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Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

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Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#11

Post by askafriend »

ng12 wrote: post #7
rafiki6 wrote: post #4

Neither choice is valid. Software development interviewing is broken. We are starting to finally collect data to prove this. https://blog.interviewing.io/technical-interview-performance... Humans are bad at evaluating candidates and generally we do a bad job of creating criteria to assess people because what we are doing is attempting to assess risk and humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk. Here is one exampl…

> Software development interviewing is broken Do you know what interviewing in non-tech fields is like? Complete bullshit. It's more about making your resume sound impressive and being buddy-buddy with the interviewer. At least we have meritocratic ideals, even if some companies implement them poorly.

Is there really value in raising up an ideal that doesn't hold in practice in any way shape or form? It seems as if our interviewing methodologies are designed simply to have a guise of meritocracy whereas in other fields that guise is dropped entirely and we see what really exists for what it is (mostly bullshit).

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#12

Post by gaius »

Here's the real answer: no-one is hired purely to program. You are hired to sit with the team 9 hours a day, possibly next to your interviewer, and he/she wants to be sure you'll get along. Companies are social and I don't mean as in "social media". There will never come a time when you do an online quiz then should up the next day and sit down, apart from the most commoditized of temp work.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#13

Post by gaius »

bsvalley wrote: post #6

Are you gonna tell your product manager that it will take you 5 days to write a linear solution for your feature? O(n). Are you gonna fix a critical bug in production by using a depth first search instead of a breadth first search? What does it even mean? When are we gonna stop lying to ourselves? The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should b…

The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution

This works if your goal is to hire only the currently-unemployed. You will never hire anyone who is currently employed like this. You will probably not even get students who have other options jumping through your hoops.

And think about it, no other industry works like this. You don't give a lawyer a case to win or a doctor a patient to cure to assess hiring them...

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#14

Post by master_yoda_1 »

Software engineer is a very generic role which has different definition in each companies. Here is some example.

If you need to come up with optimize algorithm as part of your job, hackerrank signals are good.

If you need to do simple code change or fix some bug for which it need to communicate with many people, then in person interview give good signal.

I think there must be other websites, testrank, bugfixrank, assemblyrank, devopsrank temaleadrank, managerrank etc, then it would be easier.

Software interview is broken because big companies hire in herd and small company follow the same generic interview practice.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#16

Post by hocuspocus »

gaius wrote: post #13
bsvalley wrote: post #6

Are you gonna tell your product manager that it will take you 5 days to write a linear solution for your feature? O(n). Are you gonna fix a critical bug in production by using a depth first search instead of a breadth first search? What does it even mean? When are we gonna stop lying to ourselves? The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should b…

The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution This works if your goal is to hire only the currently-unemployed. You will never hire anyone who is currently employed like this. You will probably not even get students who have other op…

Employed candidates have no problem taking a day off (or two when they live far) for a full round of on-site interviews.

Personally I'd much rather work on a 4~5 hours long assignment in my own time. Sadly in my experience, companies that use this approach use it as a way to eliminate phone screenings rather than to make the in person interviews more relevant.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#17

Post by EliRivers »

hocuspocus wrote: post #16
gaius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution This works if your goal is to hire only the currently-unemployed. You will never hire anyone who is currently employed like this. You will probably not even get students who have other op…

Employed candidates have no problem taking a day off (or two when they live far) for a full round of on-site interviews. Personally I'd much rather work on a 4~5 hours long assignment in my own time. Sadly in my experience, companies that use this approach use it as a way to eliminate phone screenings rather than to make the in person interviews more relevant.

"Employed candidates have no problem taking a day off (or two when they live far) for a full round of on-site interviews."

Oh. I thought I was an employed candidate who had a problem taking a day or two off for an interview. I must have imagined it.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#18

Post by kasey_junk »

EliRivers wrote: post #17
hocuspocus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employed candidates have no problem taking a day off (or two when they live far) for a full round of on-site interviews. Personally I'd much rather work on a 4~5 hours long assignment in my own time. Sadly in my experience, companies that use this approach use it as a way to eliminate phone screenings rather than to make the in person interviews more relevant.

"Employed candidates have no problem taking a day off (or two when they live far) for a full round of on-site interviews." Oh. I thought I was an employed candidate who had a problem taking a day or two off for an interview. I must have imagined it.

He meant, it is a common phenomenon in our industry to have full or multi-day interviews and people don't say "you'll only be able to hire unemployed people for that".

Programming assignments are usually more flexible for employed people than interview days.

But they aren't a panacea. They are hard to design and if you haven't switched to an objective rubric for measuring them, they can be just as subjective as interviews.

That said, I whole heartily agree with using programing projects instead of interviews.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#19

Post by kasey_junk »

gaius wrote: post #13
bsvalley wrote: post #6

Are you gonna tell your product manager that it will take you 5 days to write a linear solution for your feature? O(n). Are you gonna fix a critical bug in production by using a depth first search instead of a breadth first search? What does it even mean? When are we gonna stop lying to ourselves? The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should b…

The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution This works if your goal is to hire only the currently-unemployed. You will never hire anyone who is currently employed like this. You will probably not even get students who have other op…

> You don't give a lawyer a case to win or a doctor a patient to cure to assess hiring them

Both of those industries have accreditation standards and post graduate education requirements. Doctors have on the job requirements. Comparing software development, which is miles less sophisticated in its approach to those doesn't seem like a way to argue for any type of developer interview process.

Re: Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

#20

Post by technopath »

kasey_junk wrote: post #19
gaius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution This works if your goal is to hire only the currently-unemployed. You will never hire anyone who is currently employed like this. You will probably not even get students who have other op…

> You don't give a lawyer a case to win or a doctor a patient to cure to assess hiring them Both of those industries have accreditation standards and post graduate education requirements. Doctors have on the job requirements. Comparing software development, which is miles less sophisticated in its approach to those doesn't seem like a way to argue for any type of developer interview process.

CS degrees are accredited, why don't they count?
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