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1) Mortgage broker - This lady will charge us 1% (10,000$) to find us a suitable loan. Basically, she will compare about 10 loans and choose the best one. Software systems can do this easily.
2) The buying agent - so far she has not come up with any houses on her own. She finds the same things we find on line. I dont need her to visit open houses. Legally, in SF I need an agent to be present during the inspections. I can use the selling agent for a fee. If I use her to place an offer, there is a bias problem. A buyer agent may be biased towards placing a "strong" offer. The "stronger" the offer, higher the probability that it will go through and higher her share. I have researched the areas enough and am comfortable coming up with a price.
Are there any startups that are disrupting this space? Say mortgage brokers and buying agents rolled into one. Small flat fee for the mortgage broker and flat fees for the buyer agent only for services that I need?
Alternative ideas also appreciated.
I joined my current 300 people company about 2 months ago. We are trying to hire Software engineers and are using Leetcode type problems as a selection mechanism.
The problem with it, is if a candidate is very good at it she will be getting an offer from some of the larger companies who follow a similar process and there is no way we can compete with them on salary.
Additionally, internal Google research has also found poor correlation between such tests and performance at the job.
So question for HR and hiring managers from smaller companies - what alternative approaches do you use to interview employees?
One option is take home tests. I have taken them while job hunting and wasted numerous hours only to get 'we will not be proceeding' emails or even ghosted. Too many hours wasted.
Any good alternatives?
Thanks.