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I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

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Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#51

Post by saagarjha »

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #45
ivan_gammel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t see any value in learning and trying something new, I can understand it. At the same time there are plenty of people who see it differently and accept such challenge, willing to commit much more time to this kind of task. Maybe it’s not the kind of the job you would be interested in, but then why your opinion on it would matter? One hour interview cannot be more than just screening, when split 50-50 to g…

It's not a marriage, it's a job, and if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong. Have two rounds of interviews, whatever, if a company wants me to learn some skill they need then they can offer training as one of the benefits of the job.

It’s entirely possible that you spend more of your life with the person you’ve just hired than your spouse.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#53

Post by candu »

bitL wrote: post #17

Are you sure you didn't sign any NDA, preventing you from working on ideas you might get during interview? Google used to have pretty water-tight policy on outflow of ideas (but inflow was encouraged) during interviews.

(Usual disclaimer: IANAL, just a person who's worked / consulted several places and signed several NDAs in his life.)

Here's the thing: the NDA you sign when you go onsite covers the company's intellectual property. It might cover the interview questions they ask you, but if they're not paying you for the work you do as part of a take-home interview question, and if you're doing it on your own hardware - it's not theirs, it's yours, and they have absolutely no say in what you do with that work afterwards.

Moreover: if you are subsequently hired by the company, they still don't own the work you did on your own time and hardware. (However: if you continue to work on it while employed by them, they might then own that follow-up work. Check your employment contract carefully, and if you're in a position to insist that employers do not own your off-hours work, insist away.)

Now, if you're currently at another company, and you complete the interview task on their hardware, and especially if you make the mistake of doing that work during company work hours...well, your current employer might then own your interview work. This is a matter usually covered by your employment contract (and another excellent reason to read those carefully).

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#54

Post by bryanrasmussen »

itronitron wrote: post #7
amelius wrote: post #3

> You have ‘4–6 hours’ to design a slick product, with a memorable brand and cohesive working method. No one acknowledges the fact that in reality, you’re about to dedicate up to 5 working days on this task, with the potential for them to ghost you straight afterwards. To make this more fair, why not let the designer work at the company's office, so the interviewer can actually see how much time it took, and the inte…

>> advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task I have to wonder if they didn't get the position because they spent more than the advised time for the task.

As a general rule when I'm given a programming task that takes 4 hours to do then - IF everything I will need for the task is already installed on my computer and all dependencies bugs and so forth have already been taken care of in these things - it will take 4 hours.

Maybe the same situation applies in Design somehow? I mean yeah it takes 4 hours to make the product if you happen to have all the graphical elements you will be using already downloaded and organized.

on edit: although I have noticed a disappointment in some places that I have not done a lot of time cleaning up the code after writing it and making everything beautiful and writing a good readme to tell them everything to do and so on and so forth and normally I don't do those things because I spent more than 4 hours because there was stuff that needed fixing and anyway if they wanted all that 4 hours would not be enough.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#55

Post by dannyw »

siscia wrote: post #33

I believe Google have brainwashed us all. Are we sure that it is worth all this effort? Are they so much better than any other company or startup? Is our own self so much more valuable if a random intervier liked our works an epsilon more than the other candidate? People inside FAANG are unhappy as well, they leave their company as well. I believe we should be less impacted by the ads that Google is running to sponso…

Their pay and RSUs are pretty good...

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#56

Post by sethammons »

The rule of thumb I subscribed to: have the interviewer(s) do the interview. Give the candidate 3x time to do it that the in-house people took. Or, framed in reverse, if you want the assignment to take and n minutes or hours, give yourself n/3 to complete it, and however far you get is the bar for the assignment. Interviewees are stressed, maybe outside their domain, and other things. Make something that they can show you their value. The harder and correct thing to do is to find how they can help your org. It is easy to find what they don't know or to play stump the idiot.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#57

Post by rightbyte »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #42
aloisdg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.

On a first date you don't do boring everyday stuff becouse you don't want to spend time on that.

My experience is that hireing descicion is so noisy that there are no reason to invest too much since the rate of sucess is barely increased anyway.

The more picky the employer seems the less reason to apply. It might be a internal candidate allready chosen or they are just hoarding resumés to keep recruiters occipied.

The decision is allready made from the from the first minutes ... but you can ruin it of course.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#58

Post by matwood »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #42
aloisdg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.

> If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right

I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#59

Post by JacKTrocinskI »

saagarjha wrote: post #51
JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a marriage, it's a job, and if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong. Have two rounds of interviews, whatever, if a company wants me to learn some skill they need then they can offer training as one of the benefits of the job.

It’s entirely possible that you spend more of your life with the person you’ve just hired than your spouse.

Working for this Ivan guy it's entirely possible. Jokes aside though, I've worked for great companies and each had an hour interview and things were fine, people that didn't fit the culture just left and I can't imagine dedicating 4 hours to one interview because frankly speaking I have better things to do and a company that values a work life balance will respect that and keep their interviews short.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#60

Post by thomasahle »

amelius wrote: post #3

> You have ‘4–6 hours’ to design a slick product, with a memorable brand and cohesive working method. No one acknowledges the fact that in reality, you’re about to dedicate up to 5 working days on this task, with the potential for them to ghost you straight afterwards. To make this more fair, why not let the designer work at the company's office, so the interviewer can actually see how much time it took, and the inte…

> To make this more fair, why not let the designer work at the company's office, so the interviewer can actually see how much time it took, and the interviewee doesn't waste more time than necessary?

I had an interview once where we were on the phone, I got the task, and they told me they'd call me back 2 hours later.

Might be easier if the office is far away.

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