> > there is absolutely zero chance anyone on the other end is going to take the time to actually read and evaluate each of them
> This is understandable to think, but is simply wrong -- I know because I'm a software engineer at Canonical who helps review these written submissions. They're sometimes read and reviewed by our CEO, though often he delegates that out to a pool of us reviewers. I always read mine thoroughly, whether they're 3 pages or 30. I don't have exact stats, but from where I sit maybe 80% of them are quality submissions.
Shuttleworth is directly involved in, and approves of, this "write ten pages about your childhood, then take a battery of personality tests, and then maybe we'll proceed" shit? Is this a South African thing? I know some cultures have very different expectations about how job applications should work.
First, it is a response to a massive flow of applications. We can more fully and fairly assess those who show they are willing to do some work to be part of our company.
Second, it helps address bias. The written interview is not a resume, which a hiring manager would read through bias like "I recognise that university" and "I like that country". The written interview is anonymous work, which can be assessed more objectively. We get it assessed, twice, anonymously, in the common case. For my roles, more than 100 people at the company help me with this, and I'm grateful to them for the work they do.
Third, it helps us focus our resources. We have very light resume screening requirements - be a plausible candidate from somewhere in the world - but we spend a LOT of time on the written interview, and interviews. So for those candidates who show they care, they have insights, and they are quick on the uptake, we can spend a lot more time on them.
Fourth, it helps avoid repetition. We can share a written interview with interviewers later in the process, and they get a lot of context on the candidate very quickly. They don't always read it before meeting the candidate, but they can and they should.
I'm sorry Mark, but you are also indirectly selecting for candidates that:
* Have ample time to write multi-page essays about themselves. Quality candidates are in demand, with multiple offers or solicitations for interview all the time.
* Feel comfortable sharing fairly intimate details about themselves and their lives - I personally would never, ever want to share some childhood trauma stories with my potential future colleagues, or complete strangers.
* Are willing to put up with ridiculous, time-wasting tasks - maybe you want this, because these employees will be more easily managed and manipulated, but just understand you ARE selecting for it, whether you intend to or not.
* Have a personality that you personally, or someone at your company, has decided is "an acceptable fit", thus missing out on a wide variety of potential candidates that might offer qualities you never even thought to test for.
It all seems very misguided, and that's the reason why there have been numerous posts both here on Hacker News, Reddit and other forums on the internet, lambasting your process. It's broken, and most people outside your company seem to realise this, while you do not.
> If 80% are good submissions it’s a useless filter and should be dropped.
How did you arrive at this conclusion? I can easily imagine that this process is so laborious that plenty of people don't even submit anything. Like the person who wrote about this on reddit. -- Now what reason would we have to think that the people who don't want to go through the process would also be 80% good? This may be a very valuable filter for Canonical!
I'm of the same mind. Interviews are not like school assignments, there's not some reason why the average person should "pass" most questions. Every question or step should provide clear information that lets you decide who to hire.
In practice it's not like this though, it's probably true that < 10% of what goes on in most interviews actually differentiates candidates.
I think part of it is it's just hard to figure out which 10% is the useful part. Though certainly if 80% are passing an early step in the process, it should just be scrapped altogether.
That wouldn't necessarily be true even if 100% of submissions were good, as you've completely discounted the cases where no submission is made. You can argue about whether the whole thing has any point or use, but a low % bad on submissions isn't on its own a sign that such a filter isn't useful.
Looking at the funnel holistically, I doubt anyone who didn't write the essay would make it through the "standardized aptitude and personality tests". And even so - if the filter is submitted vs. didn't submit - there's no need to actually waste time reading them...
(If that sounds absurd, it is and this funnel is broken as hell.)
