I am always fascinated by answers to the "hiring" question. (I don't claim to know any good ones, perhaps that's why it's so interesting and why we discuss hiring so much).
You're still beginning by submitting a resume - they are replacing parts of interviews with auditions, though they suggest there are interviews too, so it's more of a supplement than a replacement.
So Automattic is adding something to the process, something non-trivial in time commitment. I think I can show that this hurts them.
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Employers need to keep in mind that there are some vast asymmetries between employer and the (prospective or not) employee. For instance, some common cases:
* When an employee is fired, they are at 0% productivity until they find a new job. The employer on the other hand is at 99% or 100%[1] productivity. This is in short why we have things like unions, because negotiating power in terms of productivity lost to both parties (employer and employee) approaches equal when the employer has all employees at stake, not just one.
* When an employer wants to fill a position, they have one spot and can try out several candidates (even with auditions) simultaneously. When an employee wants to find a job, they need to spend time choosing to fly out to places to interview. These decisions are hard, because there's opportunity cost involved: When you fly to place A to interview, you're spending that time not looking for other, potentially better jobs and/or flying to place B.
This ups the ante of the opportunity cost significantly. It's becomes an awkward gambit: "I'll pay you $25 an hour to pause your search for a job (you'll do our tasks instead), and after an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps offer you one." That would get some strange looks on a job board. It becomes an odd form of speculative work.
You're trading a lot more of your time (that you could be spending evaluating other jobs) to hone in on this one, and then they may not accept you. It seems to be a good deal if and only if you're certain this is the job you'd prefer over the others you'd seen so far, or that you have hopes of seeing.
Otherwise, this is the one prospective job you'd want to entertain last.
So this might look good to Automattic since they are capable of handling the load, but they are forgetting that such a load is not preferable from the employee's perspective if you have many decent job offers. A shorter, more streamlined hiring process will probably win out, since they're likely to try interviewing anywhere else first (easier) and since the opportunity cost anywhere else is less. I'd like to think we're at least a little rational about this, at least those that feel somewhat time-constrained when job searching, like the currently unemployed.
I think this gives other companies a slight edge against Automattic, at least for prospective employees who have options. I think by doing this they will lose good candidates, even ones who might (eventually) entertain their lengthy interview process.
I don't think you are thinking this through all the way. You are optimizing the transaction (hiring / taking a new job) rather than the process (a long, mutually beneficial relationship).
First, As an individual evaluating opportunities, how much more likely are you to learn if there is a not a good fit and therefore avoid months in a sub optimal job?
Second, the concept of a company still being at 99% or 100% productivity doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you leave a job, the company is at 0% productivity for that specific job you were filling.
Third, based on the comments, this will push certain people away from Automattic (e.g. "I don't do anything for free") and into the hands of the competitors. Automattic gets a double win: lower probability of hiring people who aren't willing to put in effort to find a good long term fit and they raise the probability that their competitor does. Awesome for Automattic and for the entire team, who gets to work with higher caliber people.
Finally, from a behavioral psych perspective this has some similarities the Zappos "pay you to leave us" approach. When someone goes through the effort to get the job, they are more likely to stick around AND feel happy about it. It's just human nature. Google "The Ikea Effect" for another example.
I'm legitimately curious how you arrive at the conclusion that the "I don't do anything for free" crowd is less likely to put in effort and find a good long term fit.
It seems that somehow in the startup community, doing things for free (unpaid overtime, unpaid internships, unpaid working 'interviews') is considered a badge of honor. I don't understand how that became the expected and accepted situation.
Being a 'sucker' is seen by many employers as a very desirable trait in an employee. From an employer point of view, why wouldn't you want the guy who happily works for free over the guy who is 'difficult' and insists on paid overtime for every hour after 40 hours a week.
And as someone looking for work who is just very good you need a way to differentiate yourself from everybody else who is also very good. A history of being willing to work ridiculous hours for free is a pretty good differentiator.
You're conflating two issues: "Unpaid overtime, unpaid internships" with "unpaid working interviews".
OT and internships are post acceptance of a work offer. Interviews should be used by the individual to find the best fit for themselves. If you think spending 10-20 hours making sure your top choice really is where you want to spend the next several thousand hours of your work life is "free work" I think you misunderstand the value that the individual gets out of the diligence.
"They can do the work at night or over the weekend, so they don’t have to leave their current job in the meantime."
If I spend night working, I'm tired next day. Not sure if it is shocking. If I spend weekend working, then I just lost most of my free/family time and not surprisingly, I'm tired during next week and produce less in my regular job.
So, the hourly rate is better be competitive with salary. Otherwise I would just consider them freeloaders trying to get some cheap labor.
On productivity: there's a difference between "I won't eat in X months from now if I don't find a job" (where X is sometimes very small), and "our income and payroll just decreased X%" (where X is often tiny). Let's be honest, beyond a couple dozen employees, the company hardly feels the impact of any particular layoff.
Your remark only applies where the job is one of a kind in the company (like the team of one or two who takes care of the 150 computers in the company). Most employees are not that critical, and their load is mostly shareable.
>> Second, the concept of a company still being at 99% or 100% productivity doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If you leave a job, the company is at 0% productivity for that specific job you were filling.
You're assuming nobody picks up the slack and everyone is 100% utilized.
The article describes a process for hiring high-end employees, the kind that it is not free or cheap to loose. So your "zero loss of productivity for the employer" assertion doesn't hold. Also, being fired with zero warning and zero notice period is not the typical way for these kinds of employees to change jobs, so the typical candidate will be employed while looking for a new job.
The fact that the interview process is a fairly sizable investment in time and effort from both ends is an important positive signifier for me - this means that all my potential colleagues will have been thoroughly scrutinized and are thus much more likely to be solid.
And his point is that if you are getting rid of that employee, because they're a bad fit, anyone is pretty free or cheap to lose in the first few months.
They suck, you're firing them. Why would you lose productivity?
Not that I totally buy it, hiring and then firing a lot of people trying to find an amazing person instead of just an ok one will be bad for morale, get you blacklisted by agencies who can't collect their fees, getting a bad rep in dev circles and other consequences I probably can't think of.
You're still beginning by submitting a resume - they are replacing parts of interviews with auditions, though they suggest there are interviews too, so it's more of a supplement than a replacement.
So Automattic is adding something to the process, something non-trivial in time commitment. I think I can show that this hurts them.
~~~
Employers need to keep in mind that there are some vast asymmetries between employer and the (prospective or not) employee. For instance, some common cases:
* When an employee is fired, they are at 0% productivity until they find a new job. The employer on the other hand is at 99% or 100%[1] productivity. This is in short why we have things like unions, because negotiating power in terms of productivity lost to both parties (employer and employee) approaches equal when the employer has all employees at stake, not just one.
* When an employer wants to fill a position, they have one spot and can try out several candidates (even with auditions) simultaneously. When an employee wants to find a job, they need to spend time choosing to fly out to places to interview. These decisions are hard, because there's opportunity cost involved: When you fly to place A to interview, you're spending that time not looking for other, potentially better jobs and/or flying to place B.
This ups the ante of the opportunity cost significantly. It's becomes an awkward gambit: "I'll pay you $25 an hour to pause your search for a job (you'll do our tasks instead), and after an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps offer you one." That would get some strange looks on a job board. It becomes an odd form of speculative work.
You're trading a lot more of your time (that you could be spending evaluating other jobs) to hone in on this one, and then they may not accept you. It seems to be a good deal if and only if you're certain this is the job you'd prefer over the others you'd seen so far, or that you have hopes of seeing.
Otherwise, this is the one prospective job you'd want to entertain last.
So this might look good to Automattic since they are capable of handling the load, but they are forgetting that such a load is not preferable from the employee's perspective if you have many decent job offers. A shorter, more streamlined hiring process will probably win out, since they're likely to try interviewing anywhere else first (easier) and since the opportunity cost anywhere else is less. I'd like to think we're at least a little rational about this, at least those that feel somewhat time-constrained when job searching, like the currently unemployed.
I think this gives other companies a slight edge against Automattic, at least for prospective employees who have options. I think by doing this they will lose good candidates, even ones who might (eventually) entertain their lengthy interview process.
Am I off base here? Or does this seem sound?