Counterintuitive and actionable hiring funnel patterns

Counterintuitive & actionable hiring funnel patterns if you're hiring software engineers.

1. Shorter JDs lead to better candidates because, when done right, they are easier to parse, they contain less inaccuracies, they create curiosity about what wasn't written down, and also signal the hiring team's competence and skill. No one is impressed by official sounding language and long corporate mission statements. These turn people off and are irrelevant to most of them anyway. They can Google that stuff if they need to. Most people are skimming for the skills, experience, type of project, and salary anyway.

2. Engineers doing 1st call screening is cheaper than most think, because engineers are way way better at spotting other good engineers than your average non-technical recruiter. Your entire team saves time, and roles are filled faster, when you use such "inverted" hiring funnels.

3. Iteration beats perfection. Take your time experimenting with the job funnel. For example, don't immediately come up with a scorecard for your take home test. Instead, rely on human judgment for evaluating the test at first. This allows mistakes to be corrected, feedback to be heard, and behaviour patterns to emerge. Then, and only then, should you come up with a standard scorecard.

4. 2nd career junior engineers, like bootcampers who have 10 years of previous career experience, are usually better hires than comparable recent grads who have never even had their first jobs. Software development is 25% about communication and 50% about judgment, and the first group has had time to cultivate both.