For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies • Hacker News Board

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#151

Post by kzhahou » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:13 AM UTC

deftnerd wrote: post #89

The current state of the hiring process in tech companies has really affected me. I'm, by nature, a very shy person who doesn't deal with rejection very well. Because of this, I tend to apply at jobs where my hiring is a slam-dunk because it's so routine and easily within my skill-set. It results in jobs that aren't particularly fulfilling but gives me plenty of time to work on technology I'm interested in my spare t…

Lot of advice below on how to toughen up for interviews, but I'm going to give a contrarian view: you can't toughen up if it's not in you already.

Tech interviews are an exhausting, often humiliating experience. Some companies claim to do it better (e.g., see Asana's post a few days ago) and more humanely, but by and large the process is designed to break the candidate: to see the limits of their skills and aptitudes. Excellent in theory for the company, but very hard on the candidate.

Even if you do mostly-great in an interview, you'll probably not quite finish the programming assignment, and feel like a dunce for it (and you'll know the answer on your walk back to your car). If you don't get an offer, it will serve as confirmation of your ineptitude and you'll kick yourself for it.

It's super tough and I have very good friends --and easily world-class 1% engineers-- who have crumbled during the process.

My advice: you seem to know yourself pretty well. That's so valuable. Play to your own strengths and don't bother trying to toughen up for interviews.

Oh, advice #2: get into an awesome job via a friend, if you can, and maybe your friend can make sure they don't haze you too hard.

Good luck!

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#152

Post by argonaut » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:13 AM UTC

yarou wrote: post #143

timbofoo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the whiteboard coding test as an attitude-test. If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company. It shouldn't be hard if you're skilled. Sorry to be that way, but that's the way I (and we) see it.

Probably one of the most insensitive posts I've ever seen written on here. There are many people who have crippling anxiety and social phobias, and your post chalks that up to them having an "attitude".

Not to be harsh or anything, but this kind of proves the point. Crippling anxiety and social phobia are not things I would want in an employee, all else equal, because they will need to be able to communicate in meetings and present findings/work to different teams / executives.

Reply: baseline social comfort is not a generic personality type.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#153

Post by 13of40 » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

citizens wrote: post #96

pklausler wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beats me. I've never worked at a company that would allow a candidate to fire up a laptop during an interview.

I was once asked to set up the interviewers laptop.

When I used to interview contractors (more leeway in the interview process) I would put them in front of a computer with Visual Studio and a web browser, because that's how people actually work. I didn't get enough samples to tell if success at that correlates to success on the job, though.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#154

Post by jblow » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:14 AM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #44

Any time a company asks me to do a HackerRank test, I immediately reject them. It's just not possible to have a quality engineering team and to also believe the results of HackerRank tests correspond to on-the-job success. HackerRank is an attempt to commoditize software labor (literally reducing evaluation of your labor fitness to standardized examples). It communicates immediately that creativity is valued less tha…

This analogy is correct, except ... you're not Robert De Niro, and neither is almost any programmer in the valley. Just like almost no actor is Robert De Niro, and most actors are lucky to even be able to audition for commercials.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#155

Post by argonaut » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:15 AM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #111

timbofoo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the whiteboard coding test as an attitude-test. If you have too much attitude to sit down and write some code for an hour, then you aren't someone I want in my company. It shouldn't be hard if you're skilled. Sorry to be that way, but that's the way I (and we) see it.

That cuts both ways, hombre. If you're not willing to think about the serious problems with conducting interviews that way, I don't wanna work with you either. Plus you literally just came out and admitted that it's not actually about measuring technical skill, it's some run-you-through-the-gauntlet "attitude" bullshit. Gimme a break.

This kind of proves his point. All else equal, someone who communicates like this ("hombre", "gimme a break", "bullshit") on the Internet is not someone I want to be working with.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#156

Post by TheCowboy » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:15 AM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #28

EricScottTaylor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure, I work for HackerRank, but I really wanted to comment for two reasons: (1) Reading this article and seeing the comments, really helps me see how my daily work helps level the playing field and as Alibek says, change people's lives. Very fulfilling and thankful for that. (2) Re: exabrial's comment above, where do you think culture fit should be evaluated in the process? Lots of interview processes tod…

My answer to #2: Being from the midwest, doing interviews in silicon valley was like stepping into Charlie's Chocolate Factory at a few places in LA and SF. It made me smile to see people using their freedom to do whatever they wanted, but I really felt like -I- was being judged: you know for not wearing skinning jeans, feeling comfortable in my (literal) boots, being clean shaven, dressed in a long sleeve, and of co…

Do you think it could partially be in your head and that all of LA/SF don't actually have a problem with a person with your background? This is not to say it's your fault, but to say that you could have more influence over these situations.

Most of the time people will pick up on someone's anxiety, lack of comfort or confidence, and start feeling uncomfortable in response. It's not really a personal thing, but it's hard for anyone to feel at ease in such situations.

Take two different people who have anxiety due to superficial differences, that wouldn't matter if they knew each other better, and that anxiety will likely magnify unless one person can break out of that mindset.

It's better to avoid simple explanations that rely on some sort of fundamental attribution error, because you'll come up with better solutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#157

Post by jblow » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:17 AM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #39

I realized something a while back... My entire career, if I've made it to an on-site interview, I've only had one company NOT make me a job offer. That interview, I was asked to do something using recursion. (Ug.) The next interviewer asked me to reverse a singularly linked list, and because my brain was still in recursion land, I tried to do it recursively. Blame the jet lag, okay? Immediately after I sucked at that…

Except ... reversing a singularly-linked list recursively is trivial.

If you can't do this, you are not qualified at basic manipulation of data structures and you should fail the interview if they want someone with basic competence in data structure manipulation. Sorry but that is how it is.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#158

Post by yeukhon » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:19 AM UTC

pklausler wrote: post #8

13of40 wrote: post #6

> You don’t get to use to your own IDE, you have an absurdly limited amount of time and you’re in an incredibly high-pressure environment. Here's a good interview tip that's helped me out with my last two job moves: Whiteboard code almost always comes out looking like crap because once you've fleshed out the idea, you can't easily insert lines. The solution is to bring a laptop with the IDE of your choice ready and s…

If your interviewer really dings you for the appearance of your scrawled code on the wall, they're being self-defeatingly stupid and you'd probably be happier working with other people. I do lots of tech interviews, and I always make it clear that I don't care how pretty the ink looks. I stick with the whiteboard because it's the best way for candidates to explain their analyses and algorithms before they write the c…

Actually, I prefer whiteboard because I prefer drawing a lot. As far as code quality is concerned, I'd have the interviewee to work on a small challenge and submit the challenge in two days. Nothing majorly difficult, just some hackathon-kind of app challenge. If the candidate has a public code profile I'd check those out.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#159

Post by yarou » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:21 AM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #152

yarou wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably one of the most insensitive posts I've ever seen written on here. There are many people who have crippling anxiety and social phobias, and your post chalks that up to them having an "attitude".

Not to be harsh or anything, but this kind of proves the point. Crippling anxiety and social phobia are not things I would want in an employee, all else equal, because they will need to be able to communicate in meetings and present findings/work to different teams / executives. Reply: baseline social comfort is not a generic personality type.

Isn't that your job as a manager, though? To balance the various personality types on your team?

Seems like you just want one generic personality type on your team to make your life easier.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#160

Post by philovivero » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 1:22 AM UTC

kafkaesq wrote: post #5

So, how did you get to where you are today? I’ve always been passionate about coding, starting from my early days at Olympiad teams in high school and ACM teams in college. Anyone who's made it onto an Olympiad team[1] of any significant geographical scale, in any category, shouldn't have to deal with this whiteboard nonsense. Maybe a few lightweight-to-medium rounds to verify that they are what they say they are. Bu…

> Anyone who's made it onto an Olympiad team[1] of any significant geographical scale, in any category, shouldn't have to deal with this whiteboard nonsense.

Oh yeah? I've interviewed my fair share of self-righteous prima-donna "I shouldn't have to deal with you plebes" sorts before to know you'd better put them through MORE of this whiteboard nonsense rather than less.

And if they get all huffy, you know that when they make a pile of shit, they'll be the quickest out the door to run away from it leaving those of us with work ethic behind to clean it up.

Credentials mean precisely jack and shit to me. I want someone bright and humble.