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What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

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Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#131

Post by gaylemcd »

aanm1988 wrote: post #112
dv_dt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big tech companies don't care and will continue doing it because success hides all failures. Cynically, big companies might be selecting for a modicum of technical expertise along with demonstrating capacity to put up with some amount of abusive processes.

I think Hanlon's Razor applies. They have no impetus to change and think they have found an approach that works reasonable well when given absurd amounts of candidates. The problem is the ridiculous false negative rate. I struggle to think of a better system. Using experience is unfair and misleading (I worked on awesome stuff... that I can tell you nothing about, I was totally the lead on this software, etc...). Tak…

They have lots of impetus to change. It's just that they struggle to find a better system.

Talking about prior experience? Flawed for the reasons you mentioned.

Take home stuff? Flawed -- cheating and other issues (I discuss this in another comment).

Work with us for a week? Doesn't scale. Unfair to candidates. Lots of issues here.

Sit down and help me fix this bug? Flawed:

1. Huge bias based on whether they know this particular skill set -- the right tools, etc.

2. Pretty arbitrary as to whether they find that particular bug.

3. It can't be a real bug. It has to be a toy project in order to get a consistent evaluation.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#132

Post by lliamander »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #72

We've adopted a new process for interviewing software engineers. It has three interview sessions held on subsequent dates: 1. Candidate learns about the company and the tech during a set of 2-4 interviews with our engineers. We don't tell them to learn as much as they can because we want to see how inquisitive they are. Interviewers are coached to be fairly open and talk about our products and tech. If there are no r…

Here's our process: 1. quick phone-screen by recruiter. They ask some high-level job skills questions and inform the candidate of our process

2. take-home assignment. Should take only a few hours. We look at both general programming and software design skills, but the assignment also includes some data structures / algorithms stuff and thread-safety. Note that:

  a. The assignment is open-book (no need to memorize computer science trivia)

  b. The algorithms and data structures are actually used by us in production (it is relevant to the work being done)
3. Once the homework is complete, the hiring panel reviews the homework assignment and resume. I completely review the homework before even touching their resume, so that my appraisal of the code is as unbiased as possible.

4. The candidate is brought in for the interviews (assuming the panel approves). We do four 1-hour, 1-on-1 interviews (1 manager, 2 developers, 1 tester). The style is very conversational, and we want to make sure candidate can speak intelligently to different aspects of software engineering. The only white-boarding I may ask a candidate to do is to manually show the algorithm that they implemented as a part of the homework.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#133

Post by gaylemcd »

bit_logic wrote: post #60

I think the tide is turning against this type of interview. The industry is starting to notice how ineffective and stupid it is. The big tech companies don't care and will continue doing it because success hides all failures. When there's an endless flood of new college graduate applicants and near-monopoly positions bringing in billions of revenue, nobody cares if the hiring process is bad. They will care someday if…

So if whiteboard interviews are stupid and ineffective, what process do you think is better?

I assure that the big tech companies absolutely do care, but they struggle to find something better.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#134

Post by NTDF9 »

gaylemcd wrote: post #127
NTDF9 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> No, it's not about knowledge. The knowledge is needed. But the real focus of the interview is to tackle a new question. >>There generally isn't. What an interviewer should be looking at is not some sort of percent correct element. It's about signal. So if a candidate is totally unable to understand an obvious, that might worry me. The signal the candidate is sending is a poor understanding of details. (Or, maybe n…

Yeah, there are interviewers who run crappy interviews. This is not a flaw with the process though. If you replace it with any other process, you're going to find interviewers who are bad at evaluating those too. For example, on behavioral questions, I've seen many interviewers who think "In our company, we handle disagreements by doing X. So I'm going to see if, when the candidate hit a disagreement, they handled it…

The process is flawed in that it ignores the ability of interviewers to rate a candidate.

The solution to this is not getting rid of coding interviews because (coding sure is important). But the overweight emphasis on coding as a binary decision-making is ridiculous.

There are actual engineers doing actual real coding work. They don't necessarily spend entire days solving puzzles. So, they won't do as well in whiteboard puzzle test as a person who slacked off at their last job/college and just practiced whiteboard coding problems.

But the current interview process would rather select the slacker practicing problems than the effective person who didn't practice problems.

Why?

Because the process is overweight on whiteboard coding accuracy and the interviewers who are incapable of identifying a person's ability outside of that overweighted process.

This is a flawed process. And improvements in the process is impeded by flawed interviewers.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#135

Post by gaylemcd »

kafkaesq wrote: post #130

A mixture of some good observations... with some regretabble bits of fanboy-ism thrown in. For example: Don’t. Give. Up. Ever. What they’re testing is your ability—and your willingness—to tackle problems that seem completely baffling. They are looking for you to keep working toward a better and better answer. If you’re ever about to give up remember this: The interview process is designed to challenge you, and even t…

Do you truly believe that all those top tech companies have decided on this process to boost the egos of the interviewers? Are you saying this because you have actual evidence? Have you talked to interviewers who admitted this was their personal motivation?

I assure you that the purpose of these questions is to identify good engineers. You might think it fails to do so, but that is the purpose.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#136

Post by gaylemcd »

parmen10 wrote: post #93
fhrow4484 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people not in college anymore, those are great advices. Having been on the recruited and recruiting side for one of the big 5, I'd add an extra advice: Don't panic if you don't have any of the things mentioned above, especially when still young in College. I didn't have an active github, nor a website, nor screenshots of my side projects. If you're genuinely passionate when you talk about it (no matter how small…

This github/side project thing is at the far end of diminishing marginal returns. It of course wouldn't hurt but most people I've met at these companies (where I also worked for a while) do not have side projects or public code. So if your goal is to get the interview, go through referrals. Don't expect anything from side projects.

Oh, you don't have to have side projects. But if you are struggling to get noticed, it can help.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#137

Post by metaphorm »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #123
metaphorm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think he was asking in terms of a casual "get to know you" kind of question? or do you think it was more like he was trying to no-hire people with families?

I don't think asking someone who you just met about their wife and if they plan to have kids is a "get to know you" question.

it might not be, and it's an inappropriate question for a job interview, but it's not that weird to ask about in casual circumstances.

have you spent time around any new parents, recently? they're basically mono-maniacally focused on kids and it's nearly the only thing they ever talk about. I can easily imagine that the guy asking the question might be a new parent himself and it was just where his mind went to automatically while trying to do smalltalk.

or maybe not. maybe it is exactly what it seems to be. could go either way.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#138

Post by gaylemcd »

gerbilly wrote: post #42

>Nine-to-5 isn’t enough. At top tech companies, extracurricular work isn’t a differentiating factor— it’s the expectation. I stopped reading at this point. How arrogant to expect you to gift your unpaid free time for the privilege of working there.

Do you understand that there is a distinction between saying "this is how many companies think" and "this is how companies should think"?

I agree that companies shouldn't demand side projects. However, if you're having trouble getting noticed, it can help.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#139

Post by gaylemcd »

NTDF9 wrote: post #69
WalterSear wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaylemcd is just bringing the news. It's not her fault that it's bad.

She's profiting from it

And? By your logic, if a lawyer tells you how to handle some unfair legal situation, that lawyer is doing something wrong. Because they're profiting from something that's unfair.

When I talk to a company about how to create a hiring process, I tell them that it's unfair to expect side projects from candidates.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#140

Post by gaylemcd »

NTDF9 wrote: post #134
gaylemcd wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are interviewers who run crappy interviews. This is not a flaw with the process though. If you replace it with any other process, you're going to find interviewers who are bad at evaluating those too. For example, on behavioral questions, I've seen many interviewers who think "In our company, we handle disagreements by doing X. So I'm going to see if, when the candidate hit a disagreement, they handled it…

The process is flawed in that it ignores the ability of interviewers to rate a candidate. The solution to this is not getting rid of coding interviews because (coding sure is important). But the overweight emphasis on coding as a binary decision-making is ridiculous. There are actual engineers doing actual real coding work. They don't necessarily spend entire days solving puzzles. So, they won't do as well in whitebo…

So what do you suggest?
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