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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

#391

Post by kbknapp »

zdragnar wrote: post #338
michaelt wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be useful for discriminating between competent candidates, a challenge has to either be hard to complete (pass based on completion) or hard to complete to a high standard of quality (pass based on completion+quality). In other words, it has to be at the limits of what's possible for people you expect to apply for the job. If you give me a 2 hour challenge with a timer so I can't possibly take more than 2 hours, I'…

> To be useful for discriminating between competent candidates, I helped redesign the code challenge at one of the companies I worked for. We (the people across the different technical disciplines we hired for) put a lot of effort into ensuring that: * the challenge could be completed in 4 hours * the challenge resembled the sort of work people would do on the job * the goal of the challenge was to inform a follow up…

I think you're missing the point from the previous poster about (perceived) competition.

Unless your challenge literally stops at, "make X appear onscreen" with no regard for quality, testing, etc. Giving unchecked/unverified time restraints isn't fair. It doesn't matter you're giving more time than it should take to complete. If the task can be done in 2 hours, but you give "6" and Candidate A does it in 3, but Candidate B does it in 32 (but tells you 6) you're ranking two totally different submissions. Candidate B might have a super polished submission, while Candidate A has a baseline submission.

The poster you replied to was suggesting that tests should be either 1) not based on quality of submission and simply rely on difficulty so that only a few candidates can complete them or 2) based on quality and difficulty, but with a checked and verified time to keep the playing field level. However those options are both at odds with "low stress."

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

#392

Post by Cyph0n »

BurningFrog wrote: post #257
charlesdm wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I don't like this question because you know there is a politically correct answer and then an actual course of action people would take. The proper answer is: introduce democratic government, clean up the country, introduce proper amenities (healthcare, etc) and spread the wealth for the benefit of the people. Fact of the matter is: absolute power corrupts, and plenty of people w…

Your "proper answer" is what the US tried to do in Iraq, which is now considered the perhaps biggest mistake in US history.

Not only did we try, but we did it the wrong way imo. When you try to pull something this complex off and completely disregard the local culture, politics, and sectarian makeup, you introduce chaos. Did anyone learn from Sykes-Picot?

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

#393

Post by alain94040 »

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.

if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong

Are you sure you meant to say what you wrote? I'm not aware of any place that has figured out how to properly screen candidates in one hour. If you know how to do it, please share, it would help all of us.

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

#394

Post by Spooky23 »

ScottFree wrote: post #90
Spooky23 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We then gave the interviewee four days to complete the task with a recommended time of 2 days. How magnanimous. Who the hell is subjecting themselves to this?

People who are between jobs and whose bank accounts are running perilously low.

In a government role, I was required to obtain permission for any outside activity, with meaningful penalties. Significant engagements like that for an interview would be in scope.

The interview process being long or whatever or requiring on-site visits is reasonable, but pre-work is probably eliminating good candidates, or attracting people who don't pay attention to their contracts.

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

#395

Post by qes »

falsedan wrote: post #299
swordsmith wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the quote -- most of these skills are pretty general though.

how many of them did you exercise in the last 6 months/5 years I'm 5/7 out of 22, +2 if I go back a decade or two

6 months seems too short, but in 5 years the only ones I haven't done are plan an invasion (how many people out of billions have?), butcher a hog specifically (fish though), design a whole building (designed and built a.. room.. for purposes.. no small or simple task), written a sonnet specifically (other creative writing), set a bone, pitch manure (bagged it, also bailed hay, grew food, etc.), fight physically, or die - gallantly or otherwise.

So that's 4 I definitely haven't done, 4 I kinda did, and 13 I definitely did (I count 21 total not 22).

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

#396

Post by jarsin »

agrippanux wrote: post #213
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…

When interviewing execs who would be building new departments a few years ago, I would pose the question of "In the wake of Arab spring in Libya, the people decide that you are their next leader. What happens in your first 100 days?". The answers ran the gamut from lazy to fantastic to terrifying. A lot of answers where generic "coalition building" variety. The better answers identified key areas to focus on like inf…

I would win over all my subordinates by giving them a massive raise in the form of tax cuts :)

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

#397

Post by hbosch »

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…

FTA: You have ‘4–6 hours’ to design a slick product, with a memorable brand and cohesive working method.

I don’t think Google necessarily requested a full end to end product. A nice logo/app icon for the “branding” portion and some UX concepts can definitely be fleshed out in a single work day, especially with zero tech/biz requirements IMO.

Maybe you’d need to take an extra day just to brainstorm first... but actually pushing pixels, if this designer compressed his output a bit, could have happened in 6 hours.

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

#398

Post by busterarm »

thoreauway wrote: post #305

I interviewed at Uber before they launched. Their "take home" was to create... Uber. Here's the exact challenge: UberCab Coder Challenge 1) Write a program that determines the wait time, trip time, rating, and fare for a black car trip in San Francisco, given that the customer's pickup location and destination is randomly placed anywhere in San Francisco proper, and given that there are X number of cars all placed ra…

I remember my Uber interview.

My interviewer was sitting in a room full of people when they called me, asked me questions and then proceeded to have conversations with the other people in the room without listening to me and would ask me to repeat my answers. And do it again.

15 minutes of this and I hung up on them. This was about 4 years ago and the equity that I have in the company I joined instead is on an upward trajectory instead of what Uber just did. Phew.

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

#399

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

tatami wrote: post #191
sethammons wrote: post #56

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 sho…

My high school physics teacher did the same. He would take the tests he prepared himself to check whether the scope was appropriate for the allocated time. The factor of 3 was spot on for this kind of estimation.

Rule of Threes.

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

#400

Post by ryandrake »

nkohari wrote: post #370
legohead wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They presented three design challenge options to pick from, with a weeks notice and advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task (wink, wink) I guess as a programmer I'm too logical. You tell me X hours, that's all I'm going to spend. For one of my past interviews I was given a task to make a multiplayer battleship game using whatever I wanted, and was told to spend 2 hours total and they didn't…

I think we interviewed for the same job. I did the same thing, and got the same response. It was such a short timespan that I assumed it was a trick question, and they wanted to see if I could come up with a creative solution that technically met the requirements but was extremely simple. I implemented a board which you could put pins on, and a text-based chat system using websockets. The idea was that it would work…

I’d like to code review an example of what a successful hire finished in the allotted time. My guess is the code is bananas.
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