A listing of companies that don't do whiteboard job interviews • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by simplesleeper » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

vitovito wrote: post #14

simplesleeper wrote: post #7

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…

Of course the candidate is under more pressure than they would be at work - that's why we don't expect them to create a Leonardo masterpiece in front of us and we give the candidate the benefit of the doubt.

You would be surprised at how poor some of the candidates are at this. Candidates who are unable to draw a few squares on a board to describe the last thing they worked on, and candidates who have never questioned any of the work they were assigned or don't understand that there are often multiple options for a solution, each with pros and cons.

If someone can't even draw a simple diagram on a board, I don't want to have to plan and come up with highly complex solutions over whole months with them.

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

#22

Post by pmiller2 » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

paulmendoza wrote: post #4

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…

> Some people just can't ... think on their feet under pressure. It was good at finding that.

What was the relevance of finding that? Do you always do system design under a strict clock at your company?

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

#23

Post by hota_mazi » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

Instead of this subjective us/them mentality, I'd be more interested in some hard data showing that not using a white board leads to higher quality hires. I'm really not convinced this is the case.

Besides, that list is not what the title is. It's a list of companies that don't do brain teasers. But a lot of them use white boards.

And to be honest, using a white board is important. You will be doing that a lot in any kind of developer capacity, especially the more senior ones. You need to be able to explain things clearly on a white board.

Factoring this in the interview process is a plus, not a minus in my opinion.

But we can all agree that questions should be about writing code, not brain teasers. This has been a well accepted idea for more than ten years.

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

#24

Post by simplesleeper » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #15

solipsism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What are you basing this opinion on?

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

#25

Post by jfasi » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #23

Instead of this subjective us/them mentality, I'd be more interested in some hard data showing that not using a white board leads to higher quality hires. I'm really not convinced this is the case. Besides, that list is not what the title is. It's a list of companies that don't do brain teasers. But a lot of them use white boards. And to be honest, using a white board is important. You will be doing that a lot in any…

> It's a list of companies that don't do brain teasers

Facebook, Google, Apple, LinkedIn, Netflix, etc don't do brain teasers and they're not on this list.

EDIT: whoops, Netflix is on this list, my bad

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

#26

Post by darpa_escapee » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #12

solipsism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's weird seeing people put giant bureaucracies on a pedestal.

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

#27

Post by solipsism » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:44 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #15

solipsism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These companies are also full of Directors and VPs whose very jobs, and their millions of dollars in salary, and their image as successful managers, rely on successful hiring choices.

It's definitely not hard to imagine such people being biased toward whiteboard. It's also not hard to imagine them hiring outside firms to conduct studies and collect data.

Speaking of bias, there's a lot of it around here toward the idea that whiteboarding is ineffective.

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

#28

Post by cbanek » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

This is a great list, but I think it's more interesting than just "doesn't do whiteboard job interviews" - I like that each company has a quick breakdown of their hiring process, which is even more useful. There's a lot more people doing take home projects than I thought!

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

#29

Post by jjav » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

simplesleeper wrote: post #7

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…

However, just like like whiteboard coding is completely unrelated to real-world coding, this type of whiteboard design is also completely unrelated to the real-world whiteboard design people do in non-interview settings.

How many times has a scenario like this happened to anyone: Your manager pulls you in with no warning into a conference room and asks you to architect on the whiteboard a new product completely unrelated to anything the company does or has done so far. And you get 45 minutes to get it correct or you're fired. Right.. never. That's the scenario interview whiteboarding is testing for and it has no real world relevance at all.

In an actual job even the most impromptu whiteboarding sessions are related to product context already in your head. And most sessions are scheduled in advance so get to do research and prep work.

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

#30

Post by mtkd » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #22

paulmendoza wrote: post #4

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…

> Some people just can't ... think on their feet under pressure. It was good at finding that. What was the relevance of finding that? Do you always do system design under a strict clock at your company?

In my experience some of the biggest problems are solved best by the slowest thinkers

Those slow thinkers might have a good idea of the answer they likely want to give straight away - but maybe want to take another day or two before committing

Short meetings around a table can be quite frustrating for people that think slow - which is why many discussions can reach a better conclusion using email and time