Furthermore, this means that copying mainstream interviewing strategies is one of the worst things you can do – if you only get points for beating consensus predictions, then matching them will get you a 0.
Are you classifying hiring as a case where you only get points for beating the consensus? Consider three processes for evaluating candidates:
Process A is no better than noise, and just selects candidates at random.
Process B matches the consensus.
Process C selects for the consensus’s false negatives.
Your post seems to be advocating in favor of C, and I would agree that C is the best of these, but isn’t B clearly better than A (for realistic candidate pool distributions)? If so, it doesn’t seem right to say that you get “no points” for doing B.
I could have been clearer—hiring is definitely a case where you get some points for following consensus, unlike, say, active investing where you’re typically measured on alpha. And following consensus on some parts of your process is fine if you have an edge elsewhere (e.g. Google and Facebook pay more than most, so having consensus-level assessment is fine.) But I would argue that for most startups you’ll see something like order-of-magnitude improvements through Process C.
Are you classifying hiring as a case where you only get points for beating the consensus? Consider three processes for evaluating candidates:
Process A is no better than noise, and just selects candidates at random.
Process B matches the consensus.
Process C selects for the consensus’s false negatives.
Your post seems to be advocating in favor of C, and I would agree that C is the best of these, but isn’t B clearly better than A (for realistic candidate pool distributions)? If so, it doesn’t seem right to say that you get “no points” for doing B.
I could have been clearer—hiring is definitely a case where you get some points for following consensus, unlike, say, active investing where you’re typically measured on alpha. And following consensus on some parts of your process is fine if you have an edge elsewhere (e.g. Google and Facebook pay more than most, so having consensus-level assessment is fine.) But I would argue that for most startups you’ll see something like order-of-magnitude improvements through Process C.