Interesting article! It's good to see an admission, involving companies with large statistical bases, that tech. hiring is far from the science we imagine. That said, he lost me at "power to veto". A hiring process that found reasons not to hire candidates instead of reasons to hire them, and that required many people to agree unanimously on a positive decision but allowed a single dissenting voice to carry a negative decision, was always wrong. Can you imagine if, when I worked as a math teacher, I'd approached my job by looking for reasons and ways to fail my students? We should be hiring people and seeing how they perform. It's the only reliable way. At-will employment makes that easy. There's no need for a provisional employment status. Millions of involuntary separations proceed every year, but employers worry about a small number of high-profile lawsuits, most of which they win anyway. Willingness to hire is one thing that would have to change. Another thing would be accepting that employees will have shorter tenures at more companies.

Can you imagine if, when I worked as a math teacher, I'd approached my job by looking for reasons and ways to fail my students?

Veto to fail power