs/corps do. I have not seen a post on this subject on LW. If you have had mad hiring success (judging by what your org accomplished) then please comment!
Prereqs:
- it's the kind of position where someone super good at it can generate a ton of value (eg sales/outreach, coding, actual engineering, research, management, ops, ...)lots of candidates are available and you expect at least some of them are super good at the jobyou have at least a month to lookit's possible for someone to demonstrate extreme competence at this type of job in a day or twoyour org is trying to do a thing (rather than be a thing)you want to succeed at that thing (ie you don't have some other secret goal)your goal with hiring people is to do that thing better/faster (ie you don't need more friends or a prestige bump)your work situation does not demand that you look stand-out competent (ie you don't unemploy yourself if you succeed in hiring well)
You probably don't meet the prereqs. Your org is probably one step in your professional career; you want to meet people going places; you're in it for the journey not the destination; it's not a big boon for you personally if the org finishes its project; your raises depend on you not out-hiring yourself; etc. Don't feel bad — it is totally ok to be an ordinary social creature! Being a goal psycho often sucks in every way except all the accomplished goals! The nice stuff can happen, but is less correlated with project success than one might hope.
If you do meet the prereqs, then good news, hiring is almost easy. You just need to find people who are good at doing exactly what you need done. Here's the method:
- Do look at performance (measure it yourself)Accept noiseDon't look at anything else (yet)Except that they work hard
Do look at performance
Measure it yourself! Make up a test task. You need something that people can take without quitting their jobs or much feedback from you; you and the candidate should not become friends during the test; a timed 8-hour task is a reasonable starting point. Most importantly, you must be able to quickly and easily distinguish good results from very good results. The harder the task, the easier it is to judge the success of top attempts.
Important!! Make the task something where success really does tell you they'll do the job well. Not a proxy IQ test or leetcode. The correlation is simply not high enough. Many people think they just need to hire someone generally smart and capable. I disagree, unless your org is very large or nebulous.
This task must also not be incredibly lame or humiliating, or you will only end up hiring people lacking a spine. (Common problem!) Don't filter out the spines.
It can be hard to think of a good test task but it is well worth all the signal you will get.
Let's say you are hiring someone to arrange all your offices. Have someone come arrange a couple offices and see if people like it. Pretty simple.
If you can't judge, then find someone who can. Caution!! Judging judges is hard. (Aside from whether they are able to judge, they probably have different incentives from you.)
Oh and of course it is important to pay people as much as you can for their time and the stress! Also helps you avoid the guilt that may lead you to get sloppy on hiring protocol.
Accept noise
You're going to set up some arbitrary filters. Very talented people will often fail them because they weren't prepared to do the exact random thing you asked them to do. Accept this. You only need 1 (or n) people to succeed. You are not running a charity. Or if you are running a charity, then hiring people isn't part of the charity. Or if it is then you're reading the wrong post.
You make the task very difficult to make sure that only "true positives" (ie definitely super talented people) get further into the pipeline where everyone will meet them and probably get attached. Firing people sucks super bad! So you eat all the false negatives. You will probably have a lot more false negatives than true positives. You gotta eat it.
You can communicate this to candidates early & often. Eg in the job ad: "We hire based on the results of some short but very difficult tests which most people, including most qualified candidates, do not pass. Test is paid well!"
Don't look at anything else (yet)
So here we get to the motivation of this unusual and brutal protocol.
You might expect resumes and references and interviews and so on to give you strictly more information. Really, they should just give you a better picture. But 90% of your brain matter is dedicated to finding allies etc and only 5 parts per million is tasked with carrying out abstract objectives on the outside world. Folks will switch political parties for love and respect! So be damned sure your brain will throw the quarterly targets in the waste bin in exchange for some direct personal social value. You have to blind this part of your brain from what's going on until candidates are screened.
To really spell this out, let me list all the orgs which say they only hire "top talent": all of them. Let me list all of the orgs where all the people are very good at their jobs: very few. Let me list all the orgs which are plagued by office politics: all of them. Let me list all the candidates which understand that office politics exists and are (possibly subconsciously) trying to game it: 88.88%. For example, almost no candidates are mean to the boss, but many candidates are mean to others.
After people have passed the first screen, you are free to pick and choose people based on professionalism or experience or whatever. You only have to be a little patient.
There is one little issue. You probably don't have enough time and money to administer the main test task to all your applicants. Someone must do a first-pass filter. It is a very good idea to make this a different person from the main test administrator/judge.
My opinion on how to do the first pass: aim for heterogeneity! For example, many high school graduates are better at coding or electronics or math or ad writing than the average college graduate in those areas. I don't know exactly where the bell curves lie, but they certainly overlap. There's also lots of people in their 40s that are really really good at jobs that usually are reserved for the young! Coding is an example. Recent college graduates and young professionals might be the most likely place to find a good hire, but then you'll be searching the same spot in the river as all the other orgs.
Except that they work hard
This is where my simple little guide gets murky. There's actually two requirements for any job: good at it, and works hard. Unfortunately, this latter thing is much harder to judge at an arm's length. It is also liable to change with time and circumstance.
I have no good answer here. Almost any way you can accurately judge hardworkingness will lead to attachments all around. You have to use your gut here I guess. And maybe portfolios, but plagiarism is commonplace.
The psychopath (eg Amazon's) approach is to continually watch everyone's productivity and try to get lazy people to quit, or else fire them. I do not like this much.
Conclusion
Before you go crazy trying to hire super talented people, make sure that's what you actually need & want (it probably isn't). But such hiring is kind of easy if you stay focused on it and don't let your heart get in the way before the difficult test is done & graded. (Keep your heart out by literally not looking at resumes or even names or faces at all until after the test.) You will likely find some talented folks from unusual places this way. After the test is passed, pick among the candidates however you want.
Discuss
