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Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

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Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#21

Post by dagenleg »

pizzaman09 wrote: post #11
jordanpg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, but what is the alternative from the standpoint of the interviewer? These types of challenges are simple to state, self-contained, easy to timebox. For the interviewer for a say intermediate-level enterprise software backend position who needs to quickly sift through 50 applicants, what is the better option by way of code challenges?

Credentialing. Seriously. Have a Bar Association for developers. When anyone can do a few weeks of Googling and claim to be a software developer, you're going to get mostly crap candidates. Offload that process to a formal body, like lawyers, doctors, and engineers do. You can hire unlicensed developers, but you do so at your own risk. Then once you're talking to someone licensed in an interview, you can focus on jus…

You are just adding a lot of useless bureaucratic overhead. Are you sure that the problem you are trying to solve will not just be replaced with an even worse one?

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#22

Post by on_and_off »

carlmr wrote: post #4

> Exactly on point. Also one gripe I have with hackerrank (I did some of the challenges to brush up on some language knowledge), is that a lot of the questions are poorly designed and from obvious amateurs. I still think that neither whiteboarding nor hackerrank selects for good developers. In the end you get people that studied hard to solve a certain class of problem that you'll never need in the real world. It's w…

I recently had a round of interviews for a senior engineering position.

Luckily it was on hackerrank, but only as a way to store the exercise instructions with a timer.

The test itself was not terribly difficult, build a small mobile app (I am a mobile dev). It was still enough to demonstrate how you can architecture an app, good design patterns, clean code, etc

After that I had another round of interview with that same company.

I feared that ridiculous whiteboard was on the menu. One of the engineers reassured me when I inquired about the content of this interview : "we think that wb are bullshit, we just want to discuss".

In the end I was offered the job, with a really nice compensation package. I should mention that I live on another continent and did all these interviews remotely.

Is this a general trend in the silicon valley area ? or was I just lucky to stumble on companies that don't believe in whiteboard questions ?

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#24

Post by Majestic121 »

maxerickson wrote: post #7
Majestic121 wrote: post #2

"For experienced programmers like Adler, the new tests aren’t insurmountable – all that’s required is an injection of time to learn the new Hackerrank tricks." Well, yeah. I do that too and I've been out of university for 5 years. You have to prepare for interviews, and to resharpen your skills when you're changing jobs, it's the same whether you're 28 or 48. I understand finding time is harder when you have a family…

Isn't saying that a few hours is enough to get past it the nearly same thing as saying that it is just garbage?

I used to think that, but you'd honestly be surprised how many people it filters out successfully.

It is just an advanced version of FizzBuzz : even if it's not enough to determine whether someone is good or not, it definitely burns people that are not able to code at all. It also provide talking points for the interview afterward about coding style and all.

Of course, it's not sufficient, but it's just a stage among others if the interview is done correctly, and it's a useful one

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#25

Post by wolfgke »

djhworld wrote: post #17
pizzaman09 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credentialing. Seriously. Have a Bar Association for developers. When anyone can do a few weeks of Googling and claim to be a software developer, you're going to get mostly crap candidates. Offload that process to a formal body, like lawyers, doctors, and engineers do. You can hire unlicensed developers, but you do so at your own risk. Then once you're talking to someone licensed in an interview, you can focus on jus…

For the professions this is quite simple as there are standards, Doctors, Accountants etc are all trained to the standard qualifications that are often internationally recognised. How could you do that for software engineers? There are so many programming languages, frameworks out there that are constantly evolving and companies have different demands. I think it would be a really hard problem to generalise.

> There are so many programming languages, frameworks out there that are constantly evolving and companies have different demands.

An idea that I have thought of is to standardize on some programming language/frameworks/demands that are known to be supported for a very long time (15 years?). If you need something from this buffet, you are fine and have the advantages that this provides. If you have special demands, you are on you own - which is not a problem per se, but as all special demands this simply needs to increased risk or cost.

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#26

Post by lozzo »

I am in my 40s and have a relatively safe job and not looking for a change. A friend of mine told me to apply for a certain company and I did. They asked me to free an hour one evening and they put me through hackerrank. And I failed. I failed big time.

My take away: Surely we all need to revise if we seriously want to apply for a job yet it did feel like the screening was asking me to see how good I am at resolving small problems quickly.

Yet, my 25 years of experience told me that we don't need to solve problems quickly we need to solve them rightly. and that takes "mulling over"

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#27

Post by Joboman555 »

pizzaman09 wrote: post #11
jordanpg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, but what is the alternative from the standpoint of the interviewer? These types of challenges are simple to state, self-contained, easy to timebox. For the interviewer for a say intermediate-level enterprise software backend position who needs to quickly sift through 50 applicants, what is the better option by way of code challenges?

Credentialing. Seriously. Have a Bar Association for developers. When anyone can do a few weeks of Googling and claim to be a software developer, you're going to get mostly crap candidates. Offload that process to a formal body, like lawyers, doctors, and engineers do. You can hire unlicensed developers, but you do so at your own risk. Then once you're talking to someone licensed in an interview, you can focus on jus…

This is maligned and dangerous. It has been shown that credentialing hurts the marketplace and consumers. Having a credential authority would not cause there to be a skill bar, it would just require all of us to pay money to a worthless authority.

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#28

Post by trentmb »

pizzaman09 wrote: post #11
jordanpg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, but what is the alternative from the standpoint of the interviewer? These types of challenges are simple to state, self-contained, easy to timebox. For the interviewer for a say intermediate-level enterprise software backend position who needs to quickly sift through 50 applicants, what is the better option by way of code challenges?

Credentialing. Seriously. Have a Bar Association for developers. When anyone can do a few weeks of Googling and claim to be a software developer, you're going to get mostly crap candidates. Offload that process to a formal body, like lawyers, doctors, and engineers do. You can hire unlicensed developers, but you do so at your own risk. Then once you're talking to someone licensed in an interview, you can focus on jus…

It exists: https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/software/

No one cares though.

Re: Why HackerRank and other coding tests are ageist

#29

Post by notyourday »

TL; DR summary: programmers... err.. software engineers discover that fundamentally most of the companies consider them to be be totally interchangeable, just like janitors are fundamentally interchangeable or models walking down the catwalk during the NY Fashion Week are interchangeable.

Since they did not save money for the twenty years that they have been paid quite well, they dont like the prospect.

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