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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

#91

Post by jboy55 »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #74
jboy55 wrote: post #44

Its interesting how many of these companies have 'take home' challenges or projects. Even though the companies may say, "This should only take an hour", 99% of the time, it occupies my entire night/weekend, if not in coding but in thought. There's always something more you could do. Its presented as an objective test, but its very subjective, just as much as the whiteboard test. With the whiteboard test, as a candida…

> Also, take home challenges are probably very discriminatory towards older candidates with families. So maybe just as subtle way of age discrimination? And whiteboard interviews are discriminatory towards people with anxiety who have trouble thinking clearly when they are in the spotlight with all eyes on them, no? Where does the microaggressions game start and end? My current company does, -Offer choice between liv…

>And whiteboard interviews are discriminatory towards people with anxiety who have trouble thinking clearly when they are in the spotlight with all eyes on them, no? Where does the microaggressions game start and end?

So Gender/Age/Disabilty discrimination are now microagrssions? It seems from your description of your hiring practice, someone has thought of the implications of take home questions given the choice between live and take home.

My point is, replacing white board questions with entirely take home questions is probably discriminatory.

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

#92

Post by ummonk »

acslater00 wrote: post #71

I ask most candidates to write code on a whiteboard in front of me and I’m not apologizing for it! The problem is usually fairly easy and if the candidate cannot get to a “describe solution in words” milestone then I will guide them to one. After that I ask them to write code. I will also tell them “the code is the part I care about”. The specific competency I am evaluating here is “can you turn thoughts into code”.…

If you're testing for their coding process, why do you make them write it out on a whiteboard? Why not provide them a code editor or at least text editor?

I like whiteboard interviews, but they should be testing high level design ("describe solution in words / detail in pseudocode"), not coding skills.

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

#93

Post by 01100011 »

codingdave wrote: post #80

Using a whiteboard, or even having trivia-like questions isn't the problem. The problem is that people think those tools are trying to test your ability to get the answer right. No. They are a medium through which you can see how someone approaches problems, their thought processes, how they structure their ideas, what they do when they get stuck, how well they communicate, how well they understand directions, how we…

An interview is a special scenario where the pressure is several orders of magnitude beyond anything you'll usually encounter in the work environment. Some folks' reasoning skills utterly fall apart in such situations. Without understanding that, you may miss out on some stellar performers who have no issues reasoning or solving problems when left alone to work.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

jboy55 wrote: post #44

Its interesting how many of these companies have 'take home' challenges or projects. Even though the companies may say, "This should only take an hour", 99% of the time, it occupies my entire night/weekend, if not in coding but in thought. There's always something more you could do. Its presented as an objective test, but its very subjective, just as much as the whiteboard test. With the whiteboard test, as a candida…

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by deathanatos »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #76
nxc18 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Ever been in a tense meeting? This should not be what interviews are like.

If anything, my interviews are less tense and stressful than my meetings. On both sides of the table.

(If anything, this is probably not what meetings should be like. I wish to god my coworkers would have real agendas for meetings — and a one-sentence subject does not count as an "agenda", and ideally, written material detailing any proposal that will be proposed, s.t. I can arrive at the meeting already understanding what it is that someone wants to do.)

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

#97

Post by jfasi »

nilkn wrote: post #34
jfasi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

While the term isn’t very precise, in this context “brainteaser” means precisely the kind of questions asked by Google, etc.

Serious question, because I see this view all the time: how are the algorithms design, architecture, and coding questions asked by Google and friends brain teasers?

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

#98

Post by agoldis »

"Take home" challenges are excellent - they give an opportunity to create a common platform for discussion that every party feels comfortable with.

As for time investment, it's worth to dedicate 4-6 hours of your life to make sure the next few years of your employment are good for both parties.

It is not whiteboard that is a problem, but pressure of being evaluated by a random dude. It's like dancing naked. Whiteboard is a complimentary tool that should be used for visualization and demonstration, that's it!

Also, it takes years of experience and a great emotional intelligence in order to be able to conclude anything not obvious about a person after 1 - 1.5 hours of f2f communication. Let's face it - most of us are not there.

The best way is to simulate a real-case dynamics of whatever the job requires, for as long as possible, and give both parties chance to behave in a natural way.

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

#99

Post by PunchTornado »

gamma3 wrote: post #64

I've interviewed engineers on computer science problems on a whiteboard and those who did great turned out to do great on the actual job. That's a one way implication. It is possible there are people who do poorly on coding interviews but great on the job. Whiteboard coding is simply a quick test that has few false positives in my experience (around 40 interviews).

many assumptions, few facts

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

#100

Post by codingdave »

01100011 wrote: post #93
codingdave wrote: post #80

Using a whiteboard, or even having trivia-like questions isn't the problem. The problem is that people think those tools are trying to test your ability to get the answer right. No. They are a medium through which you can see how someone approaches problems, their thought processes, how they structure their ideas, what they do when they get stuck, how well they communicate, how well they understand directions, how we…

An interview is a special scenario where the pressure is several orders of magnitude beyond anything you'll usually encounter in the work environment. Some folks' reasoning skills utterly fall apart in such situations. Without understanding that, you may miss out on some stellar performers who have no issues reasoning or solving problems when left alone to work.

It is often a great disappointment to people looking for jobs when they figure out that employers just don't care if they miss out on someone. They are trying to avoid a bad hire more than they need to hit a 100% rate identifying all good hires.

(Not to mention, if you cannot perform under stress, that is a negative aspect of your capabilities, and a fair reason to bring in someone who doesn't fail under stress.)

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