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Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#21

Post by jfrisby »

fenwick67 wrote: post #16
icedchai wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the opposite of my experience, both as a candidate and a hiring manager over the past couple of years. There are many openings, not enough competent people to fill them. We are essentially at peak employment for tech.

It's funny how companies / hiring managers always say they have trouble finding good candidates, and the people looking for jobs always say they are no jobs. It's probably an axiom of some sort.

It's a combination of two things:

1. We're bad at hiring, as an industry. We just aren't very good at identifying good candidates.

2. We're an industry where the average skill level is below the minimum threshold of competence for even low-level roles.

I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag -- and identifying the good candidates is time consuming and error prone.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#22

Post by godzillabrennus »

BillBohan wrote: post #19

If a company wants me to write code, they need to pay me for it. I came across a similar situation where a prospective employer sent me the requirements for a complex routine and gave me 7 days to return functioning and commented code. My estimate was that it would take me 2 days to do it, so it would probably have taken 6 days. I can envision an unscrupulous business model whereby you do the top level design and bre…

If a company wants to pitch you on a job they should pay you for it http://www.joinjune.com is making that a reality.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#23

Post by chrisbennet »

I would never take a test before talking to the hiring manager. It's a two way street, how would I know if you want to work for them?

That said, it's a great signal: the fact that they aren't willing to put in the work to talk to you first lets you know that they don't respect potential employees and can't compete with companies who do. Thus they have to go for volume. You don't want to work for a "minimum effort" kind of outfit.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#24

Post by desireco42 »

greyostrich wrote: post #17
kosma wrote: post #15

Have you actually asked them about the specific reasons for rejection? FWIW, there's a multitude of reasons why one could get rejected, ranging from automated systems to the position just getting filled to being too good for the job to bad references to human error. Until you ask and get an actual human response, you're completely in the dark.

It's a no-reply email. Here's what the actual email said: "Thank you for your interest in Company. We have reviewed your resume, experience, and responses to the Code Challenge. At this time, we have decided to move forward with other candidates in the process. We wish you success in your job search." Sounds to me like they read my resume AFTER I passed the coding challenge. Seems to me like a waste of terrible time…

It seems really strange that you are applying to a position and get challenges, yet you have no-one to talk to.

Companies have recruiters, other recruiters pitch you to them, there were times when I had an agent.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#25

Post by r34yll2k »

greyostrich wrote: post #17
kosma wrote: post #15

Have you actually asked them about the specific reasons for rejection? FWIW, there's a multitude of reasons why one could get rejected, ranging from automated systems to the position just getting filled to being too good for the job to bad references to human error. Until you ask and get an actual human response, you're completely in the dark.

It's a no-reply email. Here's what the actual email said: "Thank you for your interest in Company. We have reviewed your resume, experience, and responses to the Code Challenge. At this time, we have decided to move forward with other candidates in the process. We wish you success in your job search." Sounds to me like they read my resume AFTER I passed the coding challenge. Seems to me like a waste of terrible time…

Duh?

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#26

Post by notforgot »

greyostrich wrote: post #11
rcymerys wrote: post #6

Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job? Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates, not necessarily in the most fair way. They're simply not able to do a whole interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming. I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find plenty of good companies that will want to work with you. Un…

I don't like the zero feedback loop. I passed the test, yet I failed it and don't know why.

I was on the job market recently and similar things happened to me. It's worse when you don't get feedback after you go to an interview.

Two days ago I thought of making a job site that requires the employer to provide feedback, and the candidate to sign a form that says they won't sue the employer over the interview process. This way the employer has no excuse for not giving feedback.

Would you use this?

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#27

Post by khedoros1 »

greyostrich wrote: post #11
rcymerys wrote: post #6

Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job? Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates, not necessarily in the most fair way. They're simply not able to do a whole interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming. I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find plenty of good companies that will want to work with you. Un…

I don't like the zero feedback loop. I passed the test, yet I failed it and don't know why.

I've had things like this happen more than once: 1. HR/recruiter-ish Phone screening 2. Engineer-ish phone screening, sometimes with a coding session 3. Another phonecall as a prep for further rounds of interviews 4. Travel that requires me to take at least one day off of work and travel to another city for an in-person interview 5. Rejection with no reason, and "We have a policy of not providing that information to candidates" if you ask why 6. Questionnaire from the company, asking for feedback on their interview process (snerk)

In your case, with one guess, I'd say that the test cases that were provided were just examples of things you'd have to do to pass. It's like the homework assignment where the professor gives you a problem to solve and some test inputs. You know that they'll run some "acid test" on your code after you've submitted it. Maybe it caught some corner cases that they considered essential.

That, or they didn't like something about your coding style (style is subjective, and you'll never have feedback on how they judged it). Or, or, or...you can come up with speculative lists all day.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#28

Post by khedoros1 »

greyostrich wrote: post #13
rick_perez wrote: post #2

With big companies, it's pretty common. There is probably something about your contact info or education/experience that was auto-flagged as a rejection.

It was a small company you never heard of. But yeah, probably something else. The rejection said based on my experience, answers, and resume. If so, it's disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them to read my resume.

> If so, it's disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them to read my resume.

I'd read that more like "after considering all data points...". I'm sure they read your resume beforehand. Maybe the discussion on their hiring team was "Well, if he pulls out some magic in the coding challenge..."

You never know. It's not helpful to be angry about it, although it's natural and understandable. It's not even necessarily your fault. Maybe they just found someone that would slot into the position easier, just because of differences in their experience, education, or personality.

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#29

Post by smt88 »

bcbrown wrote: post #18
greyostrich wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, I've been trying to find my first job of university. I wish I knew how to be competent enough. What do you look for?

If you're looking for a job, where do you live, and why don't you have your email in your profile? If you're in Seattle, send me an email; my email's in my profile.

I'm not looking for a job, but if you're looking for employees, why do you limit your search to a small, expensive city like Seattle? What are the downsides of remote work that are keeping you away from it?

Re: Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

#30

Post by jackgolding »

Got three examples like this:

First happened to me with Australian Department of Defence - invited to do online testing which took between 4 and 6 hours (4-6 online tests on computer theory, mathematics, logic, verbal deduction etc.) - never spoke to a person and was rejected within the week.

I interviewed for an analyst position for an ASX20 company through a recruiter which involved giving a 30 minute presentation on the results of their marketing campaigns. Never heard back from the company, the recruiter said that they decided not to hire anyone for the position.

Most recently I did 7 hours of code for a startup (100 lines SQL, 100 lines JS, 200 lines python, 20 lines R, fair bit of excel and powerpoint) for a junior manager role - got rejected from that too with a one line "you looked good on paper but no thanks" type email (mind you I put in a lot less polish than I would have if that was my job, didn't ask the reason why as I felt like they were asking too much of someone at that pay grade anyway.)

The last two cases weren't even through HR (went straight to hiring manager) - HR makes things even more difficult. I went through a bunch of standardised testing for one job interview and ended up being asked to fly 8 hours return for a 1 hour interview. When I declined, I was told by HR that this showed them I wasn't serious about the role. Of course once I told them that I already had a job offer from one their competitors they rushed me through a skype interview and gave me an offer straight afterwards.

All of this stuff really irritates me, I don't even bother writing cover letters anymore (will include a short paragraph at the most) - its much more respectful for the company to meet me in person.

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