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The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

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Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#291

Post by Jach »

flukus wrote: post #270
Sevii wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had a better way for decades, its banned. What do you think all these algorithm questions are supposed to do?

Any evidence to say that algorithm questions are a better indicator of job performance? Most development work isn't algorithm heavy at all.

I doubt there's that much, in general, since a lot of jobs just need a floor. But when it's used as a proxy for IQ test, the better you do at algorithms the higher IQ you probably have, and that typically correlates with better job performance, or being able to transform one's job into one with higher impact. (Even more if they have high Conscientiousness too but I don't think algorithms would correlate much with that.) It's also a weak proxy for seriousness. I hate algorithm questions (though fortunately not algorithms), almost everyone I talk to hates them, but if you're not expecting them and don't at least know the basic ones, you're not serious about applying to random tech job. (Which is fine, I don't mind that some people will get in a huff and walk out when asked to write a graph search algorithm or something as if it's beneath them or useless since the day-job never does such things, they just weren't serious about applying to that company.) Some tech companies have gotten rid of them, which is great, but you can't count on that yet as a candidate.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#292

Post by kasey_junk »

wpietri wrote: post #181
bshimmin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to `man ps` on my Mac, there are nearly seventy of them - how many did he want you to know?!

It's been a long time since I interviewed an ops person. But when I did something like this, I'd ask, "Name as many arguments to ps as you can." (Or ls, also good.) I didn't really care about which flags they knew. What I was looking for was a pattern. Anybody good knows some arguments cold. Often they know them so well as part of a phrase that they have to think about what the individual ones mean, which tells me th…

I would almost assuredly stop the interview at this point and try to figure out what your malfunction is.

To me any question where the obvious answer is "I can trivially look all that up in the man pages" is a gigantic red flag that I don't want to work at that place.

If I'm feeling curious that day, I might begin a conversation about what you think you are testing for with that question, as I've spent a fair bit of my career studying hiring pipelines. But if I hadn't had my coffee yet or were irritated or something I'd probably just ask to talk to someone else.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#293

Post by throwaway71958 »

bitL wrote: post #178
throwaway71958 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Getting hired by Google is only part of the deal. Actually _succeeding_ when you're already there is much more difficult. It's a high pressure environment with a lot of very smart overachievers. Because of this it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and people who don't measure up also don't feel welcome, as it were. Since performance reviews are largely derived from peer feedback, hiring mistakes tend to be s…

They are no longer amongst top choices for top people. Alphabet might be, Google isn't. That's why they are dumbing down their interviews in the past 8 years and repelling even more top people that want to change the world and not be just another cog in the machine.

They certainly still _are_ among the top choices for top people, but they're no longer the _best_ choice for most. I can't in good conscience advise anyone to join any 70K person company. "Cog in a machine" describes it pretty well. Ignore "self driving cars" and "internet balloons" and other BS: there's near zero chance you'll get to work on any of that, particularly if you don't already have a stellar track record at some company Google/Alphabet respects (of which there are very few).

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#294

Post by throwaway71958 »

mooreds wrote: post #174
johan_larson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I don't think their process is magic. Google gets a good workforce because they are generous and prestigious, which means a lot of good people apply there. And Google is willing to say no to a lot of people in their search for good people. They reject a lot of candidates who would probably have worked out just fine.

Or, put another way, they choose to accept a high rate of false negatives to avoid false positives.

I'm not sure I believe that, actually. As elaborate as the process is, there are still plenty of false positives. I'm not convinced a simpler process would have produced a materially different outcome.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#295

Post by ctdonath »

orless wrote: post #117
gatsby wrote: post #11

Laszlo Bock (former SVP of People at Google) did a great job summarizing decades of research around structured interviewing in his book 'Work Rules!' For a quick reference, the two defining criteria for a structured interview are: 1.) They use one or several consistent set(s) of questions, and 2.) There are clear criteria for assessing responses That second point is really important. You can't only ask candidates the…

Google is definitely not a benchmark for interviews. From what I experienced, they must have a huge rate on false negatives. You can only afford this if you're Google (or that level).

The view is: better to lose a good candidate than to hire a bad one.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#296

Post by Jach »

mooreds wrote: post #174
johan_larson wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I don't think their process is magic. Google gets a good workforce because they are generous and prestigious, which means a lot of good people apply there. And Google is willing to say no to a lot of people in their search for good people. They reject a lot of candidates who would probably have worked out just fine.

Or, put another way, they choose to accept a high rate of false negatives to avoid false positives.

The trouble with that is it probably makes false positives more likely to slip through because they have to interview more people to fill a position...

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#297

Post by Consultant32452 »

bnegreve wrote: post #163
schmit wrote: post #108

I find it quite problematic that researchers get to talk about their own research and present it as facts without anyone taking a critical look. Over time I’ve become more skeptical about this kind of psychology research (as more studies fail to replicate) and, as is often the case, here the sample size is quite small (76 students, split across 3 groups), predicting something relatively noisy as GPA. It is unclear to…

Of course we should be more critical, the methodology here is far from perfect. But right now, people have much faith in interviewing, and this research suggests that this faith may not be justified. As you mentioned, this is not the only research that reaches this conclusion. There is also the work by Daniel Kahneman[1] which I find pretty rigorous and draw the same conclusions about interviewing. So obviously, the…

I worked in the IT arm of a household name US non-IT company (just to provide basic context). Eventually we determined that interviewing just wasn't that helpful. We started telling the recruiting company, "Send me the best you've got that's available by Tuesday." Now certainly the recruiter is going to do some selection biasing there, but we found we had just as much success as our previous interviewing process that had a phone interview, face to face interview, and a test.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#298

Post by duncan_bayne »

mahyarm wrote: post #242
jernfrost wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. First step is to acknowledge that interviewing doesn't work very well. You can't keep deluding yourself because you haven't found a better way. Accept reality. This is one of the biggest problems I see with business guys today. They want absolute certainty in a world which can't offer it. Start accepting that there is a lot of stuff we don't know and can't know at the moment and we simply have to work towar…

Of course people know interviews aren't the greatest, but it's the best tool they have right now. What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions. There are a bunch of other testing methods that are illegal in the USA too, such as IQ tests.

> What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions.

Which is bullshit. It's perfectly reasonable to criticise something without proposing an alternative. It's especially ridiculous to reject criticism provided without alternatives, when it's literally your job to do the work being criticised.

"Hey the way you're doing this part of your job produces results no better than random selection."

"Bring me solutions, not problems!"

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#299

Post by throwaway71958 »

pdimitar wrote: post #231
throwaway71958 wrote: post #84

One thing interviews can't select for: creativity and motivation. And in tech those two criteria are the most vital, especially motivation. I can easily fill in the skills gap in someone who's motivated. I can't do anything with someone who doesn't give a shit, even if they're the second coming of Albert Einstein. So folks, please, don't apply for jobs you don't really care about. Save yourself and your prospective e…

I find it unfair that you're downvoted. I mostly agree with you. However, "don't apply for jobs you don't really care about" is a very 50/50 advice. Right now I have zero money reserves. If I somehow got fired tomorrow, I'll be in the red even after 2 days of unemployment. So sometimes you have to make a hard choice. That being said, it's good to be open about this after you get your act together months later and dec…

Well, don't wait to get fired then. Find a better paying job you like and go for it. It doesn't seem like you have much to lose anyway, and the best way to increase your paycheck is by moving around and not letting employers take you for granted. Just don't sell your soul for a buck in the process. This game is a marathon, and grinding it out never really works in the long term.

Re: The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

#300

Post by solipsism »

throwaway71958 wrote: post #86
gatsby wrote: post #11

Laszlo Bock (former SVP of People at Google) did a great job summarizing decades of research around structured interviewing in his book 'Work Rules!' For a quick reference, the two defining criteria for a structured interview are: 1.) They use one or several consistent set(s) of questions, and 2.) There are clear criteria for assessing responses That second point is really important. You can't only ask candidates the…

Don't take his word as a word of god from heaven. Google's interview process is just as shitty as anyone else's, and shittier than some I've been through. It selects for people who do well on the whiteboard under pressure, which are very often not the best workers overall. It also wastes a ton of time both on the employer and on the candidate side. Source: interviewed ~100 people in my 6+ years at Google.

It selects for people who do well on the whiteboard under pressure, which are very often not the best workers overall.

This gets tossed around as a truism. I'm curious, does anyone have any evidence for it? Call me a skeptic, but these kinds of "everyone knows" truths are often wrong.

Google and other such companies have a vested interest in getting hiring right. They also have the wherewithal to conduct studies, collect data, and let the evidence guide their hiring practices. Google in particular has shown a willingness to completely overhaul their practices by eliminating ineffective practices (remember their reputation for "thought puzzle" type questions?).

So I'm curious if you have anything to back up the idea that they're doing it all wrong.

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