Too many engineers on this site live (work) in a bubble. The rest of the labor force doesn't have it quite as good.
Since almost all large companies are doing this, it means you'd have to ignore half of job offers, and the vast majority of people can't afford to be that picky, especially in the current job market.
So someone who puts "used C sharp on projects" gets the same "yes" as someone who describes, in detail, their extensive C# projects at various organizations, large and small.
And, no, we don't even get "5%" for opinion.
The reason is, according to the HR contact who so directed me, almost every hire ends in at least one lawsuit from a candidate not selected, claiming unfair hiring practice.
I can imagine that regardless of your hiring procedure you may get people who feel sour about not being picked and will take some action.
As far as I was aware in most jurisdictions you can reject a candidate for basically any reason you like as long as it isn't related to race , gender or one of the other protected classes.
Rejecting a candidate because their resume is poorly written (suggesting poor communication skills or poor attention to detail) doesn't seem like it should be something which would be controversial and I'd certainly be curious what argument could be made to a court that it should be otherwise?
edit: I worked at another government agency in this same state before, and the hiring procedures were not quite as strict (we could evaluate resumes more holistically), so I think it's probably just this HR department.
The effects of this are very well known...
Instead of hiring the best person for the job, you end up hiring the person who meets the minimum qualifications (which are lowered greatly in the process). Then mediocrity, bureaucracy, and incompetence takes over the place. Further, a system of red-tape is created to hold it all together.
C'mon, you need to think like a bureaucrat: Just add "clear written communication skills" or "Can write details about past projects associated with C#" or whatever level of specificity you need.
Yes, it's a dumbass game.
Government budgets are so awful for a similar reason. A rigid, bureaucratic process exists so that they can always document a lack of corruption. Of course the result is sometimes silly, like when an agency is short-staffed but buys Aeron chairs for everyone--because there was money left in the equipment budget, but they were not permitted to shift it to the contractor or staff budget.
Here this is extremely common, also when you fire people.
So, if you have insider info, you know that:
First, if people suspect you are black, homosexual or a women from your resume, they don't interview you in first place.
If you DO get to the interview, then it switches, they hire you even if there are better candidates.
This is not so strong, the real problem comes in the firing.
If a company has 20 engineers, and need to fire 3 to reduce costs, they will fire straight white males first, because if they sue for discrimination, the company can easily defend itself (what sane judge would believe that you got fired for being white, straight or male?).
If they REALLY need to fire a black/gay/woman/whatever then they do a mass firing (like, say they are closing the department), and hire back the employees they want.
And most important of all, they do everything they can to make employees don't know about this, because when they do, tensions quickly build up, with white straight males sabotaging or acting passive agressive toward everyone else as a sort of perceived self defense (since they don't want to be fired unfairly).
All of this also apply to disabled persons too, in Brazil your company is obliged to hire 3% of disabled persons if you have more than 2000 employees. Several callcenters operate with 1999 or they comply with the laws by firing abled persons and hiring disabled until they have 3% of disabled so they can hire able persons again (ie: if you have 1999 employees and zero disabled, start firing abled people and replacing them with disabled until you are sure that when reaching 2000 you have 3% of ables).
Again, this create some crazy tensions, with disabled employees getting sabotaged or attacked passively by other employees, that upfront all of them praise the company for being pro-diversity, but behind everyone back want to just keep their jobs.
Most folks don't realize it, but the phrase above is redundant. Intrinsically, the function of HR is CYA for the company. By the time you have full-blown HR, CYA is present.
One example: Need to fire someone? Trained HR folks will help you navigate the minefield of legalities.
Making a suboptimal recommendation knowing it will harm someone else more than it will harm you. Diffusing responsibility. Inflating estimates. etc etc.
This is part of the Innovator's Dilemma--people tend to keep doing what is working "well enough" because they can't be blamed for that, and opportunity cost tends to be invisible unless it's looked for. Meanwhile, a competitor with less to lose is more likely to take the risky bet. If they succeed, they eventully beat the former incumbent.
Edit to add: in the case of hiring, CYA can mean hiring someone who's no different from anyone else currently employed in the company--and therefore perhaps missing an opportunity to create positive change.
Thanks but no thanks.
One of the companies my father owned, he one day went to see something at the police station, and saw open book of wanted criminals, and found half of his employees there, and all of them were in the same criminal group, while inside the company they behaved like if they did not knew each other until they met at the workplace...
But probably I would refuse to take a drug test too. But sometimes companies are between a rock and a hard place.
As the author says, that is more or less what to expect when a company grows past a certain size.
It's human nature (not one of the high points of it), or better the nature of mature/large companies.
I'm sure there are exceptions (Google ? Facebook ?) but my personal experiences sort of confirm that.
I'm not saying that it's not possible to "thrive" in such organizations, since they offer plenty of pluses (stability, more time to adapt, resources, mobility, variety), it really depends on one's nature, and on what he is looking for.
However, as I've recently unhappily discovered, our current interview process often suggests just the opposite. As a passive candidate myself, I've actually terminated several interviews for far lesser offenses than what we are guilty of.
Things are improving quickly now that more of us are aware of what has been going on, but I'm now a bit more willing to tolerate other companies' hiring sins than I was before.
There are so few exceptions to this it's not worth worrying about.
My experience (EBRD) was that it was possible to switch from temping (got that through a friend) to contracting to employee (I turned down the last). Friends at the World Bank used a variety of methods to join, but all benefited from talking to professionals inside along the way. These tips are important, but it's far better to have the HR person know that there is existing demand for the applicant.
If you happen to be a contractor working for Volt, Adecco, Robert Half or some other staffing firm, then you are in a different league and are often in a worse position than as an established employee or a truly independent contractor... you might have some basic benefits and 401k, but this is body-shop territory and it's advisable to consider this situation as non-permanent.
I come, I go, I get paid. Simple, without any entanglements.
I've talked to other minority students during my time in undergrad and grad school and it's pretty crazy how many of us are plagued by impostor syndrome. I'm talking about incredibly high performing individuals who are near the top of their field at a prestigious university that don't know if they are there because of their abilities or their skin color.
I think the reality is that these days being a minority is not a "burden", it's an advantage, and an unfair one. It would be better if it was just a non-issue but I guess we're just not there yet.
Try to understand the mindset of the people you expect to be looking at your resume and create something that will get you into the interview room. An example is that the "resume" for my current job was a casual email that didn't include any normal stuff that would be in a resume.
It's a bit of a double standard, but they might have been expecting you to be dressed in a suit anyway. Good luck with the job!
>Why your tech CV sucks. And here's how we can help. By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/your_cv/
>Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse. Really, why do you even bother... By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/17/connor_on_interviews...
I'm wondering if this is a meta statement (where database connection is interpreted as having a real life social connection to someone at the firm you wish to join)
>if you are a minority, or from an under represented gender it will work to your advantage
This is part of the bizarre myth of black privilege that's been part of the culture since Reagan's race baiting. It's really rarely to your advantage to be black (or even have a name that sounds black), unless the environment you're being hired for is lily-white and has recently had a discrimination-based legal scare.
edit: to be fair to the article - it is describing exactly the time when being black is advantageous in hiring. But to correct the article - at a lot of business, the only time that they hire black people is when their racial balance has been criticized. So overall, any indication that you are black is not going to work well at a company who would be criticized about their racial mix, unless that company's problem is lack of applicants - if it's in Colorado or something.
However, it may be everything that matters for writing a CV - as when you're in the interview, everybody (hopefully) will be looking at you and your real skill description, not the CV.
That said, I broke my rule the next year, sent in a resume and went through a grueling process to ultimately get hired at a small consulting firm. Breaking my rule was a terrible decision, but fortunately its affects were quick to take effect, and short-lasting.
It was an awful job for me, but the company had a round of layoffs 90 days later that I was caught in.
My foot hit the pavement that day, and I realized it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I'm currently at a fast-growing, profitable startup. I got the job by pitching work and writing my own job description. I joined the company as employee #12. Not once did anyone ever ask me for a formal resume. All they cared about were results.
I have a beautiful resume somewhere on my hard drive. But I have even better results that you can see in my actual work.
Furthermore - whatever reduces the risk of that HR officer losing their job, or that of the manager. You can't get fired for hiring a person with 10 years of experience as opposed to one with 2 years, even if the person with 2 years experience may be a much better employee.
I've never worked anywhere with priorities like this, not even in the Australian Public Service (which certainly has cretinous hiring practices, but not like this). To begin with, most HR departments only lightly filter resumes submitted against a position -- if you get tossed out of the mix by the person in recruiting it's probably for a dumb reason (e.g. your CV lacks a crucial buzzword) but again, not these reasons.
