Clojurians Log v2

How do you make decision about communication / cultural fit for candidate?

@kwladyka HR talk to them first about non-technical stuff to get a general sense of how they interact with someone on that level (since most folks in the company are not technical -- and we're a very diverse company, so how they interact with women and p.o.c. is kind of important here: since our customer base also reflects that). And then, when I conduct an interview, it's a conversation about what projects they enjoyed more or less and why, what tech they like and why, workflows, handling conflicts, etc. I do not give a "technical test" as part of that, because I can judge their technical knowledge/approach by listening to how they talk about past projects and workflow and tech stack.

I've posted my mind map several times, that guides my interviews.

Yeah, choose Files in this channel and search for interview and you'll see the PDF. I start in the top right and go down the right side then, if things are still going well, I switch to the top left and go down that side.

I'd be curious to see why someone who is looking for a rare kind of candidate (such as a good clojure developer) would ever do anything other than 3 or 4 (unless they receive high loads of absurdly underqualified applications).

Let me give you a context: 1) At least in my impression HR doesn't do good job about identifying good candidates. They are not technical. They are first filter, but necessary to pass. We are not talking about ideal company, but real case scenrio. 2) Companies use AI to filter CV which change approach how to write CV these days. You need to pass another filter to even make someone read your first page. 3) There are hundreds of CV or more to browse. Nobody read all of them carefully on first stage. So... all in all to be in stage when someone will read your CV carefully you need to pass all previous steps.

You may be right. I suppose I would be holding a company that has chosen clojure in a high regard and expect them to have spent significant time on the hammock for their recruitment process as well. Perhaps that is naïve of me.

I can give you real live example, but without names. CEO of US corporation was good headhunter and hired me by linkedin. My whole team and people around were true experts. Company was acquired by even bigger corporation. Next time we were recruiting by HR and candidates which passed to us (developers team) for verification were far away from quality which I could experience before. Clojure has nothing to do with this. This is about people who recruit and how they choose candidates. At least this is my impression about reality 🙂

I'm sure you're right. This wouldn't be the first time I learn that I have delusional expectations.

When we had an open req for a JS dev, we got 1,000 applications and had to whittle that down to a reasonable number for interviews. For a Clojure dev role, we had maybe an order of magnitude fewer, and they were much higher quality. You can use a different process for those differences in scale.

Technical excellence isn't necessarily the top criteria for a lot of companies. Communication is top for a lot of places. "Cultural fit" is top for a lot of places. Horrible phrase - and with startups it tends to mean something different to large companies - but being able to work as part of a team in whatever cultural environment a company has (or is trying to create) can be critical to a high-performing team.

I've posted my mind map several times, that guides my interviews.Yes, I think I still keep it on my local drive 😉 > how they interact with someone On the end is it about abstractive feelings during conversation or more like candidate can't say they work for money and need to say they are interested in what company is doing, because this is so important etc. I simplify it of course, but sometimes I have this impression for "cultural fit" for some companies.

The candidate needs to be honest. But if a candidate cannot articulate why they've applied to a specific job at a specific company, yes, that's a problem for me as a hiring manager. I want folks on my team who actually care about what they're doing, not just "I need money and you need a developer" 😄

I agree. From my perspective as a candidate I can only add the connection between "care about what they're doing" and "why they've applied to a specific job at a specific company" can be weak or none in the context of looking a job. Actually I can go step farther and say for candidate there is no way to know if / how company match needs of candidate after read description of the job and company. Probably in the same way how recruiter can't say if candidates match after reading they CV. Description of the job is usually (always) different, than reality and you can't read from there if you will like everyday job there. I know nothing, but I would not assume "care" has connection to "why I want this job in this company". The "care" is something what come later when you can experience the job in the company and people there. Not before you get a job. I think so. Sure I would tell something to answer such question, but honestly how I can care at that stage of work to care about company and they mission / business. Adding on top of it to get a job I need to send hundreds of CV if I want to work remotely for west countries. Unless someone "care", because company use favourite tool or this is "renewable energy" company so they change the world :) Recruiters have so hard job to choose good candidates 🙂 I am not a everyday recruiter, but I always had this impression there is no way to know until you hire someone for 3 months 🙂 Maybe this is just lack of experience haha 🙂

I've never had to let go anyone I've hired for lack of technical ability. I've hardly ever had to let go anyone I've hired, for any reason. So I guess I'm doing better than "most" hiring managers / companies / etc. 🙂 But most companies / hiring managers do not work the way I work (and many of those folks have had to let people go).

The power of immutability. Being hired is a fact!