> I thought you all were better than this. Why are you asking questions about relational databases?
You write about hiring from the perspective of someone with hiring authority. TripleByte doesn't have hiring authority, or even sufficient reputation to get their candidates out of doing another technical interview at the companies to which they apply.
There are two problems you might solve:
- Joe Nerd needs a job. He knows everything about relational databases, but no interviewer has ever noticed this. His limp, effeminate handshake leaves them unimpressed.
- IBM needs a database engineer. They really want to hire someone, but they're having trouble filling the opening; their existing network of friends-of-current-employees is tapped out.
That is to say, you could try to optimize for finding people who will be good employees, and then bully companies into hiring those people, or you could try to optimize for finding people who will pass an existing hiring gauntlet, and then introduce them to companies where the magic will happen naturally.
The first approach solves the candidate's problem and would logically charge fees to the candidate. The second approach solves the company's problem and would logically charge fees to the company. TripleByte wants to get money from companies, and follows the second strategy.
But... they like to send messages as if they were following the first strategy, because that strategy solves the candidate's problem and those messages therefore attract candidates to TripleByte. I don't like this.
My experience with trying this for a year at a previous startup which shall remain nameless is that no matter how I approached candidate qualification, work-sample or interview or ritual chicken sacrifice, I'd still have the same problem of clients rejecting candidates by default. Recruiters mostly all work on your "second" model. So why add crappy tech qualification to your problems? Do at least that right!
According to my mental model of the world, if I'm trying to find people who will pass their interviews at IBM, then the more my qualifying interview looks like IBM's interview, the better I'm doing.
I find it very plausible that your experience ("acceptance rate doesn't seem to change no matter how I personally vet the candidates") is more realistic than my armchair model, but I suspect the model is intuitive to a lot of people and will go a long way toward explaining "why are you asking questions about relational databases?".
You write about hiring from the perspective of someone with hiring authority. TripleByte doesn't have hiring authority, or even sufficient reputation to get their candidates out of doing another technical interview at the companies to which they apply.
There are two problems you might solve:
- Joe Nerd needs a job. He knows everything about relational databases, but no interviewer has ever noticed this. His limp, effeminate handshake leaves them unimpressed.
- IBM needs a database engineer. They really want to hire someone, but they're having trouble filling the opening; their existing network of friends-of-current-employees is tapped out.
That is to say, you could try to optimize for finding people who will be good employees, and then bully companies into hiring those people, or you could try to optimize for finding people who will pass an existing hiring gauntlet, and then introduce them to companies where the magic will happen naturally.
The first approach solves the candidate's problem and would logically charge fees to the candidate. The second approach solves the company's problem and would logically charge fees to the company. TripleByte wants to get money from companies, and follows the second strategy.
But... they like to send messages as if they were following the first strategy, because that strategy solves the candidate's problem and those messages therefore attract candidates to TripleByte. I don't like this.