Ask HN: What signals do you look for when hiring?

There is good drama out there about ATS score, resumes keywords matching, AI resumes generator, formatter.

I dont know how people are coming up with such juicy and vanity metrics but mostly are noise.

• How you think • How you solve problems • How you execute ideas • The results you’ve achieved

These are the real hiring signals that actually matter, something we consistently hear from many startup founders and recruiters.

That’s why more people are showcasing their work through portfolios. And that’s what recruiters actually look for.

Hard to productize these with or without AI but still ATS drama exists

What signals do you look for when hiring? Do you still see legacy ATS score drama relevant?

9 points

・

kathir05

・

2 days ago

22 comments

lyfeninja ・ a day ago

The willingness to learn and grow is a big one for me. You always have to learn even when highly experienced but starting in a new position or industry. Additionally, critical thinking and problem solving skills along with perseverance makes a strong candidate in my eyes.

These traits show me someone is worth investing in, not just able to do a job. You'd be surprised how rare the combination is too.

  • kathir05 ・ a day ago

    These are very hardcore signals deeply buried in individuals work history. Resumes will never bring this out and so does legacy ATS. Candidate has to flexibly express his professional journey like a self bio book and then chances are good to extract these signals That why portfolios or personal websites are better at these. Hiring has to primarily happen via portfolios or personal websites.

Peroni ・ a day ago

>That’s why more people are showcasing their work through portfolios. And that’s what recruiters actually look for.

Not sure where this assumption is coming from. Most recruiters are looking for consistent work experience with reputable companies. Sure portfolios help but it's not even remotely on the same spectrum.

>I dont know how people are coming up with such juicy and vanity metrics but mostly are noise.

It's really not noise at all. If you actually use these ATS platforms from the hiring side, you'll see first hand how they've all doubled down on AI filtering. Candidates are directly experiencing increased difficulty in getting past the initial screening stages.

  • kathir05 ・ a day ago

    > Most recruiters are looking for consistent work experience with reputable companies.

    I guess you are missing the whole startup world, talents less than 5 years into the industry and hackers who grind many side projects and Generalists Maybe what you say is relevant to SMBs and enterprise hiring. Most ATS are designed for SMBs and enterprise hiring.

    I guess then Startups looking for Generalists has to mostly fallback to Google forms and HR emails for hiring.

    • Peroni ・ a day ago

      The startup world has been my exclusive focus for almost twenty years now so I stand by my position. Granted if you have fewer than five years of experience then it's harder to demonstrate value on a CV and that's certainly where a portfolio of work helps however your question was framed much more broadly.

      • kathir05 ・ a day ago

        I respect your point of views!

rozenmd ・ a day ago

A CV that tells me what you did, and what benefit it had to your employer.

I'm only impressed by side projects if they had users and/or MRR - something serious that proves you worked on it long enough to have something to show for your efforts

At the same time I wouldn't skip a candidate for not having a portfolio - a full time job is enough

rkwap ・ a day ago

I mostly look for side projects on github and past experience.

moomoo11 ・ a day ago

I like people who are enthusiastic about tech. It is pretty easy to tell when you have 60 minutes with them.

We're here to build stuff and improve continuously and if someone can't do that or seems to be the type of person who needs hand holding (they don't seem like they can even attempt to think on their own) then its not a good fit.

I think the problem recently is that SWE became way too easy. It is the easiest job right now if you can grind out a couple months you can make 400k plus easily. If you can't or find a way to make excuses about why you can't yngmi and I'm not interested in speaking with you.

But if you agree with that sentiment, then you know the game is rigged and gamed. So it is now important to sniff out the fakers. So many people can memorize LC, and then you throw a small twist and their brain which they've turned into a nvme drive to memorize and fast lookup shit crashes because their brain is basically a dual core and 4gb ram with a ton of storage of shit.

I'd rather take the person who's got a workstation and can do shit, instead of the person who maxxed out storage.

  • kathir05 ・ a day ago

    What I see is, whether your mental model is wired for resilience. Programming is basically math with logical reasoning. Having this basic skill is must. I always go for these fundamentals rather that heavy vibe coding.

rvz ・ a day ago

A verifiable track record that is very hard to fake.

This includes:

1. Open source contributions to high-profile / major repositories (with code-review in the open with core maintainers).

2. Side projects that are production-grade with customers and recurring revenue.

3. Given presentations at conferences.

At least 2 out of 3 of those. Years of experience is an additional plus.

But those still using keyword matching, ATS scores, leetcode don't have a clue on how to hire or who to hire as all of that can be faked, gamed and cheated by LLMs in 2026.

Instead of hiring builders, they continue to optimize for people studying for interviews and at the end of the day, I only care if you know how to make money and I prefer the former; builders over those who just study for the interview.

  • UK-Al05 ・ a day ago

    Some of the worst team developers I have ever met, are people who presented at conferences a lot. It's ego thing.

  • kathir05 ・ a day ago

    These are valid points and it's pity that none of the hiring systems are designed for these high intent signals. Simple filters like 1. open-source in repos with stars > 100. 2. regularly write blogs on core hard topics 3. Attend or give presentations on hard topics would solve 90% of hiring process.

    Rather keyword matching, ATS scores, leetcode are just vanity metrics. Do you know any tool that solves for these high intent signals?

    • raw_anon_1111 ・ a day ago

      Yes we should all spend time outside of work on computers just like doctors perform surgeries at home during their free time

      • kathir05 ・ a day ago
        ・ 2 more

        with all due respect, doctors not only perform surgeries, they also spend time reading, publishing journals outside work, upgrade themselves with new researchers.

        My doctor uncle, has a home library with 5000+ medical books. He says "Learning is a live long process."

        Successful professionals harmonize work and personal time. Same goes for engineers.

        • raw_anon_1111 ・ a day ago

          Yet I have been a “successful” professional and have worked for everything from startups to BigTech without creating yet another React TODO app and putting it on GitHub

          My idea of successfully harmonizing my work and personal time is turning off my computer after work and spending my time doing everything else. In a former life during the first 15 years as an adult as a part time fitness instructor in the morning and evening and runner training and running races with friends.

          In my current life post Covid, grown (step)kids and remote work, it’s doing the “digital nomad” thing off an on. This year we will spend a total of over four months away from home and two of those out of the country. One year we spend 9.5 months away from home.

          Absolutely no one would accuse me as being someone - who has been spending a decade leading cloud + app dev projects and the last two every project I’ve touch has embedded an LLM in the production implementation - of not being current with technology.

  • raw_anon_1111 ・ a day ago

    I absolutely despise the idea that anyone thinks that people should spend time outside of work pecking at a computer. When I get off work, I don’t think about anything related to code until the next morning.

    I have never done a line of code without getting paid for it in 30 years

    • icedchai ・ a day ago

      I can respect that, but for many of us, computers are a hobby. That's why we got into the industry in the first place.

      • kathir05 ・ a day ago

        Yes. I agree. People loved coding and software development, became hobby down the line plus paid them good. If people didn't cared about this industry, then it would have neve would have become this big economy