Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

mattermark.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 517 posts

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#231

Post by jobu »

blazespin wrote: post #172
zachd1_618 wrote: post #49

This. 100% this. As many others are saying, I find that this is the most comfortable way for me as an interviewee to demonstrate that I do in fact know what I'm talking about. Put me in front of a room full of people and a whiteboard and throw something at me, and I'll freeze. Freezing in that situation and being a bad engineer are wholly separate things. Anecdotally, when I get one of these problems, I spent 20 minu…

This works, but make sure they spend the 2 hours in your office and not 12 hours at home solving a 2 hour problem.. The other problem is that when you pay them you generate all sorts of nightmaris legal liabilities.

> The other problem is that when you pay them you generate all sorts of nightmarish legal liabilities.

I was wondering about the tax and legal implications around paying someone for an interview challenge as well.

The overall idea seems fantastic, but paying or receiving money for an interview coding challenge is a little weird.

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#232

Post by lifeisstillgood »

But ... both sides have to really really want this.

This is the end of the process final wash

And so you probably won't do it with those candidates that fail your normal process. If you are biased against old, black, women you won't give them this test

It reduces your false positive rate. But won't ever help your false negative

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#233

Post by shandor »

This seems like a pretty popular take on the interview process here on HN. However, there's one pretty glaring flaw that I've never seen discussed: if the interviewee can take the problem home, what prevents them setting up a hackathon with their friends at their place, and making the interview problem a team effort?

A couple of knowledgeable friends can do wonders, and if you also prep with them a little you can probably answer all relevant questions and beyond about the code on the Monday on-site interview.

Sure, that's cheating. And even if it wasn't, I would never do it for the wrong expectations it would set upon me if I actually got the job. But the ease of "embellishing" one's CV always comes up in these threads/posts, and while I wouldn't do that either, I kind of fail to see how this home project approach solves that problem.

Anyone able to ELI5?

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#234

Post by chmike »

m_mueller wrote: post #222
bjt wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company trying to enforce such a non-compete against someone who just earned $200 would spend a lot more than that in legal fees. This feels like legal paranoia to me.

Furthermore, in German we have a saying: "Where there is no judge, there's no executioner". Maybe this attitude is more popular in Switzerland than in Germany, but the basic meaning is: don't sweat the legality of small exchanges that (a) don't affect anyone negatively and (b) aren't in some government agency's crosshair. That being said, your mileage in different legal systems may vary - in our civil law system it's…

USA is kind of special regarding legality handling. An unhappy candidate my find legal arguments to complain. In Europe, states may be unhappy that work has been done without tax payment.

This payment looks like easy money for cheaters who would copy ready made solutions or ask friends for help. I'm not convinced, but this is indeed how things should be done in an ideal world.

I guess we could also ask candidates to pay. That is what is done in engineer schools in France. Not sure this is a good filtering method because of the Donner Kruger effect.

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#235

Post by stillworks »

zachd1_618 wrote: post #49

This. 100% this. As many others are saying, I find that this is the most comfortable way for me as an interviewee to demonstrate that I do in fact know what I'm talking about. Put me in front of a room full of people and a whiteboard and throw something at me, and I'll freeze. Freezing in that situation and being a bad engineer are wholly separate things. Anecdotally, when I get one of these problems, I spent 20 minu…

I don't care about getting paid. I don't care if I am doing it at home or in the interviewer's premises.

Don't let me connect to internet. I'll also leave my phone with you just to make sure I don't have access to the internet. I don't mind taking the time away from current employment to go through the process.

BUT PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE THOUGH WHILE I AM AT IT. FOR GOD'S SAKE DON"T SIT NEXT TO ME AND TALK TO ME OR EXPECT ME TO TALK TO YOU WHILE I AM SOLVING THE PROBLEM !!!

Let's discuss the solution or the non-solution AFTER I have spent some alone time with the problem. I don't mind getting rejected AFTER I have made a serious attempt at it.

It is simply beyond me why people think it's all right for a complete stranger to sit next to a programmer while he is trying to solve a problem under the significant cognitive load of a new environment, new people possibly a laptop/keyboard he has never used.

This did sound like a rant :-/ but what I wanted to say was that the process in the article seems fair enough. Interviewees should be given the alone time to solve the problem.

Most people are decent and sociable enough that once they are one board and are comfortable and familiar with the rest of the team they will be able to function and be reasonable in pair programming envoirnment or other technical discussions as well. BUT not when they are in an interview. No matter how it is sugar coated, interview is where a programmer is getting JUDGED and that by default leads to pressure.

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#236

Post by kybernetikos »

shandor wrote: post #233

This seems like a pretty popular take on the interview process here on HN. However, there's one pretty glaring flaw that I've never seen discussed: if the interviewee can take the problem home, what prevents them setting up a hackathon with their friends at their place, and making the interview problem a team effort? A couple of knowledgeable friends can do wonders, and if you also prep with them a little you can pro…

We have an extension to the take home done paired on site that usually involves significant refactoring. If you don't have a clear understanding of the code you're sunk. Plus the presentation should weed out the most egregious cheats. I also strongly suspect that developers that can't solve the task well will mainly have friends that also can't solve the task well. If someone had skilled developers invested in them doing well I suspect they are most likely a skilled developer.

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#237

Post by deepGem »

shandor wrote: post #233

This seems like a pretty popular take on the interview process here on HN. However, there's one pretty glaring flaw that I've never seen discussed: if the interviewee can take the problem home, what prevents them setting up a hackathon with their friends at their place, and making the interview problem a team effort? A couple of knowledgeable friends can do wonders, and if you also prep with them a little you can pro…

One view of this behaviour is cheating, another view is hustle. I mean, if you could arrange a hackathon to solve an interview question - you are hired my friend :)

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#238

Post by vehementi »

usloth_wandows wrote: post #66
pauljaworski wrote: post #21

This is literally the only way I've gotten job offers. I'm a very competent programmer, but when I'm asked to solve some silly puzzle with someone staring over my shoulder, I freeze under pressure and can not think at all. Luckily not everyone thinks solving leetcode problems is a good way to hire.

If you can't code under pressure, you aren't a very competent programmer. Real world projects come with high pressure scenarios for software engineers. Code monkeys may be able to get away with low pressure, minimally impactful projects.

How do these opinions even survive? Yikes

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#239

Post by jpalomaki »

blazespin wrote: post #172
zachd1_618 wrote: post #49

This. 100% this. As many others are saying, I find that this is the most comfortable way for me as an interviewee to demonstrate that I do in fact know what I'm talking about. Put me in front of a room full of people and a whiteboard and throw something at me, and I'll freeze. Freezing in that situation and being a bad engineer are wholly separate things. Anecdotally, when I get one of these problems, I spent 20 minu…

This works, but make sure they spend the 2 hours in your office and not 12 hours at home solving a 2 hour problem.. The other problem is that when you pay them you generate all sorts of nightmaris legal liabilities.

2 hour deadline and forcing the task to be done at the office turns it to a different kind test. This becomes more like how do you perform under stress and how well can you propose things out of your head. These are valuable skills as well, but I think having the weekend to spend with the problem more accurately models the actual development work.

Re: A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires

#240

Post by blowski »

stillworks wrote: post #235
zachd1_618 wrote: post #49

This. 100% this. As many others are saying, I find that this is the most comfortable way for me as an interviewee to demonstrate that I do in fact know what I'm talking about. Put me in front of a room full of people and a whiteboard and throw something at me, and I'll freeze. Freezing in that situation and being a bad engineer are wholly separate things. Anecdotally, when I get one of these problems, I spent 20 minu…

I don't care about getting paid. I don't care if I am doing it at home or in the interviewer's premises. Don't let me connect to internet. I'll also leave my phone with you just to make sure I don't have access to the internet. I don't mind taking the time away from current employment to go through the process. BUT PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE THOUGH WHILE I AM AT IT. FOR GOD'S SAKE DON"T SIT NEXT TO ME AND TALK TO ME OR EX…

Sounds like I'm completely the opposite of you! I'm fine with someone sitting next to me - I love pair programming.

But cutting off internet access means no StackOverflow, no online documentation. The test should be very similar to normal working conditions.

Post reply on HN