How Red Hat Hires 113
New submitter markfeffer, Senior Editor at Dice, writes "Red Hat's hired about 600 people in its last three fiscal quarters, and it's going to keep hiring – about 900 to 1,000 more this year. The company's primarily looking for software and technical support engineers, along with salespeople who can help strengthen its cloud-technology capabilities. They want people with strong technical skills, of course, but the company puts a premium on those who've taken the time to research its business and send in a resume that's custom-tailored to the job opening."
The constant upgrade treadmill put me off! (Score:4, Interesting)
Congratulations to Red Hat though I definitely won't among the hires. I am uninterested.
Here's why:
Most of these tech companies require that a [new] hire remains up-to-date. This isn't the problem, though. The problem is that the costs involved are pushed to the employee. The time/energy spent is enormous. If one has little ones, it's worse.
Time came when I was absent minded, thinking about a function that just could not work properly. Exposure to newer ways of solving tasks like the one I had would have helped, but I had to foot the initial cost!! Imagine that in this economy. My company agreed to reimburse the costs if I passed, and remained with them for at least 2 more years. In the mean time, deadlines were exerting enormous pressure.
Guess what, I quit, and I am a happier fella.
Re:does it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who's been involved in various stages of the hiring process, my question is, does it work?
I have been involved in hiring hundreds of people, at several different companies, and I have found that idiosyncratic hiring practices rarely help. It is much better to follow the KISS principle:
1. Screen the resumes and pick the top 10%
2. Email them and set up a phone call.
3. Chat for a few minutes, and if you like them, set up a face-to-face interview.
4. If you like them at the interview, and they can demonstrate competence, then offer them a job at the end of the interview.
I have worked for companies that did much more elaborate interviewing, including multiple interviews, lunch meetings, etc. We seldom changed our opinions after the first interview, it was time consuming, and the candidate pool was shrinking as the best people were accepting jobs elsewhere.