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How I Interview

rkoutnik.com

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Re: How I Interview

#61

Post by Paul_Dessert »

imh wrote: post #58
ronilan wrote: post #53

So, like, my own personal experience... A couple of years ago I applied for a certain company that this year turned out to be a unicorn. The automated reply said to build a Minesweeper. So I did. It took a several hours to get into a shape that is playable. Then it took several days to polish it into app store quality. You can play here: http://www.ronilan.com/bugsweeper/ Download here: http://www.appstore.com/bugswe…

Automated response questions are so disrespectful. "We won't take the time to see if we're in any way interested, and won't unless you devote your own time."

Absolutely. I got one a couple of weeks ago. It asked me to design some API and other arbitrary garbage. Obviously an auto response. They also had the nerve to "cap" it at 10 hours.

I won't even respond to these "companies" anymore. It's a waste of time.

Re: How I Interview

#62

Post by koevet »

I have decided that I will no longer take technical interviews.

I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself?

If I was a senior lawyer or an architect joining a new studio, I strongly doubt I would have to go through an interview to test if I can use the drawing table or if I know the body of laws of my countries. It is just ridiculous.

As I work as a freelance, my approach will be to offer 2 weeks of work on site for free. After the 2nd week, if they still think I'm good enough for the company, I will charge the 2 weeks, otherwise goodbye and no questions asked.

Re: How I Interview

#63

Post by crazylila »

At the Beginning Be warm ask them how they are Listen Be considerate ssk if it’s still a good time Don't Be Too Familiar Use Appropriate Language Explain what is going to happen

Re: How I Interview

#64

Post by re »

deadbeef404 wrote: post #25
icecube wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wont this result in the mines being placed in the front more often than not? sort(function() { return math.rand() - .5; }) doesnt result in a truely random distribution.

> doesnt result in a truely random distribution. It evenly distributes over 0-1. Removing .5, just distributes it evenly between -0.5 and +0.5. Sort basically says >0, the first option should come first and if I believe this still maintains a random distribution and is quite a tidy solution. Thoughts?

It can be extremely biased, and the results can depend on the sort algorithm, because what you're randomizing is the comparison results, not the order. Consider insertion sort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insertion_sort

As the list is sorted, elements are inserted from the back by finding the first element that the new element is smaller than. The last element to be inserted is the one at the end of the unsorted array, and, with a random comparator, it has a 50% chance of being "larger" than the biggest of the rest of the elements, and thus remaining at the end of the list.

Microsoft used this technique to "randomize" a list of browsers back in 2010, but, when viewing the page in IE, it ended up putting IE in the last position (out of a set of five browsers) 50% of the time: http://www.robweir.com/blog/2010/02/microsoft-random-browser...

Re: How I Interview

#65

Post by s3nnyy »

I live in Switzerland and I used to code for a living. As an external, I hire engineers for different startups in Zurich.

As I got deeper into IT-recruiting, I realised that candidate filtering at the top of the funnel is fundamentally broken.

The market for software engineers is different from the market for - let's say - actors. Especially for senior developers there is way more demand than there is supply.

This has the very important implication that as a company you can not annoy candidates too much. Asking for tedious homework, too many coding challenges or references might be already overkill. Good people do not really need to work for you; they can also work for Google Zürich (biggest engineering office outside the US), or other cool tech-companies / ETH-spinoffs.

If you look for a tech-job in the most liveable city in the world, check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" on https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t... or send me a mail to the mail-address in my HN-profile.

Re: How I Interview

#66

Post by georgemcbay »

collyw wrote: post #31
autarch wrote: post #13

Where I work we do something similar but it's a "homework" question we give to people who pass our initial resume screen ( https://github.com/maxmind/dev-hire-homework ). We tell them not to spend more than 1-2 hours on it. We decide whether or not to interview them based on the quality of the code they produce. In the interview we ask things like: * what is OO and how is it different from procedural programming? (hi…

Homework exercises are a large burden on the candidate, so expect to half your pool for that reason alone. I only do about half or less of these, as most are crappy an unrelated to the job. I prefer to plan and do things thoroughly, not rush a solution out in a couple of hours. And to be honest asking for more than a couple of hours is more than you should be asking unless you are willing to pay.

"Homework exercises are a large burden on the candidate"

People keep saying that, but I'd MUCH, MUCH rather do a single couple of hour "homework exercise" that I can submit than do a full day (or more!) of "implement whatever pet algorithm/data structure I think is really swell" for like 3-6 different people in series, which is how a horrifyingly large amount of companies still tend to do things.

Give me a task, let me do it, have your tech people discuss my solution amongst themselves. If they like my solution bring me in to discuss it (to verify I didn't "cheat") and to determine culture fit. Seems like a lot less wasted time for everyone with far few of the stressors (hard time pressure, etc) that make most tech interviews so amazingly terrible.

Re: How I Interview

#67

Post by justjimmy »

koevet wrote: post #62

I have decided that I will no longer take technical interviews. I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself? If I was a senior lawyer or an architect joining a new studio, I strongly doubt I would ha…

Shouldn't that be the other way around? If it doesn't work out, charge the 2 weeks, if it does, you get a job?

Re: How I Interview

#68

Post by sotojuan »

georgemcbay wrote: post #66
collyw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homework exercises are a large burden on the candidate, so expect to half your pool for that reason alone. I only do about half or less of these, as most are crappy an unrelated to the job. I prefer to plan and do things thoroughly, not rush a solution out in a couple of hours. And to be honest asking for more than a couple of hours is more than you should be asking unless you are willing to pay.

"Homework exercises are a large burden on the candidate" People keep saying that, but I'd MUCH, MUCH rather do a single couple of hour "homework exercise" that I can submit than do a full day (or more!) of "implement whatever pet algorithm/data structure I think is really swell" for like 3-6 different people in series, which is how a horrifyingly large amount of companies still tend to do things. Give me a task, let…

> People keep saying that, but I'd MUCH, MUCH rather do a single couple of hour "homework exercise" that I can submit than do a full day (or more!) of "implement whatever pet algorithm/data structure I think is really swell" for like 3-6 different people in series, which is how a horrifyingly large amount of companies still tend to do things.

The best part is that a lot of companies make you do both : ) I've had that happen to me.

Re: How I Interview

#69

Post by emerongi »

justjimmy wrote: post #67
koevet wrote: post #62

I have decided that I will no longer take technical interviews. I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself? If I was a senior lawyer or an architect joining a new studio, I strongly doubt I would ha…

Shouldn't that be the other way around? If it doesn't work out, charge the 2 weeks, if it does, you get a job?

If you go with the notion of "I don't need to prove myself, I'm good enough - look at what I've made", then this is exactly how it should be. Otherwise you're still proving yourself and providing 2 weeks of your highly valuable time for free.

Those 2 weeks should determine whether it works out on other levels (e.g. are both parties comfortable with working each other) and if you do work in that time, you better charge for it.

Re: How I Interview

#70

Post by dasboth »

koevet wrote: post #62

I have decided that I will no longer take technical interviews. I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself? If I was a senior lawyer or an architect joining a new studio, I strongly doubt I would ha…

That sounds like a sensible way to work as a freelancer. Have you already had success with it or is it just a plan for the future for now? I'd be interested in hearing how it pans/panned out.
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