Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#181

Post by nickbauman » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 3:16 AM UTC

kimcheekumquat wrote: post #66

nickbauman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top school is also serving as a proxy for wealth and privilege. Good grades are also a proxy for wealth. Kids who have rich parents get private tutoring.

Wealth also correlates with intelligence. Intelligence is mostly determined by genetics (studies show ~70% to 80%).

Generally this is incorrect. http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/how-intellig...

But there does seem to be a correlation between IQ and income. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/02/06/correlation...

This latter correlation could be explained by the wealth of the parents, as IQ may be a cultural artifact and income is correlated on education.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#182

Post by wheaties » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 3:43 AM UTC

graffic wrote: post #165

"Whether passing an algorithmic technical phone screen means you’re a great engineer is another matter entirely and hopefully the subject of a future post." This sentence plus the inverse correlation between experience and "interview performance" shown there. Makes a big smell about how biased are those interviews to themselves and not to real technical interviews. From the data it looks like the questions asked usin…

Yes, because we all know that your ability to implement a red-black tree from memory has a direct correlation with your ability to implement some random business logic or CRUD app. Oh wait, they don't.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#183

Post by Futurebot » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:00 AM UTC

The takeaway from this is that those who do best are those with:

- the wealthiest/most financially supportive parents/relatives

- upbringings that are conducive to academic success

- the most free time

as those are the ones who, by a large margin, attend top schools, work at top companies, and have time to spend on self-learning. Another data point of confirmation of a well-studied idea.

Assortative mating: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric...

Few poor at rich schools even all these years later: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/education/despite-promise...

Why people care about elite schools: https://medium.com/@spencer_th0mas/why-america-cares-about-e...

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#184

Post by aianus » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:02 AM UTC

throwaway_374 wrote: post #143

FT_intern wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privilege to value education and to spend time studying, yes. Almost all resources can be found online nowadays. If you've ever been to an SAT tutoring class, you know that the only benefit the kids have is the benefit of being forced to take practice tests. A top school is a good signal for how much time someone spent studying in high school, except for affirmative action students who get into top schools with m…

> except for affirmative action students who get into top schools with much worse scores and GPA. This dismissive "quota tokens" attitude really irks me. It's one thing getting in, it's a total different ballgame surviving and coming out the other end with a decent GPA. I've seen people of all socioeconomic backgrounds fail and some from remarkable poor backgrounds do exceptionally well.

Getting in is harder than surviving or even excelling. The median grade at Harvard is an A and the graduation rate is 97.5%.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#185

Post by alex_c » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:06 AM UTC

AndyNemmity wrote: post #168

stale2002 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because interviewing skill is how you get a job. If I am looking for a job, I care a whole lot about what would make me better at getting jobs.

Interviewing skill is one way you get a job. After you've been doing this for long enough, and have a reputation, you tend to just get jobs by referrals. I decided in my last change of positions to try interviewing for jobs like most people without referrals, since I had several other referral positions open. And I was horrible. I was ridiculously bad, and couldn't get a job at jobs that paid less, and were for less…

Which parts of the interviews were you really bad at? How would you change the interviews you had so they don't reject qualified candidates?

I've been interviewing a lot of developers lately, and while I'm fairly happy with my process (I've managed to avoid bad hires so far), I always have to wonder if I'm turning down people I shouldn't.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#186

Post by mgraczyk » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:16 AM UTC

Futurebot wrote: post #183

The takeaway from this is that those who do best are those with: - the wealthiest/most financially supportive parents/relatives - upbringings that are conducive to academic success - the most free time as those are the ones who, by a large margin, attend top schools, work at top companies, and have time to spend on self-learning. Another data point of confirmation of a well-studied idea. Assortative mating: http://ww…

I did not see in the data set where the interviewee's family wealth or upbringing were mentioned. Would you mind providing a link?

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#187

Post by Futurebot » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:26 AM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #186

Futurebot wrote: post #183

The takeaway from this is that those who do best are those with: - the wealthiest/most financially supportive parents/relatives - upbringings that are conducive to academic success - the most free time as those are the ones who, by a large margin, attend top schools, work at top companies, and have time to spend on self-learning. Another data point of confirmation of a well-studied idea. Assortative mating: http://ww…

I did not see in the data set where the interviewee's family wealth or upbringing were mentioned. Would you mind providing a link?

"Having attended an elite school" is a proxy for that. Info available at 2nd link.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#188

Post by sunilkumarc » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:31 AM UTC

greenhatman wrote: post #173

ooqr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that MOOCs lack face time, I was a terrible traditional student and excel when given the opportunity to structure my time as I see fit. Accountability is overrated.

I'm im the same camp. I've start studying at a university a few times now, and I keep failing because other oportunities come up that are more important than passing the course. I need to be able to self study at my own pace according to how my free time allowes. I'm also not that interested in formal tests and exams. And even course projects. I want to learn what I need for whatever project I'm currenty working on o…

You are speaking my mind here :)

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#189

Post by maverick_iceman » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

This is a very poorly done analysis. At a minimum she needs to define top school/top company. Also I'd like to see the confidence intervals around the effect sizes. In addition, looking up MOOC information from LinkedIn may result in a lot of false negatives. (She doesn't mention if MOOC courses in non-CS subjects count.) Did all the interviewees have CS degrees? What about the Masters degrees, is she including non-CS ones? Is the sample of interviewees representative or there's any selection bias that we should be aware of?

A study which doesn't answer so many basic methodological questions is garbage.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#190

Post by maverick_iceman » Thu, Dec 29, 2016, 4:38 AM UTC

AndyNemmity wrote: post #169

Apocryphon wrote: post #98

Not to harp on the "technical interviews are disconnected from actual work!" angle too much, but I'm reminded of a comment from a thread about the creator of Homebrew failing a Google interview. Someone pointed out that it goes to show that it's possible to create widely-used software without an intimate knowledge of CS. I wonder if that's a disconcerting fact for some employers to grapple with.

Made a similar comment above, but that was entirely true for myself. I have worked on amazing things as we all have in life, petabyte databases, and just the most incredible setups. But when it comes to an interview, I cannot get a job several levels below my own (without referrals). With referrals, I am offered the moon and the stars, complete pick out of a tremendous number of amazing jobs. But any random interview…

You cannot get a job at a top company without referral/recruiter looking you up. Any such company is totally swamped by the number of resumes submitted and the chance of getting an interview is practically zero.