It’s the same interview so probably
Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#12Well, yeah, because I did.
I walked into a conference room to meet with the CTO, CFO, and lead dev. A huge whiteboard in the room, I was like _sh*t_.
But the test was basically a few sheets of paper with some technical questions, along with a conversation. There was a take-home as well, which annoyed me because I already answered ~12 meant-to-be tricky questions, drove ~45 minutes, spent 30 minutes waiting for everyone, and an hour conversation. But it was worth it in the end.
I have flat out refused a few companies interview processes in the past, telling them I don't have the time nor patience for the games. I still managed to get those jobs, surprisingly.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#13The last few times we have done interviews I’ve done the same coding test as the applicants while they are working on it. I try to solve it in a slightly different way each time. We are currently revamping our hiring process and the questions we keep asking are “Would X, Y, Z pass this or get hung up on this coding test, question, etc”. As in taking care to think about how existing employees would do on the new proce…
but you have solved it before, so it does not give you a good idea of whether your coding test can reasonably be solved in time.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#14No. Because it is a problem that has nothing to do with real work. I would need to spend at least a month practicing those kinds of problems to be able to perform well in that 1 hour.
thanks for your honesty. have you informed management the interviews are unfair?
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#15Over the last decade+ I've been involved in the hiring process at every company I've been an employee at. I've either been a key technical interviewer, or the hiring manager. I would be able to pass all my interviews, and I'm pleased to say that (with one exception) all of my hires have succeeded in their roles. I have a very straightforward process.
- Look at every resume, pass/fail fast. Ask the Recruiter or HR to give you more resumes, not less (they typically are not equipped to assess techncal resumes)
- 15 minute phone screen. Make sure the role fits expectations, make sure the salary range is acceptable, get and give a verbal background.
- At-home code task. Something that takes an hour or so to get functional. More if the interviewee wants to put some spit-shine on it. I ask for a git repo back, and I tell the applicant up front that the code will be used to springboard the technical interview.
- 2 hour technical interview, no live-coding. In person or virtual. This involves other engineers from the org -- we code review the git repo. For each code task I have a set of 3/4 "Product Manager" style enhancement requests, we then verbally talk through the technical changes & challenges for each ask.
- 15 minute chat with the CT or VP or whomever is my boss.
- Extend an offer.
It's all very real, and very pragmatic, and shouldn't suck more than 4-6 hours out of an applicants life, total. I want to be able to extend an offer within days, assuming everyone's schedule aligns. There is 0 reason to go deeper. If you cannot asses someone's technical chops in a 2 hour conversation, you shouldn't be involved in hiring. If you couldn't complete the coding challenges to your own satisfaction, you shouldn't be involved in hiring (there are engineers I've worked with who are no longer involved in hiring due to unneeded pedantry that they themselves would not tolerate if the shoe was on the other foot).
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#16If I were to have to repeat it, odds are I would most definitely not.
I consider it a miracle that I got in. I thank God every day.
Did the interview matter, in terms of technically assessing for what I do day to day? Very little.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#17You should have 50/50 odds. If you don't, you're dropping the overall bar on each hire.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#18Yes, but not every time, because there are certain algorithmic problems I'm just more comfortable with than others, even amongst unseen problems.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#19No. Because it is a problem that has nothing to do with real work. I would need to spend at least a month practicing those kinds of problems to be able to perform well in that 1 hour.
thanks for your honesty. have you informed management the interviews are unfair?
Yes. They don't care. They push it back onto various interviewer committees who also don't care.
Re: Ask HN: Would you pass own your company's interview?
#20A few years ago we started using HackerRank and created a test with 4 or 5 coding questions for candidates to do on their own. They could pick the programming language from about 10 options and the questions had varying degrees of complexity, with one being particularly difficult.
I sent it to almost all engineers on the team before we started using it and none could hit a 100% on it.
We still went ahead and started using it in our process. Non surprisingly, most folks would fail to get a perfect score but we still use it to see what they tried and also one of the following interviews was a review of the whole test with the applicant as we discussed their thought process and what other odeas they may have come with since they took the test.
Our intention with the test was mostly basic problem solving skills and was the first step in the process so it also worked as a filter.