since I took the time to write up a long answer to this recruiter's questions I figured I could also share it with the world at large (and yes, it's kind of a rant-y mess but I didn't want to edit it after the fact)
(also: I'm a little torn about sharing this because on the one hand I think it's important for recruiters/companies & marginalized people looking for work to know that people care about this and are speaking up about it, and on the other hand I'm very conscious about having my own ego tied up in publicly being a "good person", so to mitigate that: I probably still do lots of awful things I shouldn't, and I acknowledge that I don't deserve any cookies for this because speaking up about it is basically the minimum anyone should be doing in this situation)
Subject: Is ESLint Overrated?
Hey Beau, What has your experience working with ESLint been like? We’re considering using it at COMPANY. I saw that you’ve starred ESLint on Github, and wanted to reach out to get your experience.
Would you recommend ESLint for an early stage SaaS startup?
Thanks, PERSON
eslint is awesome, though if you want the ultimate in pragmatism you could just use standard (which uses eslint under the hood)
not sure how the stage or type of company could affect how you'd want to lint your javascript though, which makes me worry that this is recruiter spam ;P
Say hypothetically this was recruiter spam:
- How would you respond?
- How does this spam compare to other recruiter spam you have received?
thoughts on recruiter spam in general:
- the recruiter spam i like presents itself as recruiter spam
- it also takes into account my preferences (i have not checked the 'available for hire' checkbox on github, for example)
- on linkedin i also state that i'm not currently looking because i love my current job, but that even if i was i'm only interested in remote jobs
- so any recruiter spam that is not for a remote position is viewed negatively, and any recruiter spam that is explicitly for remote positions usually gets an email from me that says "hey, not looking right now but thank you for respecting my preference for remote jobs, feel free to connect on linkedin!"
- (that last bit is more to reinforce good behavior than to "build a network")
- (i also acknowledge that being able to have a preference for remote work is a product of privilege)
thoughts about this recruiter spam:
-
if you focus on recruitment via github you will miss out on less privileged candidates: http://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community
-
this means your candidates will skew towards well-off white males with enough free time to work on software for fun
-
i say this as someone who matches the above description but who cares about both acknowledging my own privilege and making sure that others get the privileges i have been afforded
-
so, as someone who cares about the above, i have these thoughts about your initial email if this is recruiter spam:
- holy shit is this a form letter? how many of these emails went out?
- was it just for eslint or are there variations for other projects too?
- this email is worded as if it was written to a friend and is overly familiar
- in fact i had to make sure i didn't know you before replying!
- it's weird to email a stranger a question that could be answered via googling (maybe a public tweet would be ok? but in the context of curiosity, not recruitment)
- the second question you asked doesn't make much sense (as in, it seemed fishy, or automated in some way, for the reason i mentioned previously)
- do you know who responds more negatively to overly-familiar 1:1 communication? http://blog.ameliagreenhall.com/post/the-hand-on-the-knee-a-guide-to-twitter-dm-etiquette-for-men
- tl;dr: people who are not well-off white men... so there are now two ways in which you've limited your candidates to those with more privilege
- i now have negative assumptions about the hiring practices of your company because this is the only data point i have and it is going to skew you towards a team of privileged people
looking at your company i see 6/7 white people and 5/7 men, and i wonder why you want to hire someone like me when you have the chance to make a big difference in the diversity of your company while it's still small and you're able to set the tone
your own bio states that you worked at a non-profit that helps low-income students, so maybe you have some awareness of all of this... these are just the reactions you asked for, not a condemnation of you or your company
i guess this is what my "recruiter advice" boils down to:
- there are people, such as myself, that will not work for a company that does not try hard to foster a diverse team (and i think people like myself are increasing in number)
- this includes diverse recruitment practices (not just github), and, if you do find a candidate who has marked "available for hire" on github, including some disclaimer like "(we realize that not everyone is on github or able to contribute to open source so we're also looking for candidates via x, y, and z and would appreciate you forwarding this on to less-privileged candidates you may know who are looking for work)" in your recruiter spam would go a long way towards convincing me that i should care about what you have to say
- be able to point at some of the additional methods you're using to find diverse candidates
- use something like textio to get feedback on your job listings (i looked and didn't see anything terrible in yours, but i think it's important to be conscious of bias here and there's always room to improve): http://recode.net/2015/04/20/textio-spell-checks-for-gender-bias/
- diverse teams write better software!
- have your company donate some money to https://adainitiative.org/, http://www.blackgirlscode.com/, and/or http://www.alterconf.com/ for making me write this ;P
Appreciate the thoughtful feedback. Github is just one of many channels we are looking at, and we're definitely mindful of bringing together a diverse team. Best of luck.