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Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

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Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#111

Post by htrp »

gtirloni wrote: post #80
htrp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the trick is to phrase the problem in a way that GPT4 will always give the incorrect answer (due to vagueness of your problem) and that multiple rounds of guiding/correcting are needed to solve.

That's pretty good because it can exhaust the context window quickly and then it starts spiraling out of control, which would require the candidate to act.

If you only use ChatGPT to code, you are only able to copy paste the llm emitted code, then you ask for changes to the code (to reflect for example the evolution of the product)

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#112

Post by meter »

meter wrote: post #103

For the time being, I’ve banned LLMs in my interviews. I want to see how the candidate reasons about code. So I try to ask practical questions and treat them like pairing sessions. - Given a broke piece of code, can you find the bug and get it working? - Implement a basic password generator, similar to 1Password (with optional characters and symbols) If you can reason about code without an LLM, then you’ll do even be…

Thinking out loud, here’s one idea for an LLM-assisted interview:

- Spin up a Digital Ocean droplet

- Add the candidate’s SSH key

- Have them implement a basic API. It must be publicly accessible.

- Connect the API to a database. Add more features.

- Set up a basic deployment pipeline. Could be as simple as script that copies the code from your local machine to the server.

Anything would be fair game. The goal would be to see how the candidate converses with the LLM, how they handle unexpected changes, and how they make decisions.

Just a thought.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#113

Post by ghaff »

themanmaran wrote: post #102

On our side we've transitioned to only in person interviews. The biggest thing I've noticed is take home challenges have lost all value. Since GPT can plausibly solve almost anything you throw at it, and it doesn't give you any indication of how the candidate thinks. And to be fair, I want a candidate that uses GPT / Cursor / whatever tools get the job done. But reading the same AI solution to a coding challenge does…

I'm not a fan of take-home challenges anyway (for the most part). Anything non-trivial is a big time suck and you know some people will spend all weekend on you two hour assignment.

Sometimes you have to. In my previous analyst stint a writing sample was pretty non-negotiable unless they could oint to publicly-published material--which was much preferred. ChatGPT isn't much use there except to save some time. It's very formulaic and wouldn't pass though, honestly, some people are worse on their own.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#114

Post by ryandvm »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #99
twoparachute45 wrote: post #70

My company, a very very large company, is transitioning back to only in-person interviews due to the rampant amount of cheating happening during interviews. As an interviewer, it's wild to me how many candidates think they can get away with it, when you can very obviously hear them typing, then watching their eyes move as they read an answer from another screen. And the majority of the time the answer is incorrect an…

So depressing to hear that “because of rampant cheating” As a person looking for a job, I’m really not sure what to do. If people are lying on their resumes and cheating in interviews, it feels like there’s nothing I can do except do the same. Otherwise I’ll remain jobless. But to this day I haven’t done either.

I don't know, I kind of feel like leetcode interviews are a situation where the employer is cheating. I mean, you're admittedly filtering out a great number of acceptable candidates knowing that if you just find 1 in a 1000, that'll be good enough. It is patently unfair to the individuals that are smart enough to do your work, but poor at some farcical representation of the work. That is cheating.

In my opinion, if a prospective employee is able to successfully use AI to trick me into hiring them, then that is a hell of a lot closer to the actual work they'll be hired to do (compared to leetcode).

I say, if you can cheat at an interview with AI, do it.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#115

Post by dijit »

I've always just tried to hold a conversation with the candidate, what they think their strengths are weaknesses are and a little probing.

This works especially well if I don't know the area they're strongest in, because then they get to explain it to me. If I don't understand it then it's a pretty clear signal that they either don't understand it well enough or are a poor communicator. Both are dealbreakers.

Otherwise, for me, the most important thing is gauging: Aptitude, Motivation and Trustworthiness. If you have these three attributes then I could not possibly give a shit that you don't know how kubernetes operators work, or if you can't invert a binary tree.

You'll learn when you need it; it's not like the knowledge is somehow esoteric or hidden.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#116

Post by crooked-v »

acwan93 wrote: post #88
john-radio wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know about this specific situation, but as someone who is on the job market, is a good developer, but can come off as a little odd sometimes, I often wonder how often I roll a natural 1 on my Cha check and get perceived as an AI imposter.

If anything, coming across as “a little odd” can be a sign I’m actually talking to a human.

That's a good point. The major LLMs are all tilted so much towards a weird blend of corpo-speak with third-world underpaid English speaker influence (e.g. "delve", from common Nigerian usage) that having any quirks at all outside that is a good sign.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#117

Post by ryandrake »

emseetech wrote: post #90
staticautomatic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this while hiring last year and the number of candidates who got stuff wrong because they were too proud to just look up the answer was shocking.

Is it pride or is it hard to shake the (reasonable, I'd say) fear the reviewer will judge regardless of their claims?

Exactly. You never know. Some interviewers will penalize you for not having something memorized and having to look it up, some will penalize you for guessing, some will penalize you for simply not knowing and asking for help. Some interviewers will penalize you for coming up with something quick and dirty and then refining it, some will penalize you for jumping right to the final product. There's no consistency.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#118

Post by fastily »

I expect in person interviews are going to be the norm soon, assuming they’re not already. For now, the challenge I give candidates causes ChatGPT to produce convoluted code that a human never would. I then ask the person to explain the code line-by-line and they’re almost never able to give a satisfactory answer

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#119

Post by crooked-v »

kittikitti wrote: post #38

I tell everyone to share their entire screen, have their video on, and start coding. It's not that different. Even as an interviewer, I experimented with the usual cheating techniques so I know what to look out for. The best are the AI teleprompters. If you can do the work with your own AI then I see no need to care as the business will not care either. The story is completely different for airgapped dark room jobs,…

> share their entire screen

That would be a bit awkward with my 32:9 primary monitor.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#120

Post by sien »

brianstrimp wrote: post #46
explorigin wrote: post #6

Part of my resume review process is trying to decide if I can trust the person. If their resume seems too AI-generated, I feel less like I can trust that candidate and typically reject the candidate. Once you get to the interview process, it's very clear if someone thinks they can use AI to help with the interview process. I'm not going to sit here while you type my question into OpenAI and try to BS a meaningful res…

Good interviews are a conversation, a dialog to uncover how the person thinks, how they listen, how they approach problems and discuss. Also a bit detail knowledge, but that's only a minor component in the end. Any interview where AI in its current form helps is not good anyway. Keep in mind that in our industry, the interview goes both ways. If the candidate thinks your process is bad then they are less inclined to…

I'm pretty sure I've been in an interview with an 'interview assistant' and that it was another person.

This was 2-3 years ago in a remote interview. The candidate would hear the question, BS us a bit and then sometimes provide a good answer.

But then if we asked follow up questions they would blow those.

They also had odd 'AV issues' which were suspicious.

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