I’m guessing here, but I imagine that the source of the downvotes might be that this piece is a specific criticism of one organisation, framed as a more general commentary on hiring. I also suspect that the organisation is guessable (there’s lots of quite specific detail, including quotes from job ads), though I haven’t guessed.
I suspect that either a general piece about pitfalls to avoid when hiring, or an open criticism of “hirely” (potentially having given them a chance to respond), would be better received.
(I haven’t up or down voted, as I haven’t dug into the object level claims yet)
In this article I also saw lots of general assertions without a clear explanation as to why people should believe you. For example, you express disdain for scenario questions, but I’m an experienced hiring manager and I’ve often seen scenario questions (with follow up questions to understand the candidate’s thought process and normal way of working) referenced as an example of good practice in an interview. I would need a clearer explanation from you than “people could be nervous” as to why you think these are not useful. (I also disliked the repeated use of the word “stud” given its sexual connotations!)
It turns out that the article was mass-downvoted by throwaway accounts. So there weren’t many downvotes to find a reason for after all. Thanks for your comment anyway. It allowed me to partially address some weaknesses of my article.
Thank you, too, for explaining your reservations! And sorry about the word ‘stud’ – I didn’t know the connotations. I’ve now replaced it with ‘ace’.
I’ll try to explain the general assertions and my disdain for scenario questions. This is not arguing against the points you made. It’s just a clarification, which I should work into the article.
General assertions – I wasn’t aware of this as a problem of my article. Thanks for pointing it out! – There are so many claims in the article that I don’t have space and time to argue them all properly. That’s why I have lots of Manager Tools links throughout, since they have whole podcasts/whitepapers on each topic, where they do argue things (mostly) properly.
Scenario questions – a better way to structure the argument: Assume you need someone who can manage projects well and you have limited time. Which is going to give you more (and more reliable) information about a candidate’s ability to manage projects? Asking about how they’ve managed past projects or about how they would manage project X? Which is more predictive? Now, an experienced person would probably justify scenario answers with examples from their experience. And someone inexperienced could only cite from the course they just visited. So I see how scenario questions can work. Behavioural questions are just a more direct way of getting at what I want to know. (This is still only a plausibility argument. Ultimately it comes down to data, which I haven’t looked at. But I mostly trust MT to have looked at the data.)
Thanks for attempting an explanation! I’ve now added a bit of clarification at the end of the introduction. Ie. I did write a closed criticism and gave them a chance to respond. They didn’t want me to publish it as-is, so I ‘rewrote’ it to be more general. As is obvious now, I should have been less lazy and rewritten the whole thing rather than only searching and replacing the org name and rewriting the introduction.
To reduce guessability further, I’ve now rewritten the quote as much as I could while preserving its flavour.
It turns out that the article was mass-downvoted by throwaway accounts. So there weren’t many downvotes to find a reason for after all. Your comment helped me clarify some points, though.
I’m guessing here, but I imagine that the source of the downvotes might be that this piece is a specific criticism of one organisation, framed as a more general commentary on hiring. I also suspect that the organisation is guessable (there’s lots of quite specific detail, including quotes from job ads), though I haven’t guessed.
I suspect that either a general piece about pitfalls to avoid when hiring, or an open criticism of “hirely” (potentially having given them a chance to respond), would be better received.
(I haven’t up or down voted, as I haven’t dug into the object level claims yet)
I agree with Alex.
In this article I also saw lots of general assertions without a clear explanation as to why people should believe you. For example, you express disdain for scenario questions, but I’m an experienced hiring manager and I’ve often seen scenario questions (with follow up questions to understand the candidate’s thought process and normal way of working) referenced as an example of good practice in an interview. I would need a clearer explanation from you than “people could be nervous” as to why you think these are not useful. (I also disliked the repeated use of the word “stud” given its sexual connotations!)
I also didn’t upvote or downvote.
It turns out that the article was mass-downvoted by throwaway accounts. So there weren’t many downvotes to find a reason for after all. Thanks for your comment anyway. It allowed me to partially address some weaknesses of my article.
Thank you, too, for explaining your reservations! And sorry about the word ‘stud’ – I didn’t know the connotations. I’ve now replaced it with ‘ace’.
I’ll try to explain the general assertions and my disdain for scenario questions. This is not arguing against the points you made. It’s just a clarification, which I should work into the article.
General assertions – I wasn’t aware of this as a problem of my article. Thanks for pointing it out! – There are so many claims in the article that I don’t have space and time to argue them all properly. That’s why I have lots of Manager Tools links throughout, since they have whole podcasts/whitepapers on each topic, where they do argue things (mostly) properly.
Scenario questions – a better way to structure the argument: Assume you need someone who can manage projects well and you have limited time. Which is going to give you more (and more reliable) information about a candidate’s ability to manage projects? Asking about how they’ve managed past projects or about how they would manage project X? Which is more predictive? Now, an experienced person would probably justify scenario answers with examples from their experience. And someone inexperienced could only cite from the course they just visited. So I see how scenario questions can work. Behavioural questions are just a more direct way of getting at what I want to know. (This is still only a plausibility argument. Ultimately it comes down to data, which I haven’t looked at. But I mostly trust MT to have looked at the data.)
Thanks for attempting an explanation! I’ve now added a bit of clarification at the end of the introduction. Ie. I did write a closed criticism and gave them a chance to respond. They didn’t want me to publish it as-is, so I ‘rewrote’ it to be more general. As is obvious now, I should have been less lazy and rewritten the whole thing rather than only searching and replacing the org name and rewriting the introduction.
To reduce guessability further, I’ve now rewritten the quote as much as I could while preserving its flavour.
It turns out that the article was mass-downvoted by throwaway accounts. So there weren’t many downvotes to find a reason for after all. Your comment helped me clarify some points, though.