Readit NewsRC_Blog commented on He who submits a resume has already lost residentcontrarian.com/p/... · Posted by u/paulpauper
As awful as the resume process is it has one advantage that the author seems to have ignored - it's 'fair'. It puts everyone in basically the same footing at the start of the hiring process.
Using a system based on recommendations would give popular, attractive, well-connected people an advantage that's unrelated to their skill level. It would make job hopping more beneficial because you'd get to meet and connect with more people.
Maybe it's unreasonable of me, but I slightly suspect the author would prefer recommendation based hiring because it'd benefit them rather than because it'd be a better system for everyone.
Author here. I don't think any of these points are unreasonable.
I think the apparent conflict comes into play when we treat your point and my point like they are mutually exclusive. But they don't have to be - the resume system can be horrific and the alternatives can be bad in other ways, all in one swoop. It would honestly be weirder if it weren't so - it would imply a perfect process.
For what it's worth, I'm not exactly proposing a "system based on recommendations", and I'm not sure how that would really work if I was proposing it. I'm more saying that the kind of treatment people get when they can bypass the resume-first system is much more human - ideally, there would be a fix that would bring the resume-first system up to the nepotistic treatment level, but I don't claim to know what that is.
RC_Blog commented on He who submits a resume has already lost residentcontrarian.com/p/... · Posted by u/paulpauper
I have also found that Jobs Acquired by Submitting Resume are almost always worse than Jobs Acquired Through Network. Which makes sense, as the network jobs mean you usually know at least one person working at the company and are friendly/culturally compatible with that person. And if that person works there, chances are that there will be other similar people.
Author here, and agreed. For different reasons, though - I think that when you've picked someone out of 400 applications, both you and they feel like they got "lucky", as opposed to being the handpicked winner of at least a couple hundred mostly-qualified applicants.
I contrast this most heavily with, say, someone the company has done cold outreach to get in touch with; like, yeah, there's a reason you did the cold outreach, they probably look like a good fit. But more importantly the power dynamic is different - the employer had to go to the applicant and ask for their attention. The applicant feels like something the employer might "lose" if they don't play their hand right, as opposed to someone who should feel honored to take the lower-mid of the payrange.
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