I am disabled and mentally ill, which is why I don't get hired for a job. I didn't used to be this way and developed it from a lot of stress while working.
I can still do tech work and program, just that everyone can pick up I am mentally ill and discriminate against me for it. I'd have to find the right company that can accommodate a mentally ill person as an employee. I'm often accused of having autism in the way I talk and write.
Very interesting story.. weird how this WSJ article references an HN thread
I feel like a group panel interview would skew candidates in a different way than a one on one. There's some psychology around how people act in groups at play that might really mask the viability of a candidate.. for instance in group social settings, wouldn't whoever's the most dominantly confident (or just loud), going to have an outside advantage in impressing the interviewer?
Where I work, we make extensive use of group simulations in our hiring decisions. With a well designed scenario, defined roles for group members and contentious issues that must be resolved, you really learn a lot about how people add value, or subtract it, in a group setting.
The hiring team forms a circle at a discrete distance around the group and each of us has an assigned person to watch. That way we can catch body language etc. When doing this, it is remarkable how some people can in a low key, quiet way, bring missing information into the discussion, sway the group or bring it to a constructive consensus. We love those people and they have a high success rate when we hire them.
It is pretty normal that a very impressive candidate one-on-one looks very different in the group setting, and vise versa. We tend only to hire the people that do well in both the one on one and the group.
Oh - the loud dominant strategy is very hard to pull off successfully in a group context. There is too much risk of it being obvious (to the hiring team watching) that it subtracted value.
What I wonder about this idea - it sounds like they started out with a open house for everyone who applied, regardless of qualifications, instead of phone screens. So how many really qualified candidates are going to be interested in travelling out to the company for an "open house" with everyone else who applied for the job?
From a candidate's perspective, the phone screen lets you prove yourself to the company and get to know them a little before taking the commitment of actually going there - usually during business hours, possibly disrupting any job you're currently working at. I feel more comfortable taking time off to go there when they've already proven that they're serious about me and I know that they've evaluated me well enough to know that there's at least a good chance I'm a fit for the position.
> it sounds like they started out with a open house for everyone who applied, regardless of qualifications, instead of phone screens.<
I'm the CEO in the story. Oversimplifying a bit, we didn't invite everyone who responded to our ad to come to the open house, but put the responses into three buckets: those who get an invitation immediately (the "positive" email), those who get a second chance to say something interesting (the "negative" email), and those who were basically ignored because their background matched those who didn't do well in the past. As we have iterated and refined the approach, we emphasized the value of speaking to us in the first communication and dropped the negative email.
I understand your point about the phone screen, but found that this is a trade-off. The phone screen was very ineffective for us in letting people know who we are, our size, our location, what we do on a daily basis. The open house format lets the prospective employees see us as we are, where we are. Inevitably, people drop out of the process, and it's fine with us, as it opens up slots for those who like what they see. In an open house format, the candidates ask questions as a group, which means that any particular person benefits from the questions that others ask. They see our existing staff and can decide if this is a group they want to work with.
We are upfront with the candidates that we can't hire all of them, and therefore it seems like a fair exchange to do something for the "unchosen" as a bonus for coming in. Brooke and Noah have helped by providing guidance for them, and we have all tried to create a community of the unchosen.
The core concept being promoted here is that the current recruitment system is broken, and it is the fault of all of us who unquestioningly perpetuate it. My response is to experiment with different ideas until we find a model that works for all parties involved. I don't have a magic wand to provide the solution, but do keep notes on what hypothesis is being tested, what seems to work, what doesn't work and what possible improvements we should try.
> What I wonder about this idea - it sounds like they started out with a open house for everyone who applied, regardless of qualifications, instead of phone screens. So how many really qualified candidates are going to be interested in travelling out to the company for an "open house" with everyone else who applied for the job?
Probably not many, but as was discussed recently in the context of TripleByte[1] some qualified people have "bad" resumes and may struggle to get phone screens. Go through enough resume-level rejections and you might welcome such an open house, if for no other reason than to network with people you might not otherwise be able to meet.
also it likely disproportionately selects for people who do well in those kinds of situations, which may be completely orthogonal to the position they're being hired for.
I am hopeful that helping your non-hires ultimately becomes a fixed part of a company's recruiting process (especially in SV where companies compete on the craziest hiring perks).
Applicants spend a significant time to prepare and come on-site, even though in many cases this only leads to a rejection. A company's brand and culture should (by a candidate) also be evaluated by how they treat the candidates they don't hire, just how a person should be evaluated by how they treat their waiter.
We've created smarthires.io for this reason. Companies can refer candidates they liked but didn't hire and we'll introduce these candidates to other companies in the same network. Many times a candidate who's not a great fit for one company could be the perfect fit for another.
The best organizations and their people make it a joyous, exciting process. It brings out the best in applicants and all involved. It also leads to friendships, whether the person is hired or not. This is how lifetime relationships develop.
The bigger question is whether this experiment will inspire others to try something new and different. If most companies do not adopt such an approach, will the adopters have a competitive advantage?
"The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage, since very few organizations are very good at it." ~Peter Drucker
I agree that nobody should take me too seriously. I often take myself too seriously and it is exhausting and thankless work.
On the other hand, I disagree with your assertion that I made people take a course as part of a hiring process. I simply said that I’d hire someone if they knew some things and 27 of my candidates who didn’t know those things asked if I would teach them for fee. I agreed to offer a three-week course on condition they wanted to learn for its own sake and that they were NOT doing it to get a job because I wasn’t guaranteeing anyone would get hired and, besides, the chance any one person would get hired was perhaps 4%. In the end a bunch of them proved to be superb and I hired two instead of one as I’d originally hoped. And I got a few others jobs elsewhere. I didn’t have to do that, but I did. And they didn’t have to learn what they did, but they did.
You can accuse me of being biased in favor of people who like learning things for its own sake and who know how to do the job I need done. But if you are going to accuse people of forcing time-consuming education on candidates then I’d hope you’ll spend time going after employers who force you to have an irrelevant degree from a costly university before they will even let your resume past some idiotic filter.
ON PREJUDICES: Often I don’t get what I want because other people have inaccurate judgments concerning me. But what can I expect; who has the time to really do due diligence. And who am I to judge their judgments of me? If I were a judge at court I’d have to recuse myself because I am way too close to my own case.
This is not to say prejudice doesn’t exist. It does. And it is not to say it isn’t harmful. It is. Prejudice harms us all and the prejudices that harm me the most are my own; they keep me from being all I can be.
When I overlook good candidates because I judge them on irrelevant characteristics then I am constraining my options and that does me no good. Although it would be wonderful if the world was perfect I’ve found it most fruitful to concentrate on the problems closest to me and interestingly they usually involve something about me I could improve upon or resign myself to. I’m happier and more productive when I spend so much time trying to be part of a solution (and not the precipitate) that I don’t have time left over to theorize about what people beyond my influence should be doing.
ON MENTAL DISABILITIES: If you spend any time with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders I’m sure you can find yourself and everyone you know in there. It seems to me that strengths and weaknesses of the mind should be considered only if relevant just as with things in the physical realm. I’m not sure where to draw the line, however I rue the day when sociopaths cannot be discriminated against. In any event, I’ve concluded that life is a terminal spectrum disorder we just have to deal with as best as we can (until we don’t have to any more).
ON SELF-DISCLOSURE: As a practical matter, if you have an obvious disability the best time to bring it up is right before it becomes obvious. For example, if you have a stutter and you ask for forbearance at the beginning of an interview then you can win people’s hearts and they will be rooting for you. But if you don’t then often they cannot wait for the conversation to end. If your disability is not obvious but might require accommodation later on then probably the best time to disclose it is after you get a job offer and before you accept.
If you choose to go public with your issues and make them a cause célèbre then in order to win broad support it will need to be clear that you are doing it for the benefit of people in your circumstances and not just as cover for your own failings. Even then, the recognition you deserve might only come posthumously, but that is irrelevant unless it is recognition that you seek.
PEOPLE I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM: Although this discussion is interesting I wonder if any of you out there would like my help improving how you hire people. If so, please contact me.
I am retired and don’t need to do this, but I want to. If you are stinking rich I can be expensive and if you’re sincerely broke then I can be free. Either way, you have to tell me who you are. I’m at BrookeAllen.com.
It would be very helpful not only to me, but to people like me, were potential employers to comply with the labor laws. Specifically, the various state laws regarding age discrimination - in Oregon, one may not discriminate for reasons of age against people over forty. There is also the US Americans with Disabilities Act. I am dead certain that I lose work because I link to two essays about my mental illness right at the top of every page of my website.
My Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder was diagnosed in 1985.
I started my first salaried coding job in 1987.
I was hired as a Product Development Manager in 1990.
I graduated with a BA in Physics in 1993.
In 1994, I invented a novel, unobvious lossless bitmap graphics compressor.
In 1995, I was hired as a Senior Engineer at Apple Computer, where I worked as a "Debug Meister".
In 2000, I was married to a woman who knew all about my illness. We purchased a nice house with money I earned as a consultant.
In 2015, I can't get a job because I have grey hair, and I am openly public about being mentally ill.
>> There is also the US Americans with Disabilities Act. I am dead certain that I lose work because I link to two essays about my mental illness right at the top of every page of my website.
With respect, why do you do this? How can you possibly think this is a good idea?
I sympathize that you have a mental illness, but you're being stubborn by complaining that you can't get a job when one of the primary obstacles is clearly in your power. Don't advertise that you have a mental illness. No matter how you would like the world to work, it does not work in such a way that advertising mental illness is in any way conducive to searching for a job.
Here is another example, to take away the stigma of mental illness: I'm a hiring manager, and I just found out that you have cancer on your blog. This was directly in the navigation of the blog.
This is bad. I don't want to not hire you because you have cancer. I don't want to discriminate against you. But you've suddenly become much more complicated and emotionally loaded than this other person who doesn't have cancer. Worse, you display no regard whatsoever for social cues by advertising this so bluntly.
If your mental disorder has anything to do with you not getting a job, it's really just because you're sending horribly unattractive social/communication signals to potential employers.
There is an idealized world we'd all like to see, and there is a world we actually live in. It's not like you're a woman being discriminated against here. Your mental illness does not need to literally be the first thing people see about you when they look at your online identity.
Sorry if any of this was harsh. I wish you the best in your search, but please consider not being quite so "loud" about your problems. Reframing who you are to potential employers could do wonders.
[+] [-] orionblastar|11 years ago|reply
I can still do tech work and program, just that everyone can pick up I am mentally ill and discriminate against me for it. I'd have to find the right company that can accommodate a mentally ill person as an employee. I'm often accused of having autism in the way I talk and write.
I am also over 40 now, so age is a factor.
[+] [-] booruguru|11 years ago|reply
I vaguely understand that workplace stress can be debilitating, but I don't have a clear understanding of this issue.
Would you mind shedding a bit of light on your story?
[+] [-] rwhitman|11 years ago|reply
I feel like a group panel interview would skew candidates in a different way than a one on one. There's some psychology around how people act in groups at play that might really mask the viability of a candidate.. for instance in group social settings, wouldn't whoever's the most dominantly confident (or just loud), going to have an outside advantage in impressing the interviewer?
[+] [-] worldvoyageur|11 years ago|reply
The hiring team forms a circle at a discrete distance around the group and each of us has an assigned person to watch. That way we can catch body language etc. When doing this, it is remarkable how some people can in a low key, quiet way, bring missing information into the discussion, sway the group or bring it to a constructive consensus. We love those people and they have a high success rate when we hire them.
It is pretty normal that a very impressive candidate one-on-one looks very different in the group setting, and vise versa. We tend only to hire the people that do well in both the one on one and the group.
Oh - the loud dominant strategy is very hard to pull off successfully in a group context. There is too much risk of it being obvious (to the hiring team watching) that it subtracted value.
[+] [-] golergka|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ufmace|11 years ago|reply
From a candidate's perspective, the phone screen lets you prove yourself to the company and get to know them a little before taking the commitment of actually going there - usually during business hours, possibly disrupting any job you're currently working at. I feel more comfortable taking time off to go there when they've already proven that they're serious about me and I know that they've evaluated me well enough to know that there's at least a good chance I'm a fit for the position.
[+] [-] jpg0rd0n|11 years ago|reply
I understand your point about the phone screen, but found that this is a trade-off. The phone screen was very ineffective for us in letting people know who we are, our size, our location, what we do on a daily basis. The open house format lets the prospective employees see us as we are, where we are. Inevitably, people drop out of the process, and it's fine with us, as it opens up slots for those who like what they see. In an open house format, the candidates ask questions as a group, which means that any particular person benefits from the questions that others ask. They see our existing staff and can decide if this is a group they want to work with.
We are upfront with the candidates that we can't hire all of them, and therefore it seems like a fair exchange to do something for the "unchosen" as a bonus for coming in. Brooke and Noah have helped by providing guidance for them, and we have all tried to create a community of the unchosen.
The core concept being promoted here is that the current recruitment system is broken, and it is the fault of all of us who unquestioningly perpetuate it. My response is to experiment with different ideas until we find a model that works for all parties involved. I don't have a magic wand to provide the solution, but do keep notes on what hypothesis is being tested, what seems to work, what doesn't work and what possible improvements we should try.
[+] [-] vonmoltke|11 years ago|reply
Probably not many, but as was discussed recently in the context of TripleByte[1] some qualified people have "bad" resumes and may struggle to get phone screens. Go through enough resume-level rejections and you might welcome such an open house, if for no other reason than to network with people you might not otherwise be able to meet.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9507089
[+] [-] kremlin|11 years ago|reply
That being said, I also really like the idea.
[+] [-] vonnik|11 years ago|reply
Here are two previous HN threads on Brooke, Noah, Staffup Weekend and their method:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8958290 https://www.futureadvisor.com
P.S. We're looking for an infrastructure engineer.
[+] [-] ChristianKletzl|11 years ago|reply
Applicants spend a significant time to prepare and come on-site, even though in many cases this only leads to a rejection. A company's brand and culture should (by a candidate) also be evaluated by how they treat the candidates they don't hire, just how a person should be evaluated by how they treat their waiter.
We've created smarthires.io for this reason. Companies can refer candidates they liked but didn't hire and we'll introduce these candidates to other companies in the same network. Many times a candidate who's not a great fit for one company could be the perfect fit for another.
[+] [-] fredt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jpg0rd0n|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] owennoah|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BrookeTAllen|11 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I disagree with your assertion that I made people take a course as part of a hiring process. I simply said that I’d hire someone if they knew some things and 27 of my candidates who didn’t know those things asked if I would teach them for fee. I agreed to offer a three-week course on condition they wanted to learn for its own sake and that they were NOT doing it to get a job because I wasn’t guaranteeing anyone would get hired and, besides, the chance any one person would get hired was perhaps 4%. In the end a bunch of them proved to be superb and I hired two instead of one as I’d originally hoped. And I got a few others jobs elsewhere. I didn’t have to do that, but I did. And they didn’t have to learn what they did, but they did.
You can accuse me of being biased in favor of people who like learning things for its own sake and who know how to do the job I need done. But if you are going to accuse people of forcing time-consuming education on candidates then I’d hope you’ll spend time going after employers who force you to have an irrelevant degree from a costly university before they will even let your resume past some idiotic filter.
[+] [-] BrookeTAllen|11 years ago|reply
Some thoughts on this discussion…
ON PREJUDICES: Often I don’t get what I want because other people have inaccurate judgments concerning me. But what can I expect; who has the time to really do due diligence. And who am I to judge their judgments of me? If I were a judge at court I’d have to recuse myself because I am way too close to my own case.
This is not to say prejudice doesn’t exist. It does. And it is not to say it isn’t harmful. It is. Prejudice harms us all and the prejudices that harm me the most are my own; they keep me from being all I can be.
When I overlook good candidates because I judge them on irrelevant characteristics then I am constraining my options and that does me no good. Although it would be wonderful if the world was perfect I’ve found it most fruitful to concentrate on the problems closest to me and interestingly they usually involve something about me I could improve upon or resign myself to. I’m happier and more productive when I spend so much time trying to be part of a solution (and not the precipitate) that I don’t have time left over to theorize about what people beyond my influence should be doing.
ON MENTAL DISABILITIES: If you spend any time with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders I’m sure you can find yourself and everyone you know in there. It seems to me that strengths and weaknesses of the mind should be considered only if relevant just as with things in the physical realm. I’m not sure where to draw the line, however I rue the day when sociopaths cannot be discriminated against. In any event, I’ve concluded that life is a terminal spectrum disorder we just have to deal with as best as we can (until we don’t have to any more).
ON SELF-DISCLOSURE: As a practical matter, if you have an obvious disability the best time to bring it up is right before it becomes obvious. For example, if you have a stutter and you ask for forbearance at the beginning of an interview then you can win people’s hearts and they will be rooting for you. But if you don’t then often they cannot wait for the conversation to end. If your disability is not obvious but might require accommodation later on then probably the best time to disclose it is after you get a job offer and before you accept.
If you choose to go public with your issues and make them a cause célèbre then in order to win broad support it will need to be clear that you are doing it for the benefit of people in your circumstances and not just as cover for your own failings. Even then, the recognition you deserve might only come posthumously, but that is irrelevant unless it is recognition that you seek.
PEOPLE I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM: Although this discussion is interesting I wonder if any of you out there would like my help improving how you hire people. If so, please contact me.
I am retired and don’t need to do this, but I want to. If you are stinking rich I can be expensive and if you’re sincerely broke then I can be free. Either way, you have to tell me who you are. I’m at BrookeAllen.com.
[+] [-] MichaelCrawford|11 years ago|reply
My Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder was diagnosed in 1985.
I started my first salaried coding job in 1987.
I was hired as a Product Development Manager in 1990.
I graduated with a BA in Physics in 1993.
In 1994, I invented a novel, unobvious lossless bitmap graphics compressor.
In 1995, I was hired as a Senior Engineer at Apple Computer, where I worked as a "Debug Meister".
In 2000, I was married to a woman who knew all about my illness. We purchased a nice house with money I earned as a consultant.
In 2015, I can't get a job because I have grey hair, and I am openly public about being mentally ill.
[+] [-] dsacco|11 years ago|reply
With respect, why do you do this? How can you possibly think this is a good idea?
I sympathize that you have a mental illness, but you're being stubborn by complaining that you can't get a job when one of the primary obstacles is clearly in your power. Don't advertise that you have a mental illness. No matter how you would like the world to work, it does not work in such a way that advertising mental illness is in any way conducive to searching for a job.
Here is another example, to take away the stigma of mental illness: I'm a hiring manager, and I just found out that you have cancer on your blog. This was directly in the navigation of the blog.
This is bad. I don't want to not hire you because you have cancer. I don't want to discriminate against you. But you've suddenly become much more complicated and emotionally loaded than this other person who doesn't have cancer. Worse, you display no regard whatsoever for social cues by advertising this so bluntly.
If your mental disorder has anything to do with you not getting a job, it's really just because you're sending horribly unattractive social/communication signals to potential employers.
There is an idealized world we'd all like to see, and there is a world we actually live in. It's not like you're a woman being discriminated against here. Your mental illness does not need to literally be the first thing people see about you when they look at your online identity.
Sorry if any of this was harsh. I wish you the best in your search, but please consider not being quite so "loud" about your problems. Reframing who you are to potential employers could do wonders.
[+] [-] jniuhiuhiuh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reeco|11 years ago|reply