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People suck at technical interviews (2014)

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Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#81

Post by Dayshine »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #56
ozim wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also different types of programmers. Some will do well with portfolio like web developers. But how you would approach creating portfolio as embedded dev? When you work on proprietary stuff and github repo does not really show that you do well with hardware, because customer might not have time/knowledge to run this stuff to check if it is actually working.

A portfolio isn't something you just have and it does all the work for you. It's a living and evolving thing that is there to show that you can solve problems. A portfolio says "I encountered X problem and here's what I did about it to make this other thing and therefore solved X problem." A web dev is a very easy job to create a portfolio for because the product can be your portfolio but when I say 'portfolio' I'm n…

Could you make a Photography portfolio without any photographs?

You're allowed to include sketches, because you have time to make those for personal projects. But no photographs because they're all proprietary.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#82

Post by vonmoltke »

lambdabit wrote: post #50

The problem with his interviews is that it's even more easily gamed. It doesn't really take a genius to go through their employment history and memorize blurbs that show learning technologies, applying it successfully while being humble and nice for one day.

If an interview like that can be gamed by "memorizing blurbs" then it wasn't done correctly. A properly conducted interview will see the interviewer tugging at threads to go deeper. At some point they will crack because memorization won't be enough. Unless of course they are anpathological liar, but those are rare enough that I would ignore the posssibility at the interview stage.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#83

Post by titzer »

LionessLover wrote: post #22
Maakuth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know doing recruiting says that FizzBuzz reliably disqualifies surprisingly large fraction of candidates. Even half of them, even after prefiltering by education or relevant experience.

That is a useless statement unless they followed the rejected candidates for a few more years at least . Otherwise it's just a tautology: They suck because my favorite test says so (i.e. because I say so). Sure it weeds out "non-programmers" - any programming task (more than "Hello World") does. But how many people who are good programmers and just suck a) under pressure, b) especially when surprised are falsely out-…

> That is a useless statement unless they followed the rejected candidates for a few more years at least. Otherwise it's just a tautology: They suck because my favorite test says so (i.e. because I say so).

The same comment could apply to any rejection criteria. At my employer, we do have some data, since we do reinterview candidates after years in-between, especially if they are fresh from college. I can't speak for our organization but yes, basic programming hurdles do reliably weed out bad candidates. This is based on my experience of having done more than 150 technical interviews, all of which were balanced against the feedback of the other interviewers. Failing basic programming problems is a good predictor.

> But how many people who are good programmers and just suck a) under pressure, b) especially when surprised are falsely out-selected?

Any kind of test that is given to candidates has the same risk.

But, let's break it down. Do you want to interview candidates for programming positions and _not_ have them program in some form or fashion during an interview? IMO that's nuts.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#84

Post by qaq »

ProfChronos wrote: post #3
skrebbel wrote: post #2

In all honesty, I'm not sure the author did a lot of interviewing. For example, > The famous fizzbuzz test simply asks "are you aware of the modulo operator?" Wait, what? No, it asks "can you write a for loop without breaking a sweat?". There's a rightfully vivid debate going on about the virtue of asking algorithmic questions in interviews, but fizzbuzz is hardly algorithmic. I'd wager that virtually all programmers…

Agree on technical questions + what he says on "team fit" really doesn't make sense: "You are NOT hiring for "team fit" I have never heard a definition of "team fit" that didn't end up sounding like "let our bias run free". Phrases like "looks like they belong here" are terrifying. More insidious are complaints like "doesn't like the same social activities we do". Grow up. Your office is not your frat house, and soci…

Team fit is actually pretty important as far as how long the Dev will stick around.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#85

Post by MrLeftHand »

bbcbasic wrote: post #78
MrLeftHand wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest this was like 4 years ago. I thought it was a good thing to show that I can get things done in way it costs less effort and time. I was wrong, I moved on, so did they. If I would have a similar test today I wouldn't go down the same route, because I know what they would expect. Maybe it was my sysadmin past talking back then. Trying to find a good existing solution for the problem.

Interviewing is about putting on the dance. Juggle some balls on a unicycle etc. It's a rite of passage to what may be a cool job but you have to jump through the hoops like a dolphin.

That sounds pretty cool. I hope at the end they wont try to feed me with raw fish.

And there is the part 'may be a cool job'. Sometimes that part is a lie.

Yes come to us and you will be working with the newest tech and learn new things...

Oh did we forgot to mention we use CVS, Java 1.6 and Expoler 8? You want to use something else? No can't do sweety.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#86

Post by pyb »

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #52
k__ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It speaks for broken hiring when even skillers like you can't get a job. I always thought I just wasn't as good as I think when I didn't get a job, but I know your work and it is amazing, so hiring companies just don't know what they doing anymore

Hiring right now is a shitshow of old wives' tales, cargo-culted practices from big name tech companies, shady recruiters, mismatched incentives, interviewers who have no experience or training in interviewing, gimmicky apps trying to somehow gamify technical interviewing and endless whining back and forth on HN and Medium. I'm sure a lot of developers who are currently employed are put off applying elsewhere because…

What could be the root cause of this change ? An oversupply of good candidates?

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#87

Post by PuffinBlue »

Dayshine wrote: post #81
PuffinBlue wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A portfolio isn't something you just have and it does all the work for you. It's a living and evolving thing that is there to show that you can solve problems. A portfolio says "I encountered X problem and here's what I did about it to make this other thing and therefore solved X problem." A web dev is a very easy job to create a portfolio for because the product can be your portfolio but when I say 'portfolio' I'm n…

Could you make a Photography portfolio without any photographs? You're allowed to include sketches, because you have time to make those for personal projects. But no photographs because they're all proprietary.

This analogy makes no sense.

I often encountered situations where clients wanted to keep photos 'private'. I couldn't use them in my portfolio. To deal with that I took my camera and lenses (analogous to a computer) and made some equivalents that allowed me to demonstrate my skill in a similar way (analogous to writing some code in a personal project).

Suggesting you should sketch something to show your photo making ability is like writing pseudo code to say you can write python - it's an unrealistic analogy that doesn't happen and has no need to happen.

You can very easily use a camera or a computer for a personal project and make very real photographs or write very real code to demonstrate your ability.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#88

Post by MrLeftHand »

hanginghyena wrote: post #76

Hiring Manager Perspective: Everyone lies, sorry. As a candidate, I hate technical interviews. For the reasons above. As the poor schmuck asked to make the hiring decision, however, I've learned that I can't live without them. My technical isn't complicated. A very basic SQL assignment (delivered to an audience which claims to know SQL) that is followed by a few broader database design / data process QA questions. En…

Potential Employee Perspective: they can't be serious!!!

A lot of times a job spec contains a minimum of 10-15 skill you need to know. And that's just the modest one.

Maybe employers should stop trying to find the non-existing 'developer rock-star' and people would stop lying.

The funny thing is that even the developers themselves start to behave like that when they are on the other end of the hiring (Been there, done that).

"never mind 5 years of claimed SQL experience at a big company" - you can easily have that without touching JOIN.

Most jobs are just 'stuck in a loop' ones. Where you inherit legacy stuff and you're not allowed to change anything.

The crap you can get into and stuck in it when working with legacy stuff is crazy. And you can end up working with something for years without having the liberty to experience and grow.

That's the sad truth about software development. Well one of them at least.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#89

Post by [deleted] »

hanginghyena wrote: post #76

Hiring Manager Perspective: Everyone lies, sorry. As a candidate, I hate technical interviews. For the reasons above. As the poor schmuck asked to make the hiring decision, however, I've learned that I can't live without them. My technical isn't complicated. A very basic SQL assignment (delivered to an audience which claims to know SQL) that is followed by a few broader database design / data process QA questions. En…

[deleted]

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#90

Post by Waterluvian »

hanginghyena wrote: post #76

Hiring Manager Perspective: Everyone lies, sorry. As a candidate, I hate technical interviews. For the reasons above. As the poor schmuck asked to make the hiring decision, however, I've learned that I can't live without them. My technical isn't complicated. A very basic SQL assignment (delivered to an audience which claims to know SQL) that is followed by a few broader database design / data process QA questions. En…

I hear you. I'm terrified by the kinds of interviews that want programming trivia. In the last three years I've never had to code a binary search tree. But I should be able to show you I'm very comfortable with Python.
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