61–70 of 152 posts
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There's a line there somewhere. Hiring someone for knowing Node is pretty silly, but hiring someone who's spent 5 years developing web apps is a useful metric.
In my experience, not that much. The 5 years experience might mean one year repeated 5 times. The person might be bored but he has no choice but to continue with web development and so on. Get somebody who is interested and smart enough for the job. Note I didn't say "the smartest".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a line there somewhere. Hiring someone for knowing Node is pretty silly, but hiring someone who's spent 5 years developing web apps is a useful metric.
In my experience, not that much. The 5 years experience might mean one year repeated 5 times. The person might be bored but he has no choice but to continue with web development and so on. Get somebody who is interested and smart enough for the job. Note I didn't say "the smartest".
It takes years to figure out patterns (when to use and not use them), good coding practices, avoiding newbie mistakes like sql injection and xss and how to actually make a deadline (its not easy to finish a project when you also have to learn the language and other skills in addition to the task at hand).
As a business owner, I don't want someone learning the above on the job and on my dime.
There is a company in MI that tried this called Compuware back in the 90s. It was a complete and utter disaster.
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>I think interviews would be less terrible if interviewers actually told you at the end that you did above/as well as/below expectations This happens quite often in phone interviews. My clients have regularly told candidates "We'll be inviting you in" at the end of a phone interview. The issue with this for on-site interviews is that they tend to be with multiple individuals/groups, and getting those groups together…
> usually there will need to be some discussions among the panels. The way we've handled that (startup, ~30 devs) is that the VP of Engineering goes last, and will go around getting quick reactions from everyone on the loop. If everyone says "I'm all for hiring", the VP will go ahead and let the candidate know we'll be making an offer. If anyone says "I'd like to discuss", then we don't give feedback until after gett…
There are lots of positives in providing that immediate positive feedback - showing the ability to make a quick decision, organization, and not least making the candidate feel wanted right away.
Mmmhhh I would have drawn the opposite conclusion, most people estimate ±1 star away from the real result, it's not bad considering the actual performance is not entirely objective. Glad to see that once again Dunning-Krüger proved wrong.
It's not even clear (to me) what's being compared here. What's the "actual performance" that the blog post very carefully does not define? The screenshot highlighting the technical performance question seems to suggest that it might be only that one point out of the three that interviewers fill in.
But it's completely possible to be technically competent and still feel that one didn't do well overall because one came across as nervous or boring or whatever. In other words, the comparison here seems to be between apples and undefined oranges.
These interview training programs seems to be really reminiscent of coding bootcamps and appear to have grown rapidly in a very short period of time. I think I'd almost prefer interviewees being judged based on the schools they attended and companies they worked at. I'm not sure that I find the ability to cram for data structures and algorithms questions to be indicative of intelligence and problem solving skills. Sc…
I liked the interview approach of my last job - they had me debug some simple code. This was C++ for gamedev, so they showed me - a class violating the rule of 3 leading to a double delete, some multi-threaded code without memory barriers - or even volatile - and another example that escapes me at the moment. I was able to blitz through that. I floundered slightly when asked to explain the observed behavior of the buggy code pre-fixes - the exact behavior of the multi-threaded code before fixes surprised me, and I couldn't figure out the probable cause in my own head - but that segued easily into a discussion of the disassembly (at which point I was able to explain the behavior) when I suggested I'd look at the disassembly when asked how I'd go about finding out.
They asked about basic usage and design on a broader range of topics as well - I failed to remember to store a salt (doh!) for the simple user DB example schema, and floundered a little on my 3D math skills (in what to apply to solve a problem, not to recite the exact math - an area I admitted up front I was weak in) but otherwise did okay. Also a lot of discussion about previous problems I'd tackled and how (I've got a file of notes I keep called "War Stories".) I ended up getting the job at the price I named - they didn't even try to negotiate me down, perhaps I should've asked for more? :3
>some portion of interviewees are losing interest in joining your company just because they didn’t think they did well, despite the fact that they actually did. This is the key takeaway for me. This is IMO and experience probably based on a "sour grapes" type defense mechanism, where candidates will internally try to talk themselves out of wanting a job that they felt they didn't get. They walk out of the interview f…
For candidates who don't do well? Thank them for the time and move on.
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When I was at Code for America I redid their hiring process to optimize for interviewee experience rather than hiring manager experience. One of the things that really struck me at the time was that traditional interview processes are built around a notion of worker surplus and job scarcity. They make very little sense when the opposite condition applies. Even little things like contacting all applicants within 24 ho…
I agree with you, but here's the thing. If the vast majority of companies are running like that and succeeding, does that not suggest that there really is a workeer surplus and job scarcity, and that impressions to the contrary are self-imposed?
The market is likely inefficient for the same reason that the advertising industry is inefficient - difficulty to show than any given change independently improves outcomes.
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A company's bad interview process might have nothing at all to do with the rest of the company. At this point, isn't it generally accepted that all tech interviewing sucks, and companies would do better throwing darts at resumes? If all interviewing is bad, and all companies are not bad, there's no benefit to judging a company based on that process.
> A company's bad interview process might have nothing at all to do with the rest of the company. Everyone who works at a company, got there by passing through the] interview filter. A bad interview process has everything to do with the company, particularly in organizations that have grown a lot in the recent past.
Actually we don't employ a woman (I'm working at a 3 person company). And we actually hire, but the only woman will probably decline on their side, she actually has experience in things we actually not need yet, so I guess we can't provide her a new challenge. way probably the best application.
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If I am a business owner, and I need someone to create a website for me to do something, the first thing I will reach for is someone who has already done similar projects and has a track record of getting it done. Teaching people is expensive, takes time (my website could be making me money -right now-) and doesn't always pay off. Whenever possible, it's often preferred to grab someone who can just hit the ground run…
> If I am a business owner, and I need someone to create a website for me to do something, the first thing I will reach for is someone who has already done similar projects and has a track record of getting it done. If that is the case, what you need is a contractor , not an employee , and you should hire accordingly.