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Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

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Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#111

Post by pps43 »

rpedela wrote: post #80
pps43 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't this value experience and knowledge (like everything you learned in university) at zero? Having switched professions twice, I now use practically nothing of what I learned in university from about second year forward. Math and to some extent physics are still relevant, but that's pretty much it. It might be painful to admit, but the practical value of that rather specialized knowledge that took me several…

I bet it wasn't a total waste. The real point of school, particularly university, is to learn how to learn rather than learn a bunch of facts or tools. Attending university probably made it a lot easier for you to switch professions twice.

I learned how to learn way before graduating.

The waste was close to total, but this is only obvious in hindsight. Given the information I had at the time my choices were rational.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#112

Post by eshch »

dudul wrote: post #50

One thing I've been wondering for a long time when I see the quasi-sado-masochist relationship between engineers and hiring processes is: are bad hires that 1) costly, 2) frequent ? In my 12+ years career, I've worked with so-so engineers, but never truly bad ones that would ruin a project. And even the ones that weren't great, what damages did they really cause? I've seen many more companies failing because of a bad…

it's very easy to realize how it can damage or ruin a project. it reveals once you need to implement a big feature to address some new business needs that can be critical for the company to survive. you have large code base and you should not break something. the clock is ticking, the rivals don't sleep, the market doesn't wait.

or you can just waste all the time firefighting with consequences of bad software.

it's not the only factor, but it can matter. the majority of companies i worked suffer from this. what really mitigates the problem is that competitors have the same problem on average.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#113

Post by bartread »

perfunctory wrote: post #104

I don't think it's necessary. Good software engineers are so scarce you should just grab the first adequate one who comes your way. When I was in the position of interviewing candidates, 9 out of 10 couldn't solve the most trivial of programming tasks.

> 9 out of 10 couldn't solve the most trivial of programming tasks.

This has consistently been my experience.

Nevertheless, the ability to code is necessary but not sufficient. You're going to want to dig into character at least a little.

- How are they in a team context?

- Do they treat others with respect?

- Do they act with integrity?

These kinds of attributes are just as important as whether or not they can code, and I've been badly bitten when they've been lacking.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#114

Post by hsudheh »

No. All the reasons you’ll see below are due to bias of experience - including this one.

It’s all a made up game to hire people who have similar lives to the people doing the hiring.

If you’re from the ghetto no matter how smart you are you’re fucked. If you were born rich in Palo Alto no matter how dumb you are the world is your oyster.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#116

Post by jkukul »

I once bookmarked a blog post [1] which attempts to review existing research on the topic. The bottom line, I think, is that unstructured interviews have the least predictive power. So whatever is your interviewing process, make sure it's structured and similar for every candidate.

[1] https://erikbern.com/2018/05/02/interviewing-is-a-noisy-pred...

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#118

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

0xfeba wrote: post #45
d0mine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardest mode: non-written code

Social-engineering your PM to remove requirements, yep.

My PM loves removing stuff from tickets.

Most of the time, what people want isn't even what they want.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#119

Post by jonhankok »

gwbas1c wrote: post #88
lemony_fresh wrote: post #9

When I was self-studying social psychology I came across social facilitation theory and found it applicable to understanding interviewing. People have a hard time performing complex tasks while other people are watching because their working memory is monitoring the social situation. This varies for each individual. For tasks that have been rehearsed, like a musical or dance routine, they perform better. Politeness t…

> "if you want to work here, you are going to do what I say." I recently started pointing that out, in a roundabout way, when I run interviews. Why? If a candidate starts arguing about xml versus JSON, the candidate misses the point when I bring up xml. (Hint, I only discuss xml because it allows discussing widely known concepts that are very general and have little to do with xml versus JSON.) Or, if a candidate say…

Wow, if I was in an interview where the interviewer was that closed-minded, I would definitely turn down an offer but I might just walk out. If they are unwilling to consider even discussing useful patterns in an interview, working there must be hell.

Re: Ask HN: Has there been any academic research into software interviewing?

#120

Post by barry-cotter »

jfarmer wrote: post #64
dcolkitt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree with this enough. The most consistent finding in industrial psychology is that general cognitive ability is by far the best predictor of job performance in virtually every role ever tested. Even jobs that don't seem cognitively demanding, like janitors or infantry. Higher IQ candidates almost universally do better, even if they start with much less experience. The takeaway as it applies to modern software…

The research says structured interviews and work-sample tests have similar predictive power and all together they have yet more. The takeaway shouldn’t be IQ über alles.

Your grasp of the research is out of date.

From the 1998 meta-analysis

> The most well-known conclusion from this research is that for hiring employees without previous experience in the job the most valid predictor of future performance and learning is general mental ability ([G M A ], i.e., intelligence or general cognitive ability; Hunter & Hunter, 1984; Ree & Earles, 1992).

> Work sample measures are slightly more valid but are much more costly and can be used only with applicants who already know the job or have been trained for the occupation or job.

http://www.flume.com.br/pdf/Scmidt_The_validity_and_utility....

From the 2016 meta-analysis by the same author.

> Overall, the two combinations with the highest multivariate validity and utility for predicting job performance were GMA plus an integrity test (mean validity of .78) and GMA plus a structured interview (mean validity of .76)

Work sample tests do not work as well as the old research suggests

Table with effects linked below

https://m.imgur.com/jULz7RE

More recent paper

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi1...

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