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I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

uxdesign.cc

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

#161

Post by gowld »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #54
itronitron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

Right. Someone asked me to make a small Javascript backend API. I spent a day installing a dev environment on my personal machine since I haven't worked not-at-work since I last upgraded. I didn't mind doing it because it was interesting, but taking that time would be a dumb reason to no-hire me over someone else.

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

#162

Post by thomascgalvin »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #135
ambicapter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methinks you didn't read GP correctly. They took a 2-4 hr task and let the interviewee take 4 days, not including weekends.

2-4 hours is anywhere from $100 to $800 worth of free labor depending on how the dev values their time. The GP was bragging about how generous they were in providing multiple days and weekends to finish it. How did this become acceptable practice for hiring people? Do any other industries besides tech do this?

So teams should just not vet candidates? An in person interview is also going to be 2-4 hours, plus travel time. Should we stop doing those, too? How exactly do you suggest teams screen candidates?

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

#163

Post by justbaker »

rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

> ...but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse.

Ever more reason to go outside ones comfort zone.

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

#164

Post by richrichardsson »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #135
ambicapter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methinks you didn't read GP correctly. They took a 2-4 hr task and let the interviewee take 4 days, not including weekends.

2-4 hours is anywhere from $100 to $800 worth of free labor depending on how the dev values their time. The GP was bragging about how generous they were in providing multiple days and weekends to finish it. How did this become acceptable practice for hiring people? Do any other industries besides tech do this?

They are asking the interviewee to complete the same task as done by an existing staff member, and compare the results, how is that "free labour"?

I'm not sure where I stand on this sort of thing to be honest, my only experience of anything similar was a pre-interview task to implement a simple 10 entry LRU cache, and after getting the job I was told the only reason it was there was to weed out time wasters with next to zero skill being sent by the recruitment company.

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

#166

Post by conanbatt »

rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

What a "culture fit" filter that looks like

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

#167

Post by richthegeek »

irrational wrote: post #96
jordansmithnz wrote: post #39

This reminds me of a take home software engineering interview I was once given via email. Same deal, I was told about 5 hours. I’m an iOS developer, so I was expecting a pretty simple app. I opened the PDF to find not one, but three separate tasks. Completion of all three was expected, with an estimate of about two hours each. One of the tasks was to replicate Apple’s ‘Reminders’ app in its entirety, backend sync fun…

We've joked about giving potential hires a challenge to fix a problem we are currently experiencing, but we wouldn't really do it. That takes some balls to ask interviewees to write or fix production code.

I've just completed an interview process (waiting for the decision) that was explicitly "this is a real problem we have", but also stating that I'll be paid for 8 hours work. I have no problem with that. It took about that long as well.

So I suppose if you're honest about it, and you give a fair estimate of the time required, then what's the problem?

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

#168

Post by gwbas1c »

rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

I would think that's completely relevant for a hedge fund. They probably need to debate investments like this all the time.

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

#169

Post by gowld »

allenu wrote: post #122
hising wrote: post #12

Awesome to read about you turning this into your own startup. One thing I came to think about regarding the "4-5 hours" and throwing 5 working days on it, is that, maybe as an interviewer it is quite obvious that you put more than 4-5 hours into it and what they were "really" after were the trade-offs you would have made if you put 4-5 hours into it. Just a thought.

Yeah, it may translate into, "well, if I work with this person, are they going to spend way too much on details that I don't need and burn themselves out just trying to please me?" Part of working is being able to be assertive and say "ok, for only 4-5 hours, here's what I was able to do for you, so now let's figure out next steps".

Yeah, I hate hiring people who are interested in what we are doing and are excited to work on it.

It's one thing to accept that some people are busy and shouldn't be punished, a bout are we supposed to only hire people who have zero excitement for the industry and job?

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

#170

Post by thomascgalvin »

djhaskin987 wrote: post #140

Is HN truly this bad of a bubble that everyone thinks interview tests are normal? The last time I had to do a test it was on site and I was just out of college. Most interviews just talk about the challenges of the team, my past work on similar problems, and how I solved them. I've been on the other side of the table too. It's usually easy to tell if the applicant is a quack or if they are skilled by how they talk ab…

> It's usually easy to tell if the applicant is a quack or if they are skilled by how they talk about different technology: commiserating about familiar pain points, how they solved common problems. I almost feel at this point that it's unprofessional to hand out tests to people.

The problem with what you're describing is that it's using a proxy (discussion) to vet a particular skill (ability to program).

It's very easy to vet someone's programming skill by having them program, and it doesn't take much longer than a wide ranging discussion, so why not skip the proxy and test what we're actually hiring for?

Should a programming test be several hours (or several days) long? No. But an hour or two, I can't see how that's a terrible imposition.

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