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A hiring test I'd like to run

shkspr.mobi

131–140 of 203 posts

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#131
Interviews should be personalized. That they are conducted en masse with little consideration for applicant background is an artifact of the difficulty of adequate personalization. Targeted ads are valued precisely because they are targeted, presumably increasing the chance of a match. Has anyone heard of any startup companies in the personalized interview space?

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#132
post #115
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…

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 was given only a single coding interview my whole onsite, and it was to build a JavaScript SPA, including routing/linking, without the use of any framework, just vanilla JS. This is of course both completely ludicrous, and incredibly disrespectful. Thanks for poi…

I hope Twilio (and other companies) are reading.

One bad experience can turn many engineers away from your recruiting pipeline.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#133
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…

Were you interviewing for a backend or frontend position?

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#134
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was given only a single coding interview my whole onsite, and it was to build a JavaScript SPA, including routing/linking, without the use of any framework, just vanilla JS. This is of course both completely ludicrous, and incredibly disrespectful. Thanks for poi…

I hope Twilio (and other companies) are reading. One bad experience can turn many engineers away from your recruiting pipeline.

Do you really take random comments on the internet into consideration when you're looking for your next gig? If you do, in my experience, every company is off the table.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#136
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…

It’s hard to realize under the gun, but we have to put our foot down occasionally and speak up.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#137
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people still stubbornly refuse to look for help. The thing is that some people might feel that they will get assessed lower if they look for help rather than come up or even luck into a solution. Despite making it abundantly clear to candidates that they should take the test(s) as a pair programming sessions, we had candidates struggle with some basic stuff and not ask questions. They just kept trying things w…

One thing I’ve had help melt the pressure on both sides of the table is a laugh. I’m fortunate enough to be able to sort of slice through tension and get a rise out of most people. Stressing exactly what you’re looking for, that you’re not perfect either, that there’s no one solution, and letting them know things can be collaborative has been helpful too. Let’s ping pong off each other and see where we get, I mean th…

Thank you for doing this! I'm doing several processes now and it's so unpleasant and stressful just before the interviews, that taking some weight off of it is really helpful.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#138
post #126

I've always wanted to run one where we bring them to a room to interview. Maybe take a break. Move their stuff to a slightly different room. Pick back up right where we left off. Maybe change out the furniture and people outside during the interview. Introduce them to numerous employees, who will respond to names swapped amongst each other. Another break - switch interviewers. Pick up right where the first one left o…

... But why?

To see how they respond under pressure.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#139
post #95
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This actually might not be so nuts if it were clearly a way to evaluate how you handle unfamiliar problems and they made it clear they didn't really expect you to finish the whole thing in 50 minutes, I guess. This happened to me. I once interviewed at a place where they presented me with a language I had never seen. Very different concepts than your typical C/Algol flavored languages. They went over the basic conc…

Man, this reminds me of the story about the person that gets a position at a new company and it turns out they have a ridiculous tech stack where it's a custom language. The new person comes in and adds comments which breaks everything and somehow files have like a version history which affects how they run? Anyone have the link to that? There's some individual that developed all of it and gets the new person fired f…

I have a hard time imagining this is real, but it makes some twisted kind of sense.

Re: A hiring test I'd like to run

#140
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Twilio (and other companies) are reading. One bad experience can turn many engineers away from your recruiting pipeline.

Do you really take random comments on the internet into consideration when you're looking for your next gig? If you do, in my experience, every company is off the table.

What else am I supposed to take into consideration? The companies marketing material? Maybe the signal in those comments is a bit biased, but it seems far less biased than the alternatives.
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