Unless it’s for a senior role, why not just find the candidate you and your team can work best with? Skim through CVs and drop the first 20 an email asking them about their last team/boss or their day or to tell you the last thing they learnt. Something personal, the goal is to note their communication style. Pick 10 you feel matches the energy you want. From those 10 get 2 in the office every day for 2 weeks to see how they work with peers/competitors and your team. By the end of two weeks you should have a relatively good hire which you can work with to fit the team.
Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
591–600 of 735 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't tell us that LLM's aren't ready for prime time in 2025 after you tried Copilot twice last year. New better models are coming out almost daily now and it's almost common knowledge that Copilot was and is one of the worst. Especially right now, it doesn't even come close to what better models have to offer. Also the way to use them is to ask for small chunks of code or questions about code after you gave them…
> It is already being used A LOT Which is an argument for quality why? Bad coders are not going to produce better code that way. Just more with less effort.
The claim of the comment I replied to was "LLM's are not ready for prime time" and my opinion is that LLM prime time is already here. Using LLM's to code (or to learn how to code) is obviously super popular.
Who's talking about quality anyway?
Code quality is not and was never the number one most important thing in business, popularity of a product/service or keeping a job. You may find that unfortunate (I agree), but it's just how it is based on my own 15yr+ experience.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#593The last time I've used a leet code style interview was in 2012, and it resulted in a bad hire (who just happened to have trained on the questions we used). I've hired something like 150 developers so far, and what I ended up with after a few years of trial and error: 1. Use recruiters and network: Wading through the sheer volume of applications was even nasty before COVID, I don't even want to imagine what it's like…
When I was interviewing candidates at IBM, I came up with a process I was really happy with. It started with a coding challenge involving several public APIs, in fact the same coding challenge that was given to me when I interviewed there. What I added: 1. Instead of asking "do you have any questions for me?" at the very end, we started with that general discussion. 2. A few days ahead, I emailed the candidate the pr…
Kudos to you - this sounds like a fantastic interview format.
I especially like that you're prepping them very clearly in advance, giving them every opportunity to succeed, and clearly setting a tone of collaboration.
In person design and coding challenges are a pressure cooker, and not real-world. However, giving people the choice, seems like a great way to achieve the balance.
Honestly, I'm really just commenting here so that this shows up in my history, so I can borrow heavily from this format next time I need to interview! :) Thanks again for sharing.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought that meant what you typically write in the "Experience" section. GP, am I wrong? Is everyone writing a "Projects" section by rewording what they wrote in "Experience"?! For me, "Projects" should strictly be personal projects. If not, maybe that's what I'm missing.
I'm saying the sections of the resume don't matter at all. The resume is basically ignored. You either have public code you can point to on Github or you aren't ever hearing from us.
I’m curious to hear a bit more about your rationale for this. Is it because trust is otherwise hard to establish between you and the candidate? Is it like “if we can’t see the candidate’s code then we have no evidence they can code”?
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#595The last time I've used a leet code style interview was in 2012, and it resulted in a bad hire (who just happened to have trained on the questions we used). I've hired something like 150 developers so far, and what I ended up with after a few years of trial and error: 1. Use recruiters and network: Wading through the sheer volume of applications was even nasty before COVID, I don't even want to imagine what it's like…
When I was interviewing candidates at IBM, I came up with a process I was really happy with. It started with a coding challenge involving several public APIs, in fact the same coding challenge that was given to me when I interviewed there. What I added: 1. Instead of asking "do you have any questions for me?" at the very end, we started with that general discussion. 2. A few days ahead, I emailed the candidate the pr…
"Teach me something" is how the test prep companies would interview instructors. Same idea—have a candidate explain a topic they are totally comfortable with—but they were more focused how engaging the lesson was, how the candidate handled questions they didn't expect, etc. moreso than I expect you would if you use this in a IC coding interview. It's a neat idea though, I can imagine lots of different ways it would be handy.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far 3 of the 11 people we interviewed have been clearly using ChatGPT for the >>behavioral We actually allow using AI in our in-person technical interviews, but our questions are worded to fail safety checks. We'll talk about smuggling nuclear weapons, violent uprising, staging a coup, manufacturing fentanyl, etc. (within the context of system design) and that gives us really good mileage on weeding out those who…
what actually happens to the interviewee? Do they suddenly go blank when they realise the LLM has replied "I'm sorry I cannot assist you with this", or they try to make something up?
Yeah pretty much, they either go silent for 2-3 minutes or leave the call and claim their internet has cut out and need to reschedule.
Just one time someone got mad and yelled at the interviewer about nothing specific, just stuff like I’m not who you are looking for, you will never find anybody to hire.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far 3 of the 11 people we interviewed have been clearly using ChatGPT for the >>behavioral We actually allow using AI in our in-person technical interviews, but our questions are worded to fail safety checks. We'll talk about smuggling nuclear weapons, violent uprising, staging a coup, manufacturing fentanyl, etc. (within the context of system design) and that gives us really good mileage on weeding out those who…
Ha ha, that's a great idea! I love the idea of embedding sensitive topics that ChatGPT and other LLMs will steer clear of, within the context of a coding question. Have you ever had any candidate laugh? Any candidates find it offensive?
We usually get laughs, some quick jokes, etc., some really involved candidates will ask if it’s worded that way to prevent using ChatGPT.
No one’s found it offensive, the prompt is mostly neutral just very “dangerous activity” coded.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
(3) is biasing the process strongly in favour of people who spin a good story. If you're looking for a certain team culture then OK but this is going to neatly screen out anyone who just wants to do their job well and doesn't particularly know how to sell the extra-curriculars they have.
I don't think this approach favors the talkers / story spinners too much. It is the other way around! It is a nerd test. You can get every nerd talking if you ask them to tell you about a special skill or project they really care about. I remember quite a lot of these lunch conversations: Me: Hey, what's up? Do you like the salad? Introvert Nerd: Mmmm-Hmmm. Me: Great weather outside! Introvert Nerd: Mmmm-Hmmm. Me: I…
The problem is in leaving the topic of what to teach open. To some people, this may feel like freedom. To others, in the context of an interview where the purpose is to judge the candidate, it will just lead to a bunch of stress from trying to guess which types of things to teach are currently a la mode on the interview circuit.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It’s unfair but it meets their objective of finding a high in candidate. Google admits they do this.
The companies that do this only do it because they can. They have to have hundreds of people applying. The companies that don’t do this basically don’t have many people applying.
Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far 3 of the 11 people we interviewed have been clearly using ChatGPT for the >>behavioral We actually allow using AI in our in-person technical interviews, but our questions are worded to fail safety checks. We'll talk about smuggling nuclear weapons, violent uprising, staging a coup, manufacturing fentanyl, etc. (within the context of system design) and that gives us really good mileage on weeding out those who…
> I find that absolutely insane, if you cannot hold a basic conversation about your life without using AI then something is terribly wrong. I'm genuinely curious what questions you ask during the behavioral interview. Most companies ask questions like "recall a time when..." and I know people who struggle with these kinds of questions despite being good teammates, either because they find it difficult to explain the…
We usually just ask them to share their background, like the typical background exchange handshake at the beginning of any external call.
That normally prompts some follow ups about specific work, specific projects, if they know so-and-so moot at their old company. I call it behavioral because I don’t have another word but it’s not brainteasers and etc like consulting/finance interviews.