Here is a comment I wrote in response to DHH’s post on Hiring;
“It’s time to rewrite the hiring script…”
Thank you for this post!
Since graduating from grad school in 2016 I have applied to 12K+ jobs, done 300+ phone screens, 150+ video conferences/”hangs”, been on 100+ “on-sites,” created & written 50+ projects (where I have seen my work parried onto company sites/products — thanks NDAs), and come up second every time.
Each 60 day cycle I have hired resume writers, career coaches, head hunters, recruiters, and been churned and burned in the HR eco-system.
Yes, I have a unique career in music, digital media, and furniture, while competing in a tough market, let alone being a musician who dropped out of school and went back 8 years later, but I am positive the issues I have experienced stem from the way we approach the labor pool in America.
The onus of hiring should be on the companies and teams that need talent, as you have stated, and not simply or necessarily on the talent alone. Talent and Labor Pools should be sought, constructed, evaluated, and tried out (as stipulated in “In It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work”) in similar fashions to the better talent evaluation eco-systems in current use, think scouting for athletics.
Plus, companies should be legally obligated to give me as much time as I have allotted them, i.e. they should have to tell me why they made the decision they have and how I can improve as a candidate, let alone a talented human being and global citizen.
There are so many creatively talented people in this world that could fill the ranks of Top Companies, but don’t possess the family cache, prep time, or personal finances to garner entrance to Top Biz Schools for the network effects.
Furthermore, if we all study the same, we think the same.
And group think, much like culture fit, or buzz terms like “value add” lead to siloed approaches to problems.
Creativity is born in adversity, experience, and differentiation.
It is your viewpoint + knowledge + informed consensus.
If we are all filling out forms, turning in cookie-cutter cover letters, smiling on phone screeners, building websites that merely buttress up Squarespace and Wix, and producing “elevator pitches”, seriously who is 2-minute-chatty and not simply mannered in elevators, then who are we truly aiding?
The hiring system is not a system, but a cluster fuck. And it’s broken.
Thank you to (the) Basecamp team for spurring change whenever and wherever you can.
Your fellow Chicagoan,
