Top all-time · #8364
Brooke Allen
Personal blog · brookeallen.com · on HN as BrookeTAllencareerculture
Brooke Allen's personal blog at brookeallen.com covers career and culture. Since 2013, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 17 times, most often “Passion requires that something makes you angry”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Brooke Allen's posts on HN cover hiring, including dropping resumes and writing conversation-style job listings, and the difference between being nice and being kind. Comments mostly quote or cite them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
IDEAS – WORDS – ACTION
Most-linked posts?
- Passion requires that something makes you angry3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-10-17
- How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-12-03
What Hacker News says?
> kindness may be ‘Ugh, you've said that five times, here's a sweater!’ The turn of phrase I've used in my internal monologue is "harshly compassionate". The example given frames this in terms of assistance, but it goes beyond that. Pearl Jam's song Given To Fly really exemplifies this sort of thing. In the middle of mythologizing and uplifting messaging of love, the word "fuckers" gets dropped in. Similar but not t…
Comment linking /2015/01/14/how-to-hire-good-people-instead-of-nice-people/
on “Are you nice or kind?”Submitted How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire as a story · 599 points
HN discussionThe startup where I serve as in-house recruiter, FutureAdvisor, recently ran an experiment in hiring without resumes. It was called StaffupWeekend. The Chronicle's careers blogger wrote about it here: http://blog.sfgate.com/gettowork/2014/10/31/staffup-offers-a... We recognized that resumes were poor indicators of performance. In fact, we believe that the only thing that correlates with performance -- is performance…
Comment linking /pages/archives/1234
on “Resumes suck for hiring engineers”Submitted You can't get permission for the wrong thing and don't need it for the right thing as a story · 148 points
HN discussionI like the idea of starting a conversation instead of the usual resume and interview approach, but the example job listing (here: http://brookeallen.com/pages/archives/982 ) came off as creepy to me, somehow. Maybe it was the overly familiar tone from a stranger, or the slightly self-centered focus on the prospective employer's own personality, or the paternalistic tone of the listing, down to the closing line: "dea…
Comment linking /pages/archives/982
on “How to hire good people instead of nice people”Submitted Passion requires that you hate something as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHey guys, this is Brooke Allen, the fellow Deborah was talking about. And yes, I am the guy who changed how he hired in 2004 and wrote about it in How My Life Was Changed When I Began Caring About the People I Did Not Hire. (On: http://BrookeAllen.com ) And I am the guy who offered to all takers a free three-week course in a little used language called APL, and I am the guy who helped the folks who did really well f…
Comment linking /pages/archives/1329
on “The Way We Hire Is All Wrong”Submitted Passion requires that something makes you angry as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe literal pain as others have mentioned is a biological feedback loop and feature of the human brain and evolution. When a baby is born, the baby needs to eat or it will feel pain. When you touch fire, you feel pain, so you avoid fire. When you eat, you receive positive feedback, so it encourages you to eat rather than starve. Back in the hunter-gatherer days, life was hard so people needed to stay in tight-knit g…
Comment linking /2015/01/27/passion-requires-that-you-hate-something/
on “Ask HN: Is there a bug in the universe which allows pain and suffering?”Submitted What I want to say to the richest kids in the world as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Difference between a profession and a trade as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Passion requires that something makes you angry as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Karma as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trigger Warning: Insanity Makes Me Manic as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hiring in a dysfunctional job market as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
