I recently attended a very interesting presentation by Dan Ariely hosted by one of the best consultants on corporate performance, and employee management, MindGym. These guys approach human resources from an angle that is truly based on science, not management theory or the latest fad in how to motivate people and manage organisations.
My top books during the “shelter in place” (pandemic) time includes Ariely (the Upside of Irrationality) and Kahneman (Thinking Fast & Slow).
The companies i chose to work for had unique hiring processes e.g. One really great software development company just asked me 3 questions and take 24 hours to solve (a brain teaser, a standard programming exam type and a real life problem needed at the job).
Since I solved the 3 and didn’t pull my hair out or got frustrated they thought I had enough cognitive ability and sufficient emotional stability. I worked there for 8 years until the software package and All it’s source code and IP was bought out.
The typical hiring process flow is broken.
First of all if you ever go through a cheap/volume-based recruiter they have no clue who to pass along to the hiring manager whose time to screen applicants is extremely limited. They depend on some ATS (applicant tracking system) based on the job description by a dumb matching of terms and acronyms, devoid of context and understanding. This filtration method will let through false positives and eliminate some great candidates that otherwise “missed” a bit some acronyms or used slightly different terms.
Second, The reason hiring process depends on similarities with interviewers is the behavioral shortcut that given limited information our neural network will gravitate towards known and familiar. The theory being that “if the applicant behaves and looks similar to me and the emotional getting along question is likely okay.”
Lastly, once inside the organization it is a roll of the dice if the manager of the hired applicant is truly engaged- some people think employee engagement is a soft skill. This is proven to be actually measurable in KPIs including effect on revenues. (Refer to Russ Laraway, Qualtrics). A great manager will make his reports perform higher and overall improve the company. Many managers cannot even write clear goals and create alignment of results. If you have managers promoted because they are the best technicians but without managerial training, then you will have multiple curly haired evil Dlibert-bosses (Peter principle).
Minimally a manager should be able to Direct, Coach and enhance Career prospects of every report.
Clear Communication and culture of continuous improvement is part of the deal. In software development we are inundated with CD/CI (continuous development and continuous improvement) for better productivity and agility. This same push should be done on people
Just like any experiment- hiring has trial and errors but not enough learning from errors is actually enforced and sometimes bad managers are kept too long furthering the hiring malady instead of correcting overall course.
This is why only a few business ideas become billion-dollar businesses while others burn to the ground. I will quote here one of the best one-liner advise I heard on the vine allegedly from Peter Thiel on what a great promising startup should do: “Don’t fuck up the culture”
I saw a bit of enlightened hiring the other day (humble brag: involves my son).
As an undergrad ML he was seeking a position, and the company gave him a programming assignment to see how he coded. He found it easy, writing minimal code. At first, the company was surprised: they wanted to see a more extensive program to see how you write code. Then they ran his solution, found out was efficient, and decided to hire him despite his approach going against their priors. I want to provide kudos to that manager.
My top books during the “shelter in place” (pandemic) time includes Ariely (the Upside of Irrationality) and Kahneman (Thinking Fast & Slow).
The companies i chose to work for had unique hiring processes e.g. One really great software development company just asked me 3 questions and take 24 hours to solve (a brain teaser, a standard programming exam type and a real life problem needed at the job).
Since I solved the 3 and didn’t pull my hair out or got frustrated they thought I had enough cognitive ability and sufficient emotional stability. I worked there for 8 years until the software package and All it’s source code and IP was bought out.
The typical hiring process flow is broken.
First of all if you ever go through a cheap/volume-based recruiter they have no clue who to pass along to the hiring manager whose time to screen applicants is extremely limited. They depend on some ATS (applicant tracking system) based on the job description by a dumb matching of terms and acronyms, devoid of context and understanding. This filtration method will let through false positives and eliminate some great candidates that otherwise “missed” a bit some acronyms or used slightly different terms.
Second, The reason hiring process depends on similarities with interviewers is the behavioral shortcut that given limited information our neural network will gravitate towards known and familiar. The theory being that “if the applicant behaves and looks similar to me and the emotional getting along question is likely okay.”
Lastly, once inside the organization it is a roll of the dice if the manager of the hired applicant is truly engaged- some people think employee engagement is a soft skill. This is proven to be actually measurable in KPIs including effect on revenues. (Refer to Russ Laraway, Qualtrics). A great manager will make his reports perform higher and overall improve the company. Many managers cannot even write clear goals and create alignment of results. If you have managers promoted because they are the best technicians but without managerial training, then you will have multiple curly haired evil Dlibert-bosses (Peter principle).
Minimally a manager should be able to Direct, Coach and enhance Career prospects of every report.
Clear Communication and culture of continuous improvement is part of the deal. In software development we are inundated with CD/CI (continuous development and continuous improvement) for better productivity and agility. This same push should be done on people
Just like any experiment- hiring has trial and errors but not enough learning from errors is actually enforced and sometimes bad managers are kept too long furthering the hiring malady instead of correcting overall course.
This is why only a few business ideas become billion-dollar businesses while others burn to the ground. I will quote here one of the best one-liner advise I heard on the vine allegedly from Peter Thiel on what a great promising startup should do: “Don’t fuck up the culture”
I saw a bit of enlightened hiring the other day (humble brag: involves my son).
As an undergrad ML he was seeking a position, and the company gave him a programming assignment to see how he coded. He found it easy, writing minimal code. At first, the company was surprised: they wanted to see a more extensive program to see how you write code. Then they ran his solution, found out was efficient, and decided to hire him despite his approach going against their priors. I want to provide kudos to that manager.
Excellent hiring decision.