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Hiring Decisions

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Abstract

After gathering extensive information about a candidate, it’s time to make a hiring decision. This chapter reviews the goal of hiring and then advises when to hire and when specifically not to hire, gives examples of some difficult decisions and their outcomes, and describes a number of common problems and pitfalls.

Keywords

  • Confirmation Bias
  • Halo Effect
  • Hindsight Bias
  • Poor Performer
  • Design Question

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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References

  1. Based on evidence from studies of human and primate behavior. See Venkat Lakshminarayanan and Laurie R. Santos, “Evolved Irrationality? Equity and the Origins of Human Economic Behavior,” in Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals, ed. Peter M. Kappeler and Joan Silk (Berlin: Springer, 2010).

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  4. This observation goes back at least to Sir Francis Bacon in the sixteenth century. For a comprehensive review, see Raymond S. Nickerson “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises,” Review of General Psychology, 2(2) (1998): 175–220.

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© 2012 Patrick McCuller

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McCuller, P. (2012). Hiring Decisions. In: How to Recruit and Hire Great Software Engineers. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-4918-4_8

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