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

Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 330 posts

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#241

Post by FLUX-YOU »

blindhippo wrote: post #206
wheaties wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to think along these lines. Then I started doing 10+ interviews a month and realized a very clear reality: basic CS knowledge and problem skills is far more important to me and my team then knowing how to slap together some semblance of a working CRUD system. I ask "algorithmic" questions, normally expressed as a legitimate business case (invent a real world problem, solution is implement some algorithm or use…

>The average coder should be able to solve this type of thing, on their own, in about 10 minutes max, 15 with some feedback on improvements.

>Yet, 80% of my candidates take nearly 45 minutes and cannot deliver a workable solution without massive handholding, and I don't even get to my higher order, "real questions".

You need to ask yourself why you believe the "average coder" should be able to solve that because clearly your beliefs are not founded in reality.

This is what I cannot understand about interviewers who are constantly frustrated with the population's skillset: You obviously have higher skill standards than the average. That is fine. Just accept you will have less hires because none of you are capable of fixing the entire population's skill levels.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#242

Post by consp »

dibstern wrote: post #105
forrestbrazeal wrote: post #71

The author draws a hard distinction between Udacity/Coursera MOOCs (good) and traditional master's degrees (bad). I'll interject that with Georgia Tech's Online Master's in Computer Science program [0], which is delivered via Udacity and insanely cheap [1], you can get the best of both! (Their "Computability, Complexity and Algorithms" class is one of the top Udacity courses cited in the article.) Keep in mind that a…

I'm studying a 3 year coursework masters that allows people with no background in CS (just had to do an additional semester of courses) to participate and it aims to give a pretty well rounded CS education. Not a common thing, apparently. I completely agree, the motivation and environment that it gives you, the reinforcement that you're actually doing something official and serious as opposed to doing something that…

Other Masters have acceptance programs for this as well. I know that Delft TU has an 'introduction' year which covers everything you need for the masters years (two). It does require a technical (of sorts) bachelor and has a low success rate due to it containing all the difficult subjects in one instead of multiple years like in the regular CS Bachelors and skipping over any form of specialization courses. Not completely undoable, but difficult non the less.

I imagine there are multiple universities around the globe offering the same sort of educational entry.

While it was shown in the article it doesn't matter at interviews, we (at my company) do require technical masters degrees. Though it does not need to be a CS master. The form of individual thinking combined with analytics and methodology we found to be far better at those completing (any/a) Masters degree than those without. Especially self-reliance, which is important if you do not have groups of 10+ devs working together.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#243

Post by cagataygurturk »

witty_username wrote: post #216
vog wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers still look very high from a European point of view. It seems it makes a huge difference whether a society deeply cares about educating the population, or cares just superficially. For example, in Berlin you spend less than 300€ per semester, a CS master takes 10 semesters regular time. Add two semesters to make the time more realistic, and you end up with 3,600€ which are roughly $3,800. Oh, and it cont…

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

Welcome to social state, where the state thinks the sustainable development of the whole society can be only accomplished by increasing the life level of everyone

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#244

Post by zigzigzag »

Matthias247 wrote: post #238
witty_username wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

Subsized - yes. But I don't agree to the second sentence: Generally the higher educated people are getting higher salaries afterwards and are paying way more taxes. These taxes are then used for providing education to the next generation (and also for lots of social programs which target the low/no income population).

If education was always profitable like that, governments wouldn't subsidize it, they wouldn't need to. Heck people would be fighting to give student loans.

The reality is lots of people study subjects that don't result in higher salaries but political correctness insists that people be able to study the arts easily, so governments "have" to subsidize education.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#245

Post by witty_username »

vog wrote: post #234
witty_username wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do.

> But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do. This is just another way of saying that the society cares about this issue! To put an analogy: When a society cares about parenthood and children, non-parents pay some share to parents. This is how financial solidarity works. How else should that work? By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what the…

So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities?

> By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what they do for society, but not giving a single cent to them? That would be hypocritical, not solidary.

It's not hypocritical if you compliment someone without paying them money.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#246

Post by chrshawkes »

blindhippo wrote: post #206
wheaties wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to think along these lines. Then I started doing 10+ interviews a month and realized a very clear reality: basic CS knowledge and problem skills is far more important to me and my team then knowing how to slap together some semblance of a working CRUD system. I ask "algorithmic" questions, normally expressed as a legitimate business case (invent a real world problem, solution is implement some algorithm or use…

"I hate anything that asks me to design on the spot. That's asking to demonstrate a skill rarely required on the job in a high-stress environment, where it is difficult for a candidate to accurately prove their abilities. I think it's fundamentally an unfair thing to request of a candidate." Scott Meyers

I'll take this guy's word over yours I'm sorry. Your supposedly simple use case is given in a different environmental surrounding than a typical day on the job.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#247

Post by chrshawkes »

kristopolous wrote: post #196
blazespin wrote: post #4

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.

That is great to hear. I have personally turned down opportunities that ask for these high stress ridiculous tests in front of a bunch of strangers.

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#248

Post by chrshawkes »

alex_c wrote: post #185
AndyNemmity wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"I hate anything that asks me to design on the spot. That's asking to demonstrate a skill rarely required on the job in a high-stress environment, where it is difficult for a candidate to accurately prove their abilities. I think it's fundamentally an unfair thing to request of a candidate." Scott Meyers

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#249

Post by thomasahle »

witty_username wrote: post #245
vog wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do. This is just another way of saying that the society cares about this issue! To put an analogy: When a society cares about parenthood and children, non-parents pay some share to parents. This is how financial solidarity works. How else should that work? By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what the…

So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities? > By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what they do for society, but not giving a single cent to them? That would be hypocritical, not solidary. It's not hypocritical if you compliment someone without paying them money.

> So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities?

You could say that about any tax founded expense?

Re: Lessons from 3,000 technical interviews

#250

Post by kmonad »

witty_username wrote: post #245
vog wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's subsidized; so people who aren't getting an education are paying for those who do. This is just another way of saying that the society cares about this issue! To put an analogy: When a society cares about parenthood and children, non-parents pay some share to parents. This is how financial solidarity works. How else should that work? By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what the…

So why can't it voluntary via donations to universities? > By telling parents that they do a great job, that you appreciate what they do for society, but not giving a single cent to them? That would be hypocritical, not solidary. It's not hypocritical if you compliment someone without paying them money.

Why wouldn't you see an elected government's policy as voluntary, ultimately?
Post reply on HN