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You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#11

Post by trhway »

Animats wrote: post #5

The big result there is this: "Poor performances in technical interviewing happen to most people, even people who are generally very strong. However, when we looked at our data, we discovered that after a poor performance, women are 7 times more likely to stop practicing than men." On the hiring side, "For the specific case of an online job posting, on average, 1,000 individuals will see a job post, 200 will begin th…

logically unexplainable multiple rejections just after very short interactions by seemingly picky capricious agents on the other side of the interactions - isn't it that the men have biologically wired in them as a normal thing to expect, doesn't matter be it dating or sales or tech interview...

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#13

Post by divbit »

Animats wrote: post #5

The big result there is this: "Poor performances in technical interviewing happen to most people, even people who are generally very strong. However, when we looked at our data, we discovered that after a poor performance, women are 7 times more likely to stop practicing than men." On the hiring side, "For the specific case of an online job posting, on average, 1,000 individuals will see a job post, 200 will begin th…

That is a pretty huge statistic, - what also pops out to me is: "stop practicing ". This seems to imply that these technical interviews are skills that you don't really gain on the job. I know that personally would 9 times out of 10 spend time on a cool / beneficial project rather than making time to practice trivia problems.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#14

Post by ThrustVectoring »

burkaman wrote: post #7
treehau5 wrote: post #4

I agree that tech interviews are terrible, and you cannot do any sort of self-reflection on them (especially if they are these q/a and or puzzle types where they don't give you answers or feedback of what you are looking for, despite being reasonably confident you answered correctly -- even after having requested the feedback -- I had this experience at GitLab) > We believe that technical interviewing is a broken pro…

I think the next couple sentences explain it well: > It takes a lot of interviews to get used to the process and the format and to understand that the stuff you do in technical interviews isn’t actually the stuff you do at work every day. And it takes people in your social circle all going through the same experience, screwing up interviews here and there, and getting back on the horse to realize that poor performanc…

I think this was one of the biggest take-aways I got from attending a coding bootcamp, honestly. Basically everybody failed their first on-site interview, even the strongest candidates from the cohort who went on to get the best overall results.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#15

Post by white-flame »

AvenueIngres wrote: post #6

Honestly, the more I read about all those "diversity initiatives", "outreach campaigns" and "pushes to increase H1B" caps - the more I wonder about the intent and motivation of the people pulling the strings and funding the groups fighting so hard to further those causes. My comment is only tangentially related to hiring practices. Maybe age has turned me into a cynic, you can never know for sure, but this seriously…

>> Should it follow the US racial distribution?

Should it follow the local area's racial distribution, especially if that is divergent from the national averages?

In any case, one pro-diversity argument is that across cultures and genders lie different ways of looking at the world and looking at problems. This adds more potential good solutions to the discovery space your workers are exploring.

However, I think underlying these movements is that companies desperately do not want to be viewed as socially offensive, to avoid being in the crosshairs of devastating angry mob backlashes.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#16

Post by treve »

ams6110 wrote: post #9

I've been in software tech for nearly 30 years. Never had a "technical" interview, puzzle solving, or anything like that. I would not take a job that screened candidates that way. If references and credentials and track record aren't enough, I would look elsewhere.

Good for you that the market is so good, you can be insulted and walk away from an interview and still find a different job that doesn't do an extremely standard thing: basic technical screening.

Your credentials might speak for themselves. After all, you've been working for 30 years. 80% of the people I've hired have between 0 and 5 years work experience and without a technical screening I might as well just give them the job based on dice roll.

Usually I don't check credentials, and only use a resume to make a selection but don't use it _at all_ to determine if you're a good candidate after you've come in for an interview.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#17

Post by mrkurt »

AvenueIngres wrote: post #6

Honestly, the more I read about all those "diversity initiatives", "outreach campaigns" and "pushes to increase H1B" caps - the more I wonder about the intent and motivation of the people pulling the strings and funding the groups fighting so hard to further those causes. My comment is only tangentially related to hiring practices. Maybe age has turned me into a cynic, you can never know for sure, but this seriously…

Expanding the hiring pool is valuable to these companies. Many companies also feel like they'll perform better with a more diverse group of employees. I sure felt like that about my company.

They probably _also_ feel like it's right. This is one of those social problems where both the business need and moral need match up.

My guess is that people who want racial diversity want class diversity, diversity of thought, cultural diversity, etc. These are not exclusive problems. In fact, if we got to a world state where race played no part in someone's job opportunities, I expect it would be easier to tackle the others.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#18

Post by Kephael »

leeny wrote: post #3
soham wrote: post #2

[Disclaimer: I run http://Interviewkickstart.com ] Thanks Aline. Excellent article, as always. Not that any interview process is perfect, but another reason why the current process is not going away, is sheer convenience , especially for the fast growing core tech companies that don't have a pipeline problem. When you have hundreds of people applying for any open role, and you're under pressure to deliver products qu…

Yup. When you have a revolving door of people who want to work for you (often, despite your interview process), you're probably gonna be fine no matter what. That said, folks at Google are putting a ton of effort and resources into diversity initiatives. But not at the expense of revamping the current process.

I can't think of a single reputable company that I would be interested in working at in a SDE role where they do not conduct data structure and algorithm intensive interviews. If you want to work at a brand name company as a developer today, you must be able to solve these interview questions.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#19

Post by jakebasile »

treve wrote: post #12

I'm surprised that "people of color" is the preferred term for racial diversity.

I believe it is to emphasize that they are people first, not "colored" people. I'm not big into political newspeak but that one makes sense to me.
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