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Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

191–200 of 330 posts

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not that good of a proxy though. There are still tons of poor students at elite universities.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#192
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think curiosity diminishes with age, even if the ability to explore that curiosity may. You can still talk to someone and find out if they are interested in experimental technologies, what they choose to tinker with in the limited discretionary time they have, and so on. You can ask about their opinion on new technical developments and whether they follow any trade publications or forums and the coolest thing…

> I don't think curiosity diminishes with age, even if the ability to explore that curiosity may. Anecdotally I'd assume that intellectual curiosity often increases with age, although that might be attributed to the availability of learning materials now compared to years ago. Some people here on HN would likely be shocked as to how many people in the industry consume almost zero content outside of what is necessary…

> Some people here on HN would likely be shocked as to how many people in the industry consume almost zero content outside of what is necessary for their jobs.

Seriously. People significantly underestimate how much better the average HN user is than the average developer.

The median software developer sees programming as just a job and spends absolutely no time on developing their experience outside of work.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's not that good of a proxy though. There are still tons of poor students at elite universities.

From the article >In 2006, at the 82 schools rated “most competitive” by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, 14 percent of American undergraduates came from the poorer half of the nation

That doesn't sound like 'tons'.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that good of a proxy though. There are still tons of poor students at elite universities.

From the article >In 2006, at the 82 schools rated “most competitive” by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, 14 percent of American undergraduates came from the poorer half of the nation That doesn't sound like 'tons'.

14 percent is still thousands of students. Equating elite universities with privileged upbringings is stereotyping. Like most stereotypes, it's grounded in truth but also unfair

I worked really hard to be able to get into an elite university and to get the scholarships to pay for it. When people automatically assume that my education means my family is wealthy, it discounts the enormous amount of work which I (and other low-income students) did to get there.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#196

I am perplexed why anyone would think that interview performances has any interesting statistical relevance. Much more interesting would be how successful the candidate was after receiving a job at the company.

I've honestly stopped working for places that interview based on whiteboards and brain teasers. I think it leads to a rather arbitrary selection of candidates and pretty terrible teams.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see. It doesn't seem like the data used by the linked article provides any evidence for or against your hypothesis.

The data here is perfectly compatible with a contradictory hypothesis: upbringing does not matter and top schools/employers are good at selecting future high performers.

I'm not endorsing either hypothesis, but the data here supports the above just as much as your hypothesis (which is to say, not much).

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#198
post #157
post #56

Thanks for writing this Aline. As a recruiter for almost 20 years, I wish I had access to all my data and then the time to compile it, and anecdotally I'd expect the finding about MOOCs would be similar. The most selective of my hiring clients over the years tended to stress intellectual curiosity as a leading criterion and factor in their hiring decisions, as they felt that trait had led to better outcomes (good hir…

"Intellectual curiosity" was my primary attribute for many years. Particularly when I was young and didn't really know any better. It makes sense doesn't it? Someone who is interested in learning for learning's sake will be a better developer! Except I'm convinced it's not really true. It's something that is horribly subjective and really self-selective. It's funny, intellectually curious people often have exactly th…

You had me until, "it's a really good signal when they pull out their phone and add it to a to-do list."

Because it's just one of many possible courses of action for staying organized. For all you know the guy added it to his to-do list on his way to the car, or maybe he employs some other mechanic. While you could argue that an interview is a showboating environment where one is expected to signal certain desireable traits, I personally resent that these attributes seem to manifest in recruiters as specific actions that reinforce their perceptions of a good candidate -- if someone is unconventional then how is looking for specific signals going to tell you anything useful about them?

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for this? I totally believe you, but I've been trying to find good empirical studies and authors to read on interviewing.

Sure. Search for "structured interview meta-analysis validity" and you'll find a slew of the research on this topic.

Awesome thanks!

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for this? I totally believe you, but I've been trying to find good empirical studies and authors to read on interviewing.

Not the person who originally replied to you, but the HR class I took in college broke down the correlation of interview performance to job performance into a few finer-grained buckets than just structured and unstructured. Sorry, no sources here, as I've since gotten rid of that textbook. Structured vs. unstructured are the fairly general categories, but that correlation number is accurate. The best predictor I can…

Yeah from what I've read the two most effective predictors of employees were work-sample and GMA tests(basically IQ).
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