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A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

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Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#11

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

Absolutely. The giant companies who do whiteboard interviews have studied this intensely, because making quality hires quickly is a critical part of their business.

The people who say the industry should stop doing whiteboard interviews, in contrast, have no data.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#12

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

Absolutely. The giant companies who do whiteboard interviews have studied this intensely, because making quality hires quickly is a critical part of their business. The people who say the industry should stop doing whiteboard interviews, in contrast, have no data.

This is a massive, unwarranted assumption, large companies do plenty of things that _make no sense whatsoever_ en masse.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#13

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

Absolutely. The giant companies who do whiteboard interviews have studied this intensely, because making quality hires quickly is a critical part of their business. The people who say the industry should stop doing whiteboard interviews, in contrast, have no data.

Unless the giant whiteboarding companies are also hiring people who fail the whiteboard interviews so they can see to what extent (or not) success in whiteboarding correlates with good employee, I'm unconvinced.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#14

I interview a lot of candidates and we do whiteboarding - to see how candidates can communicate architecture designs and decisions. The interviews have made me realise that countless candidates are unable to: 1. Give a high level overview of a product 2. Critique design choices and suggest improvements 3. Communicate well as to what the value of components are to the broader business. Many of the developers can expla…

But communication on-the-fly, on-your-feet, in a high pressure environment, which is what a whiteboard test is, is not most communication.

Most communication gets thought about, drafted, revised, critiqued, socialized, ahead of distribution.

If your whiteboarding comes after hours or days of consideration and review, that sounds like a great way to vet good communicators. Otherwise, aren't you optimizing only for speed? If someone cracks a joke in the moment, they're a wit; but we only pay money to and call comedians those who worked on it for a while.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#15

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

Absolutely. The giant companies who do whiteboard interviews have studied this intensely, because making quality hires quickly is a critical part of their business. The people who say the industry should stop doing whiteboard interviews, in contrast, have no data.

The giant companies who whiteboard are full of people who have a strong incentive to reach the conclusion that the process that selected themselves over other people is a good one.

Unconcious bias is a tough thing to control for.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#16

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

I think that correlation would be impossible to interpret due to the obvious confounding factors. A randomized controlled trial would be interesting though...

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#17

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

Absolutely. The giant companies who do whiteboard interviews have studied this intensely, because making quality hires quickly is a critical part of their business. The people who say the industry should stop doing whiteboard interviews, in contrast, have no data.

Circular reasoning isn't data, though.

"The procedures at companies X, Y and Z are correct because their operations require their procedures to be correct" sounds entirely accurate, but doesn't prove that the procedures are correct (or optimal, which is another question not covered by your argument: the status quo can be sufficient but not optimal)

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#18

Here’s a curve ball: has there ever been a study on companies that do be those that don’t do whiteboard interviews and the relative performance of the company or the staff?

I've read that Google has tried to find correlations between interview ratings and job success. They didn't find a correlation, and this is only for those that they did hire (so the difference between an "acceptable" hire and an "exceptional" hire at the interview made no difference later on).

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#19

I interview a lot of candidates and we do whiteboarding - to see how candidates can communicate architecture designs and decisions. The interviews have made me realise that countless candidates are unable to: 1. Give a high level overview of a product 2. Critique design choices and suggest improvements 3. Communicate well as to what the value of components are to the broader business. Many of the developers can expla…

But communication on-the-fly, on-your-feet, in a high pressure environment, which is what a whiteboard test is, is not most communication. Most communication gets thought about, drafted, revised, critiqued, socialized, ahead of distribution. If your whiteboarding comes after hours or days of consideration and review, that sounds like a great way to vet good communicators. Otherwise, aren't you optimizing only for spe…

Ever been in a tense meeting?

Most (almost all) verbal communication comes with time pressure.

Speak too long (ramble) and your message is lost and your coworkers are annoyed.

Don't speak fast enough and now someone else is using all the air in the room.

Re: A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews

#20

Whiteboard interviews are great, just not for writing code. I want to see how you can communicate a design and have a discussion. So we always gave someone a design problem where there really wasn’t a right way to solve it but lots of ways. Then we asked them to tell us what they are thinking as they go thru it. Some people just can’t communicate their thinking or think on their feet under pressure. It was good at fi…

This was my experience interviewing at a big company. I had a coding interview to prove that I could write working code with test cases. I opted to write that on a computer and project it onto the screen where the interviewer could follow along. The architecture round took place on the whiteboard. It was a tool to help communicate the design I had in my mind.
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