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No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

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Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#491

Post by hvidgaard »

scaryclam wrote: post #478
hvidgaard wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take the whiteboard interview any day of the week. The instant feedback you get and ability to show how I think and attack a problem is, I believe, far more valuable.

Not to me as an interviewer it's not. All I know from that is that you interview well. I come away having no idea what you'd actually produce in a normal working environment. I have no idea about your ability to build anything. All I know is that you can whiteboard well. That's a valuable skill, sure, but it's a long way from the only one, and can be learned pretty quickly with a supportive team.

I rarely need someone that is a master architect. They're going to be in a team of already competent people, and whatever short comings they have, we'll address. But it's my experience that critical thinking and methodical problem solving by breaking the issue at hand down into smaller logical chunks is by far the most difficult to teach. So if you demonstrate that, I'll allocate the resources needed to get you up to speed on other areas.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#492

Post by scarejunba »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #488
scarejunba wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I have no trouble giving feedback these days because life's too short not to, but that isn't even an accurate description of the problem. A prospective job seeker goes on Glassdoor. 100 companies. 99 with only positive and neutral reviews, maybe some negative saying "rejected without feedback". 1 with a rant about how they're disrespectful dicks who are just assholes. "It wasn't the feedback. They weren't even…

What if the other 99 other places do the same thing because it's the new norm now? Do you stay unemployed?

Well, if everyone has ranting screeds on their Glassdoor you'll blame the ranters. If only one company has a ranting screed, you'll blame the company. No one writes a ranting screed for not receiving feedback. Therefore no one wants to be that company. Essentially, we're in a stable equilibrium.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#493

Post by jakobegger »

zweep wrote: post #329
vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

By not naming and sharing the first company you’re doing the world a disservice. The powerful have convinced the world that being polite is more important than being truthful because politeness furthers the continuation of existing power structures.

Maybe OP doesn't want to burn any bridges just because one interviewer at a big company behaved like 90% of interviewers do.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#494

Post by nothrabannosir »

crististm wrote: post #489
nothrabannosir wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say: they’re guesses, feel free to post better ones. Especially if it changes the conclusion.

So you are suggesting that (from their behavior) people are oblivious to the low risk/high reward indicated by those figures? Or maybe they don't like assuming risks based on other's bogus data when they already have their version of bogus data that is probably closer to reality?

I’m not really sure who “they” refers to (parent, GP, the company, the employee?), but let me take a step back here and illustrate my point more clearly. Maybe it will help. What I’m trying to say is: this isn’t a court of law, it’s a collaborative conversation. Someone posits a hypothesis based on some estimates. Others are invited to build on either of those: the estimates themselves , or the hypothesis built upon it.

This is a healthier way of looking at online discourse than constantly asking people to provide sources and citations. If they didn’t mention them, you can safely assume it’s a guess. It’s implicit. Don’t like the guess, great: help us improve. We’re all in this together. It’s not a battle of “who has the best opinion”.

Maybe that’s what you were trying to do, in which case I’m sorry for misunderstanding. I genuinely didn’t understand your comment, please forgive me :)

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#495

Post by indecisive_user »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #484
hvidgaard wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply have to disagree. The amount of unqualified candidates that have a decent CV and are reasonable to talk to, but completely unable to correctly write a while loop is too damn high. That is what my whiteboard questions filter out. They're super easy stuff such as "I give you as input a list of integers, return the index of the first consecutive pair of numbers that when added is 42 - you can use any language o…

> The amount of unqualified candidates that have a decent CV and are reasonable to talk to, but completely unable to correctly write a while loop is too damn high. There was some research into this, and IIRC, only half the programmers, both experienced and junior, got a while loop right (IE: no off by ones etc) the first time.

I had to write a while loop in an interview recently, and I also made the off by one error on my first attempt. But after I ran through a couple test cases by hand, it was pretty easy to see the mistake and fix it.

I wouldn't say getting it right on the first try is the most important thing. Writing code, logically thinking it through, and running through test cases to fix mistakes is pretty similar to how coding on the job is, albeit with less contrived problems.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#496

Post by crististm »

jakobegger wrote: post #490
crististm wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they're made up. That's why I asked. If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion. It may be a good conclusion, but not for real life where facts don't match made up data.

> If you make a conclusion on made up data you get bogus conclusion No. You work with made up numbers to understand the problem. Then you can make conclusions even without knowing the precise numbers. For example, my analysis doesn't change much wheter the rate of lawsuits is 0.1% or 0.01% or 0.001%. It would change if the rate of lawsuits is 1%. But I am pretty sure that the rate of lawsuits after interview rejectio…

What I'm saying is that even with the lawsuit rate that low, there is no real incentive for the company (really the people sending the emails) to behave otherwise than they already do. Actually their benefit is that low, that even a slight error of that 0.1% guess would make the whole do-good business a really bad proposition.

Your (guess) data is probably right but it discounts too much the downsides. When you present your hypothesis to them (e.g. me) they will tell you (rightly so) to try it yourself first.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#497

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

scarejunba wrote: post #492
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the other 99 other places do the same thing because it's the new norm now? Do you stay unemployed?

Well, if everyone has ranting screeds on their Glassdoor you'll blame the ranters. If only one company has a ranting screed, you'll blame the company. No one writes a ranting screed for not receiving feedback. Therefore no one wants to be that company. Essentially, we're in a stable equilibrium.

>Therefore no one wants to be that company.

I feel you overestimate the amount of fucks managers and HR give about Glasdoor feedback from rejected candidates in Germany. No company I interviewed at gave any meaningful feedback(for legal reasons) or seemed to care about opinions of rejected candidates knowing recruiters are constantly flooding them with resumes from new potential candidates on a daily basis and also most rejected candidates won't bother writing feedback on Glassdoor because once you've been around the block a few times you realize it's the norm and you're basically preaching to the choir.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#498

Post by crististm »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #494
crististm wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are suggesting that (from their behavior) people are oblivious to the low risk/high reward indicated by those figures? Or maybe they don't like assuming risks based on other's bogus data when they already have their version of bogus data that is probably closer to reality?

I’m not really sure who “they” refers to (parent, GP, the company, the employee?), but let me take a step back here and illustrate my point more clearly. Maybe it will help. What I’m trying to say is: this isn’t a court of law, it’s a collaborative conversation. Someone posits a hypothesis based on some estimates. Others are invited to build on either of those: the estimates themselves , or the hypothesis built upon…

The figures discounts the downside too much for them to work.

I was on the receiving end of no-reply and didn't like it. But if I were to switch sides to a company, then after a couple of honest attempts at feedback I will most likely say fuck-off and send a stock letter instead.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#499

Post by Nursie »

vector_spaces wrote: post #246

I'm so disappointed to read comments on this thread to the effect of "There's nothing in it for the company but risk". I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company (well known in these parts) that I had tremendous respect for, only to get an email back with "sorry, not up to par. We need someone with more experience". I asked them for a couple quick points on what I could have done better. I had ze…

> I once put in about 8 hours on a take home project at a company

This is why I don't do such things. Want 8 hours of my time? Pay me.

Re: No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback

#500

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #386
5cott0 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interview homework is in many cases more of a disrespectful waste of candidates time than fresh grad whiteboard hazing rituals.

I've just finished a job search, and the company I ended up going with (with the best offer, by far) was one of the only ones that didn't want a take-home project. With several of the companies, I managed to (via either vowing silence to recruiters, or having an inside guy) get feedback on my projects. Nobody volunteered feedback willingly. And honestly, based on what feedback I did get, I see why they didn't want to…

I think it speaks to the real point of hazing whiteboard trivia and time-waster takehomes: political gatekeeping.

Engineers in many companies are already given far worse job experience than what is paradoxically required on their resume to get in. Interesting or valuable projects are rare and lots of people fight over them.

Whiteboard hazing tests for fealty or naivety that will let existing engineers remain superior to you a lot of the time. Really smart people who would leapfrog you aren’t going to agree to be infantilized like that.

So it’s a filter on a certain combination of both competence and fealty. The company / department as a whole might have an incentive to hire really good people, but because lower level managers and engineers own the loose rubric of what counts as a good candidate performance, their incentives to hire only a subset of competent people who are also manipulated into being in their control will take precedence.

It’s so bad that we even have things like TripleByte now that are outsourcing options for filtering based on fealty while disingenuously claiming to be objectively filtering on skill assessment.

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