I have a favorite letter in the FAANG word: a company whose values and product resonate particularly strongly with me, and I'd love to work there. I'm sure you have a favorite company, too. A great product, a great culture, delicious coffee in the office - there could be many reasons. For me, it's an interest in seeing how people work at the world's richest companies. But if I want to get a job there, I'll have to go through 7 circles of hell:
- Decipher the job description – what's behind the "modern product," how to "build the digital future" and whether I have enough "desire to learn" to work there.
- Pass filters by age, work experience, and know a long list of technologies, only a third of which will be useful to me at work.
- Break through the unnecessary people - tell the recruiter 10 keywords. Otherwise I won't even satisfy the inner instinct of an economics graduate, and I won't get an offer.
Only if I spend enough time and effort preparing for all these stages will I (possibly) be awarded a technical round (or several), a soft skills interview, and the long-awaited offer.
The problem is, I'm not paid to understand how hiring works. I shouldn't have to think about it. But the process above takes weeks, if not months, of my life. And I value my time - it's the most precious resource you can have. I'm a developer, and in this article, I'll name the biggest mistakes companies make when hiring candidates.
The World Through the Eyes of a Recruiter
This is what hiring looks like from the idea to the new employee at every company I've worked for. The manager sees the team's poor performance and decides to expand it. Since he lacks technical understanding, the manager only sets a couple of criteria. Let’s say we need a guy who knows Java, is proficient in Scrum, and will come to the office. Then manager delegates the task of hiring, along with the requirements to HR. Some companies employ in-house staff, others hand the job over directly to recruiters and sourcers from a third-party company. A sourcer is the person whose job it is to post the vacancy on various platforms or immediately contact top candidates via DM.
This is where the magic begins. Process now contains people who lack tools for assessing technical skills, context about the tasks, and the team. So, the recruiter receives the task, looks at the manager's requirements, and thinks: I can't publish this job posting! Firstly, thousands of people will apply. I'll get tired of looking at all these resumes! Secondly, everyone will think I'm bad at my job. So, I need to add criteria. So, what do they usually write there?
As a result of the recruiter's work, the developer is faced with:
- Inflated company descriptions that contain no useful information.
- Filters like "at least 1 year of experience," requirements like a driver's license, Upper-Intermediate Mandarin, writing "effective code," team spirit, design skills, etc.
To be on the safe side, the recruiter will run all of this through GPT, making the text even more empty. To make sure no one thinks he did a poor job, sourcer will also call the candidate for 15 minutes to ask questions, the answers to which can be quickly found on their resume. Someone said this is a way to test the candidate's "adequacy." As a developer, I can say there's something to this - my nerves and patience are tested every time on such a call.
Main Mistakes
As a developer, I want the sourcer to connect me with the company. Whether I'm a good fit for the company, or the company for me, will be decided during the interview with the team. I've interviewed candidates and know that the team has the same requirements for the sourcer. Mistakes are made due to the fact that no one checks the sourcers' work. They're free to do whatever they want, which results in many problems. Here are the main ones:
- The team isn't shown the final job description. No one except the recruiter knows what the job description offered to the candidate looks like.
- The team has no motivation to help with hiring. I just don't want to do it - I joined this company to write code. Interviewing developers don't get bonuses, they don't have a ticket on the Scrum board, and no one trains them on the process. But the team knows best what the ideal candidate should look like. As a result, no one considers whether it's really important for a new team member to have at least five years of experience.
- Hiring utilizes people without context and technical background. I often see law or economics degrees in the educational history of the recruiters interviewing me. HR, recruiters, or sourcers set criteria without knowing what's going on within the team. If a manager posts a vacancy directly and the team sees the candidate early on, everyone wins. The company saves on recruiters, and I, as a candidate, get a positive experience.
- The company doesn't audit its hiring processes. When a new position opens, a suitable employee from another department should apply for it. If you're a good employee but you can't pass an interview, your company's hiring process is broken.
- Formalizing processes makes them worse. The more a company tries to automate its hiring process, the worse it works. Our user experience as candidates suffer when we face all those filters. Then, dissatisfied, I'll go to a portal like Glassdoor, leave a bad rating, and dump the questions, because I’m offended by that kind of attitude.
- Sourcers and recruiters are fluid professions; people there rarely last longer than a year. I often get emails from sourcers who are also studying at universities. For them, recruiting is a part-time job. Such people don't have the time to understand how to best find and treat future employees. They'll waste both the candidate's time and their own.
What should developers do?
HR is loosing it. Unfortunately, if you're a developer, you can't influence the hiring market. I just explained why it's so hard for you to find a job and why these difficulties are pointless. Of course, you can continue to play by the rules, hoping to be lucky enough to be among the top ten on a recruiter's list, or that they'll like your aura.
But the system leaves no choice. My personal experience of trying to fit in was unsuccessful. Alternatives like networking, recommendation letters, and finding jobs through tech leads don't work. Unless you've been in the industry for 10 years, you haven't yet managed to build sufficient connections.
You have to adapt. I suggest you accept the fact: any formalization of hiring is not only the result of laziness on the part of the manager, HR, and recruiters, but also a sign of professional disrespect for you as a future employee. I'm upset that I repeatedly miss out on opportunities to work at a great company with great people because of broken rules. I want to create a great product, not just rehash my resume.
You can bypass these rules. I optimize my profile (fill my resume with the right keywords and stretch my years of experience). I do marketing (I tell the recruiter how great I am) – because I see him as a problem in the pipeline. These hacks work, and I want you to know about them – they'll help you get to the technical round. Only there will you meet people who actually know what the company needs. In the technical stage, you'll prove your expertise, show what kind of person you are, and find out if you like the company. If you would like to learn more, join the discussion on my YouTube channel.
Don't let broken processes keep you from your dream job.
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