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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

#221

Post by brett40324 »

mikekchar wrote: post #216

Where I'm currently working we do pair programming interviews (usually with ping pong). Some candidates don't like it. Sometimes we have technical hitches. However, it's been the best method I've seen in my fairly long career. I can't think of a single time that we've hired someone and been surprised when they showed up to work. The strengths we've seen have actually been there and the weaknesses as well. We may well…

Thanks for posting! Your process sounds really great at getting to know and feel how a candidate thinks and works with people.

Is the ping pong approach, tdd, and time involved communicated to candidates before the interview date?

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

#222

Post by fluxem »

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 tests introduce asymmetry. Even take home test takes one hour to do, it takes 5 minutes to check. So, company can go through more candidates, wasting their time. In traditional interview, for every hour candidate spends, the interviewer needs to spend the same amount of time. Therefore, it's forcing companies to choose candidates wisely.

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

#223

Post by black-tea »

ummonk wrote: post #92
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.

I give whiteboard interviews. Believe it or not, I am intelligent. I am not going to disregard you because you got some minor syntax wrong on the whiteboard. I can tell the difference between a fundamental misunderstanding and a mistake that happens due to using a language that wasn't designed to be written on whiteboards. If you, the candidate, don't understand that, then I guess you are not fit for the role anyway.

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

#224

Post by eiskalt »

I didn't get in details, what kind of CS question should be eliminated in "non-whiteboard" interviews. However, I would definitely ask at least basics of algorithms, their analysis, and data structures. For example, in my carrier, I saw enough getter methods (e.g. getCustomers) which looks from outside simple/fast but internally do linear search on each invocation. It especially "nice", if you have a piece of code which iterates over multiple collections in nested loops on UI thread..

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

#225

Post by mvyo »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #55
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? I see this sentiment fairly frequently, and TBH, it completely baffles me. I am in my mid 40s. Yes, I don't have nearly as much energy nor desire to spend all weekend doing take-home programming assignments as I did 20 years ago. But if one candidate is willing to do…

> if one candidate is willing to do more work ... that's one person showing they are willing to put more effort into a job than another

I'm not happy with this logic. It's harmful. If you extend it further, it motivates everybody to work more hours too.

"If a person is willing to put more effort into a job than another let him do that! Oh and by the way, let's fire those who are not and hire those who are".

And we're back to 12+ hour work day and a lot of great specialists are out of their jobs or forced to sacrifice their time with families, friends, hobbies, physical activities, etc.

There are ways to conduct interviews without whiteboarding AND without take home assignments.

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

#226

Post by baxtr »

avita1 wrote: post #139
baxtr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we have made the experience that people that are not seriously considering to take the job are filtered out by a homework. It helps both to save a lot of time and energy interviewing people.

I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky, but how can you say that with any certainty? The only way to know this for sure would be to ask half your applicant pool to do the test, and the other half to go through the exact same battery of interviews sans take home test and then see how many of the offers you extend are accepted. Obviously this requires that you're a big enough company to split your applicants into two po…

I guess you are right, we haven’t done a proper A/B test for this. We had no homework before however, and the overall results were different. It is my strong feeling though that many cancel after seeing the homework that are not completely convinced, which is ok.

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

#227

Post by markmark »

ummonk wrote: post #206
kappi wrote: post #47

The theoretical coding interview based on undergrad CS topics has become a cottage industry by itself with books,online sites etc. Very few people know that this is used for indirect age discrimination to favor young folks. Not sure when this insanity will stop. Human beings went to moon before we had this coding interviews.

And what makes older folks incapable of solving questions using basic algorithms and data structures?

They've probably been working for 10 years without needing to write a sort algorithm by hand since it's built into every language these days, and get annoyed at having to re-learn it just for an interview.

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

#228

Post by nostrebored »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #207
nostrebored wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work 10 hours a day, my wife does as well, and we start at substantially different times. We have a child who can stay up until 11. If I'm doing multiple interviews (which everyone should be doing) and each requires 3 hours of my time (generous underestimate) then what am I going to do? Hire a sitter for a potential job for each of these companies? Give me whiteboarding interviews -- at least the studying is cross…

> then what am I going to do? Hire a sitter for a potential job for each of these companies? Yes, why not? For many people taking time off their existing job during the work day to interview is difficult, but they find a way to do it. My whole point in this thread is not that interviewing isn't onerous, or that some companies may require more of a time investment than some people are willing to make (and, if that's t…

Because that's absurd when I can just apply to companies that have reasonable hiring practices that aren't effectively lock in.

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

#229

Post by nostrebored »

FiddlyPack wrote: post #177
nostrebored wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work 10 hours a day, my wife does as well, and we start at substantially different times. We have a child who can stay up until 11. If I'm doing multiple interviews (which everyone should be doing) and each requires 3 hours of my time (generous underestimate) then what am I going to do? Hire a sitter for a potential job for each of these companies? Give me whiteboarding interviews -- at least the studying is cross…

Last time I went interviewing, that’s exactly what I did for the take home projects: hire a sitter.

When you're looking at $60 an interview and looking at probably 10+ interviews to find a good fit then why am I going to spend $600 when I can brush up on information that I already know from school and work at a fraction of the cost?

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

#230

Post by aichi »

jboy55 wrote: post #63
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, take home challenges are probably very discriminatory towards older candidates with families. So maybe just as subtle way of age discrimination? I see this sentiment fairly frequently, and TBH, it completely baffles me. I am in my mid 40s. Yes, I don't have nearly as much energy nor desire to spend all weekend doing take-home programming assignments as I did 20 years ago. But if one candidate is willing to do…

The whole bent against white board questions is that they are unrealistic as to actual working conditions and thus are artificial. So if you are a successful engineer, using your work time efficiently, and yet, you have family obligations that prevent you from spending enough time as someone else on a take home challenge, is the take home challenge showing realistic 'working conditions'? Or is it a measure of freetim…

whiteboard = artificial. I don't agree. When I interview I don't expect working code on WB, I expect discussion about what is written there. Also I expect when interviewed that there will be discussion about approach I took.

WB usage is also testing presentation skills. It is used in companies when you want to present your ideas to others, etc.

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