The Top 1% Fallacy

• You Are Not Hiring the Top 1% by Eliezer Yudkowsky

See also

• Overconfidence

Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%. Martin Fowler said, “We are still working hard to hire only the very top fraction of software developers (the target is around the top 0.5 to 1%).” I hear this from almost every software company. "We hire the top 1% or less," they all say. Could they all be hiring the top 1%? Where are all the other 99%? General Motors?

When you get 200 resumes, and hire the best person, does that mean you're hiring the top 0.5%? Think about what happens to the other 199 that you didn't hire. They go look for another job. --Joel on Software

See AlsoBlog posts

References

Footnotes

Overcoming Bias Articles

Less Wrong Articles

Other Resources

Everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%. Martin Fowler said, “We are still working hard to hire only the very top fraction of software developers (the target is around the top 0.5 to 1%).” I hear this from almost every software company. "We hire the top 1% or less," they all say. Could they all be hiring the top 1%? Where are all the other 99%? General Motors?

When you get 200 resumes, and hire the best person, does that mean you're hiring the top 0.5%? Think about what happens to the other 199 that you didn't hire. They go look for another job. --Joel on Software

See Also

References

Footnotes

Overcoming Bias Articles

• You Are Not Hiring the Top 1% by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Less Wrong Articles

Other Resources