I'm a huge fan of lifelong learning, and overall agree with this post. But, from a hiring perspective, it is missing a few important details:
1. Sometimes you have things that need to be achieved in a time-sensitive fashion, i.e. the time to ramp up may be problematic, and "taking a chance" may have real business ramifications.
2. Even if you don't have anything urgent, naturally there should be some discount factor for future utility (due to intrinsic uncertainty, etc.) - it's still positive, but remember "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
3. Learning is not a clean linear process, and is also hard to really suss out in a few interviews - I still absolutely look for it in people I hire, but it's pretty easy to claim you take a few MOOCs and harder to know if you really engage with new ideas on a regular basis.
Again, I still very much agree with the spirit and substance of the post, but hiring is complicated, and as with most complicated things there are multiple considerations to balance.
Even if it was linear, you can’t tell the slope of a line from one measurement, and an interview is one measurement. You’d need two interviews separated by some time, which is obviously impractical.
My feeling is that multi-round interviews and probationary periods are less about getting a more precise view of a workers growth, and more about being extremely risk adverse in hiring.
1. Sometimes you have things that need to be achieved in a time-sensitive fashion, i.e. the time to ramp up may be problematic, and "taking a chance" may have real business ramifications.
2. Even if you don't have anything urgent, naturally there should be some discount factor for future utility (due to intrinsic uncertainty, etc.) - it's still positive, but remember "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
3. Learning is not a clean linear process, and is also hard to really suss out in a few interviews - I still absolutely look for it in people I hire, but it's pretty easy to claim you take a few MOOCs and harder to know if you really engage with new ideas on a regular basis.
Again, I still very much agree with the spirit and substance of the post, but hiring is complicated, and as with most complicated things there are multiple considerations to balance.