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People suck at technical interviews (2014)

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Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#201

Post by lmm »

dfabulich wrote: post #21
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…

>> 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 are notorious cases where senior engineers with years of actual honest coding experience "fail" fizzbuzz. IMO, That happens in two ways: 1) Not knowing (forgotten?) what a modulus operator is, and trying to code one up from scratch with a for loop. This…

> Much more likely is that the candidate has lied/exaggerated on their resume.

If you don't do fizzbuzz or equivalent, how else do you catch that?

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#202

Post by Chris2048 »

heartsucker wrote: post #125
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've had the same experience. Someone listed 2 years Scala experience on a resume, but couldn't explain Unit, None, null, and Nothing to me. Or the guy this week who had several years of ops experience and when asked "how can you tell what indexes are being used in a SQL query" didn't even know about EXPLAIN. Basic technical interviews are a must, but someone people get hung up on "they couldn't explain a hash map im…

To be honest though, just because you can get by without knowing how hash maps are implemented, doesn't mean it isn't useful to know - and if another candidate does know, they would sooner hire them.

Further, they may be looking for factors that correlates with other, hard-to-measure factors. Even such as reading a "common interview questions" book - it correlates with focused pragmatism...

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#203

Post by st3v3r »

kragen wrote: post #135
MrLeftHand wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, don…

My first tech job assignment required SQL. I didn't know it, didn't claim I knew it, got the job, read the O'Reilly book on SQL on the plane on my way to California. I learned about joins (although maybe not the JOIN keyword). This was about the time MySQL came out, and years before Postgres added SQL support, so at the time your rather pathetic argument might have had merit, because there wasn't actually a way to ge…

"If you don't know enough SQL to do a join, it's because you lack intellectual curiosity. "

Or other things have grabbed your interest. Are you saying that one lacks "intellectual curiosity" because they have had other priorities than learning this one specific technology?

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#205

Post by st3v3r »

strickjb9 wrote: post #143
Waterluvian wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As an interviewer, I don't ask this question but if I did then you could impress me by asking what a binary search tree is, then I would tell you, then you explain or write how you would do it. Most of these interview questions aren't designed to be trivia. It's designed because your job IS implementation of technical and business problems.

"As an interviewer, I don't ask this question but if I did then you could impress me by asking what a binary search tree is, then I would tell you, then you explain or write how you would do it."

Maybe. Or you would scoff, turn your nose up, mutter "noob" under your breath, and move on, knowing you're not going to hire me.

I'm sure you yourself would do as you said, but I can't be so sure about random interviewer person.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#206

Post by soham »

[Disclaimer: I run http://Interviewkickstart.com, which helps candidates suck less at technical interviewing.]

I have conducted countless technical interviews in my lifetime. I agree with the author; it's very difficult to actually become a good interviewer. The skill to judge someone's life and career of several years in 30 to 60 minutes is not something that comes easily. Alas, it's all too assumed to be easy.

When you start, for quite some interviews, you are very likely on either extreme viz. either too strict or too lenient. It takes a while to calibrate your standard, and not give in to an extreme. And that too, only if you introspect, or when someone draws your attention to your interview results.

Many companies don't have a culture which values interviewing as a skill. Rarely if so, I come across a company which has a process of shadowing and reverse-shadowing in an interview, which they take seriously. It is viewed as a cost center, when it's actually a profit-center when done right. And due to my business, I have come across plenty of them. At least in the valley.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#207

Post by qaq »

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…

Hmm now I feel bad about asking questions on transaction isolation levels.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#208

Post by marcosdumay »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #38
mruniverse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really didn't know what they wanted? You think they wanted you to find a library that did it?

Yes, call me stupid. I thought showing resilience by searching for an existing solution and implementing it, instead of reinventing the wheel, will give them a good impression. Clearly I was wrong. But, when you come across a problem, what is the first thing you do? Try to find a solution and use that, or start from scratch every time? This costs money, time and manpower. Having someone who can solve a problem the fa…

Don't call it "stupid".

Reading people is a skill like any other, that must be learned like any other. Most people get lots of practice when young, but not getting this practice does not make you "stupid", it makes you lacking on a specific skill.

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#209

Post by qaq »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #88
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, don…

Y some of them are really cool like VB, Hadoop and Spark

Re: People suck at technical interviews (2014)

#210

Post by qaq »

rtpg wrote: post #164
arethuza wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years of SQL experience and no idea of what a join is? Isn't that like saying 5 years of C/Java/C#/... experience and not knowing what assignment is?

Maybe 5 years of Java without using inheritance? It's possible but feels like you haven't gone the distance.

... or you are Rich Hickey :)
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