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Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#241

Post by pedrosorio »

Balgair wrote: post #167
zeroname wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hanlon's Razor states that the mostly likely explanation is not conspiracy, but stupidity. Most of the time, your interviewers are just dumb/inexperienced/busy/assholes. What are the odds that everyone in your interview is dumb/inexperienced/busy or an asshole versus the odds that it's just you ?

>What are the odds that everyone in your interview is dumb/inexperienced/busy or an asshole versus the odds that it's just you? Let's assume that your interviewer is selected at random from the population and that traits are independent from each other. Let's further assume that 50% of people are 'dumb', that 30% of people are inexperienced, that 90% of people are 'busy', and that 50% of people are assholes. Honestly…

> Well, again, my probability math isn't the best, but I think that you just add the events together. So, the odds that you have at least one dumb asshole to be interviewed by is ~75%

Why would you undertake a several-paragraphs-long probabilistic analysis if you are aware of your inability to do so?

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#242

Post by __bjoernd »

astura wrote: post #234
Stratoscope wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting to work with interesting people is somehow correlated with not wanting to work with black people? I'm having trouble making sense of this.

"People I find interesting" is usually synonymous with "people who are like me." Even if it's not intentional, we tend to perfer people like ourselves. My opinion is uninteresting people are just fine for coworkers, you're interviewing for an employee, not a drinking buddy.

On average I'm spending way more time with my colleagues than my drinking buddies, so I would really like someone that I can get along with.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#243

Post by carlmr »

fizx wrote: post #228
Spooky23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've observed that in pursuing the 1% unicorn candidate, many people step in unicorn shit and hire smart people who are bad employees. My goal is to not hire the bottom 50% of the workforce in a given discipline. IMO, you're better off building teams that make the average+ person more productive.

>I've observed that in pursuing the 1% unicorn candidate, many people step in unicorn shit and hire smart people who are bad employees. What's fun is that this isn't just a possibility, its likely! Despite the following being a clearly artificial argument, the general shape of it is true. Let's say that you can rate employees 1-10 on each of technical skill and employability/soft-skills, and that both are equally sou…

>If you only hire people that strongly pass a strong technical interview, ensuring that their technical skill is at least an 8/10, then your employees will have at most 4/10 soft skills.

Why most companies find it hard to find good sales engineers.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#244

Post by pmiller2 »

scarejunba wrote: post #236
pmiller2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such feedback, while welcome, in my mind, is so vague as to be unactionable. Unactionable feedback is essentials useless to me as a candidate. If Triplebyte can give good, specific feedback without being afraid of being sued, why can’t employers? As long as the feedback is truthful and only about the technical[0] aspects, there should be no reason others can’t too. —- [0]: Granted, there’s always the nebulous “not a…

Because a non-trivial number of people are incapable of accepting feedback (even if only to discard later) and react in anger. That's unpleasant for everyone. Best to avoid it. That's a safe neutral ground.

Right. It's a tragedy of the commons type situation. Ultimately, everyone would be better off if companies would tell candidates why they were rejected, but nobody does, because it avoids a slightly unpleasant situation for no immediate benefit. Short-termism at its finest.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#245

Post by dagw »

dabockster wrote: post #159
commandlinefan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at one. I didn't apply - I was recruited by the owner (he knew me from a past job), so I didn't go through the interview process, he just asked me if I'd come work for him, quoted a number, and I said, "yeah, sure". It was a struggling startup, but it was making (some) money, and had (some) potential. But man, when I started interviewing people - he'd tell me, "we only take the best of the best", it was a st…

> office hotel Is that what we're calling co-working spaces these days? I can get on board with that.

Is that what we're calling co-working spaces these days?

It's at least what we where calling them in most of Europe long before the term "co-working space" was invented.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#246

Post by nf05papsjfVbc »

pedrosorio wrote: post #241
Balgair wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What are the odds that everyone in your interview is dumb/inexperienced/busy or an asshole versus the odds that it's just you? Let's assume that your interviewer is selected at random from the population and that traits are independent from each other. Let's further assume that 50% of people are 'dumb', that 30% of people are inexperienced, that 90% of people are 'busy', and that 50% of people are assholes. Honestly…

> Well, again, my probability math isn't the best, but I think that you just add the events together. So, the odds that you have at least one dumb asshole to be interviewed by is ~75% Why would you undertake a several-paragraphs-long probabilistic analysis if you are aware of your inability to do so?

It shouldn't be so hard to grant that one could harbour doubts about one's ability yet one could go ahead and make an attempt to do something. Also, I'd not read it as "inability" from the wording chosen.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#247

Post by mdpopescu »

driverdan wrote: post #80
ravenstine wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another similar problem that I'm seeing that I don't think has been pointed out before. Recently, I've been applying for web developer positions and am coming across applications with these sorts of questions: - What's the coolest thing you've done both in life and at work? - What are your dreams? - Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I certainly do have answers for these questions, but I can't tell if the…

Obviously I can't speak for every company but those types of questions are typically used as a filter. - Anyone who skips those questions are rejected outright. If you're not willing to put in a little time you're not interested enough to be considered. You'd be surprised how many people skip these questions. - If you've done something crazy cool or interesting it's a plus but if not it isn't a negative. - Can you co…

> ... those types of questions are typically used as a filter.

Yep, same here.

> Anyone who skips those questions are rejected outright.

Any company using these questions is rejected outright. I'm looking for someone who is willing to give me money for code, not a wife.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#248

Post by mdpopescu »

beat wrote: post #74
aplummer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the coolest thing you've done both in life and at work? - What are your dreams? - Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Hey, I ask a lot of these questions in consulting. What I’m looking for is to tell if a) you can communicate a point clearly b) if you can talk generally about your career and are growth oriented. If you said that field evolves rapidly bit above that would be a good answer. If you span it…

I often ask interviewees about a project they worked on that was very successful, and why it was successful - what did they like about it? That's a good way to find those passion points. It's also a good way to find weak candidates without independence or leadership skills, because they can't really talk about their role in a big success - they didn't have much of a role, usually. A flip-side question is to ask about…

Given that most people quit because of bad managers [1], I assume that a lot of projects fail for the same reason.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employees-dont-leave-companie...

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#249

Post by ricardoreis »

pmiller2 wrote: post #101
alxlaz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made a point for myself to never ask questions like "what are your dreams" or "where do you see yourself in 10 years" in an interview, ever. For a long time, I've used these as a filter, too. Getting this kind of question in an interview is a big red flag for me and a huge disappointment. Let me elaborate a little. My dreams are none of an interviewer's bloody business. I'm here to work not share the things that…

I see these types of questions as the sign of an inexperienced interviewer. Given how many inexperienced interviewers one can see interviewing at tech companies, I would call that a chartreuse flag at best due to lack of signal.

I see these types of questions as the sign of an inexperienced interviewer.

Yup - that's all it is. And you're going to have a certain envelope of negatives (usually far worse than this) in any environment.

So while it does make the flag a bit bless verdant... to call it a "red flag" seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Re: Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews

#250

Post by mdpopescu »

geggam wrote: post #144
corodra wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I understand your question. Do you mean the mental issues part? If so, back then we all just thought the HR posting the job was retarded. If I saw something stupid, the person was stupid. It never hurt me. Nowadays the whole imposter syndrome is becoming a bigger issue. People are becoming more and more inadequate in their own skin. It’s all just getting offended by stuff seen, no matter how small. I grew…

Just wondering why people think that being challenged is a terrible thing. Its almost like being mediocre is good and having some mental problem is better than good performance. Begs the question.. "What is society rewarding ? "

Being mediocre is GREAT. I love being average. I'm a much better programmer than the plumber, but a much worse programmer than Skeet or Hejlsberg - and I'm very much fine with that. (On the other hand, I would argue that I could hold my own against DHH so who knows.)
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