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A hiring test I'd like to run

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Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#81

Post by avgDev »

arkanciscan wrote: post #35

After a couple of years working as a web developer, I decided to go to College. I took a "Web Development" class. I failed the final. The assignment was to code a website by hand. I used BBEdit to pretty print my hand coded HTML and it inserted a tag that I didn't catch. I dropped out and went back to getting paid. Been doing it for 20 years now, though I use Prettier to do my formatting these days.

OOf I had the same final. I had to create a website by hand in a basic text editor like notepad++. I passed but I honestly don't see any value in it.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#82

Post by toast0 »

war1025 wrote: post #26
Msurrow wrote: post #4

First test of any software dev: Do you know how to look for answers on stackoverflow? Second test of any software dev: Do you know how to ask a good question on SO?

I've never found anything of actual use on StackOverflow in my ~decade of doing this professionally. The only time StackOverflow provided useful answers to my questions was during my first year of programming courses in university.

There's some useful information there. It sometimes takes a lot of digging, especially if you're dealing in things that have existed for a long time, but change a lot (UI stuff tends to be pretty bad, questions from 5 years ago rank highly but are nearly useless because it's three frameworks ago).

Also, I was able to cargo cult an applescript accessible objective C program utility (returned the color of a specified pixel from the screenbuffer) from stackoverflow without having to actually learn anything about objective C. That was mostly because the online sources to get started on objective C weren't geared towards writing a short one off program; Apple's documentation in general is hard for me to process.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#84

Post by bryanrasmussen »

marvinjames wrote: post #17
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #9

Well this is exactly like a test I went through at one time. It even used the same reasoning pretty much. The job was fullstack node and react, I went in and they said we want you to look at this game written in Python which is really slow and tell us what is wrong with it (I hadn't done python in years and back then wasn't very good at it). We will sit with you. I said I was game, they said lots of people weren't -…

Of course there was pressure, but why not just say that you know an algorithm that can do this faster, but you can't remember the name of it, and then just provide the intuition behind it?

because then I had to go through explaining the thing the algorithm did and I didn't necessarily want to do that, I just wanted to remember the name so I could say there is an algorithm named X for this case.

At any rate that was why I said the last uhm, because I saw no other way and I was thus ready to go the long route, but then I guess I was out of time.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#85

Post by shantly »

mcguire wrote: post #62
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #9

Well this is exactly like a test I went through at one time. It even used the same reasoning pretty much. The job was fullstack node and react, I went in and they said we want you to look at this game written in Python which is really slow and tell us what is wrong with it (I hadn't done python in years and back then wasn't very good at it). We will sit with you. I said I was game, they said lots of people weren't -…

Don't feel bad. I completely lost the word "virtual" in a C++ interview once. Yet another interview where I looked like an idiot.

You're not alone. At this point I'm pretty sure the majority of reports that there are lots of people lying on résumés and also being able to convince people in conversation that they know how to write software but who can't actually do [basic programming task] or answer [basic programming trivia question] are just cases of interview-stress-induced stupidity in otherwise competent devs being taken for savvy and insanely competent (but not at programming) grifters who were trying to trick the interviewers. Because I don't believe such ultra-convincing liars are both common and trying for software jobs (fucking why? Go into sales!), in numbers significant enough to explain widespread reports of seeing them in the wild.

I think it's the stress of not having any idea what you might be asked about over an unreasonably-wide field of topics, or how you will be judged on your answers, making people forget stuff or act dumber than they actually are, when asked to perform under such (unheard of in real work, "server's on fire at midnight" stress isn't even half as bad and certainly not as adversarial-feeling) conditions.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#86

Post by dcole2929 »

The single best interview experience I've seen was given by Oracle when I worked there a few years ago.

The onsite was a panel interview where candidates were given a laptop with a configured IDE and codebase with a specific set of bugs. Their task was to debug the various issues and complete as many as they could with the understanding that it was not expected for them to solve them all or even most of them. There were also tests to help them. And a different section of the interview asked them to right some tests and some code for again brain dead easy coding algorithms like reverse a string.

I thought it was great because it closely resembled what being a dev is like and actually tested for the skills we cared about. No you didn't get to use your own custom vim configuration but I'm not sure how that would have really worked even if they wanted.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#87

Post by nkrisc »

avip wrote: post #73
josephorjoe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels weird to me. If you have advertised a job and I've given you my resume, it is to give you some information you can use to avoid wasting your time and my time. Just like I would hope your advertisement is accurate and useful enough to let me decide if it is a good use of time for me to send you a resume (e.g., saw an ad for "react developer" -- got to the interview and they were looking for a "server side j…

It is rude. People put lots of effort into resumes. But it's ruder to reject a candidate based on age, gender, martial status, education or lack thereof or doing non sw jobs in the past. I always talk on the phone before and that's where we both make sure the interview is of relevance.

> age, gender, martial status

What resume has this information? This is all stuff you can infer from the interview itself.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#88

Post by dillondoyle »

notkaiho wrote: post #6

This reminds me of the story of the young intern that went around a few years ago. They sheepishly admitted to their boss at the end of their summer internship that they had just googled all the Excel things that were required, that they hadn't actually known any of it. "But your generation KNOWS to look for help, and knows where to find it! That's where you were doing it right," was the boss's response. And that's h…

This is such a valuable skill. For our work we've found this ability to google or find answers without incredibly specific step by step instructions to be lacking from many younger workers. I've wondered if others have found this for many smart people under 30 as well?

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#89

Post by oarabbus_ »

ditonal wrote: post #25

I interviewed at Twilio. My resume and phone chats made it abundantly clear that my professional experience was 95% backend in languages like Java and Go. I looked at their Glassdoor where people wrote they were heavily biased to the algorithm type questions, for better or worse. In reality I was given only a single coding interview my whole onsite, and it was to build a JavaScript SPA, including routing/linking, wit…

Great anecdote, thanks for sharing. I myself have some stories about poor tech hiring all over the place.

As a counterpoint/to play devil's advocate - it doesn't actually seem like these companies are any worse off for this, are they? In other words, it doesn't seem like poor interviewing practices (Google is offender #1) are negatively affecting these companies.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#90

Post by peter_l_downs »

hellisothers wrote: post #52
marvinjames wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there was pressure, but why not just say that you know an algorithm that can do this faster, but you can't remember the name of it, and then just provide the intuition behind it?

In my experience on both sides none of that matters, also none of the “how do they look stuff up” matters, what matters is did you just know what to do and do the right dance.

My experience has been the exact opposite.
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