Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#151

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

tschwimmer wrote: post #94

jrockway wrote: post #24

My general thought is that your compensation scale should be proportional to the complexity of the interview process. If you're going to be copying the FAANG interview process, then the candidate should expect an offer similar to what they'd get from FAANG. In general, I haven't been disappointed on this front, but I fear that many people are. If you want to be super transparent about the interview process, you shoul…

I’ve actually found that there’s an inverse correlation: companies with worse comp seem to have more rounds, more take home and harder questions. The confounding variable is that the lower comp companies tend to be startups.

Also confounding is that start ups usually offer equity which is an unknown variable. Financial planning-wise it is geneally best to assume it is worth nothing but there is a small chance that it will utterly outstrip the certain compensation.

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#152

Post by tschwimmer » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 1:27 AM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #151

tschwimmer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually found that there’s an inverse correlation: companies with worse comp seem to have more rounds, more take home and harder questions. The confounding variable is that the lower comp companies tend to be startups.

Also confounding is that start ups usually offer equity which is an unknown variable. Financial planning-wise it is geneally best to assume it is worth nothing but there is a small chance that it will utterly outstrip the certain compensation.

Usually there is some sort of VC funding and usually there is a valuation and ergo a price per share. I find that startups are usually at part with public companies or slightly worse with the promise that there's tons of growth right over the horizon.

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#153

Post by pm24601 » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 5:00 AM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #105

pm24601 wrote: post #99

How about telling candidates why they were rejected?

I presume it's a liability thing. It only takes one candidate to "spin" an otherwise valid reason into something they can sue for. Same reason why companies don't tell employees what they're being let go for in at-will states.

That is not true. GDPR specifically requires that interview notes be available to the candidate

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#154

Post by XargonEnder » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #102

warent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear about your experiences. It sounds frustrating. I think there's some miscommunication happening here. The line you quoted is specifically regarding the person conducting the interview looking for signals to provide feedback to the person being interviewed, not the other way around. I would not recommend providing feedback to your interviewer unless they explicitly ask for it. It's likely to just become a…

Oops, I guess I misread indeed. And you are quite right on your last paragraph -- found it the hard way. I also agree that the interviewer shouldn't just give feedback without asking because I know many interviewees will react badly. It's just that in my case no feedback was wanted in either direction. And job-hunting is a game of numbers and evolution (okay, most of the time, definitely not always): you seek to adap…

I don't think you should give them feedback directly, instead post it to glass door where all the people who do care will look. And it helps me out :D

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#155

Post by XargonEnder » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #120

renewiltord wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would feel a little awkward for me to ask for someone to do work for me after I've determined that they're not a good fit for the company. And if it's post-interview pre-result then the problem is that they'll feel pressured to be positive. Perhaps if it were a third party.

Agreed that it's tricky, but there needs to be some feedback loop. Otherwise you end up with seriously broken processes that never get fixed. Companies tend to care about false positives more than false negatives, but there's a decent possibility that some companies have an extremely high false negative rate.

I think glass door provides the best feedback loop because it gives me an idea of what I'm getting into when I apply.

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#156

Post by XargonEnder » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #53

brailsafe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, research suggests that interviewers know after 20 seconds whether they'll hire someone. I don't have references and don't know if this would translate well to tech interviewing, but I'd wager that the vast majority of a 7h interview day is totally pointless.

I wonder how much of that is like-me bias with the risk that 3 short interviews might get us (even) more homogenous employee populations?

How can I appear more like my interviewer in those first 20 seconds?

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#157

Post by XargonEnder » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

raghava wrote: post #147

IMO, if a company is very serious about hiring for the role, they must offer a 1 week trial period (PAID!). The candidates get a fair idea about the kinda muck they might be getting themselves into. The team(s) get an idea as to what kinda schmuck they get to deal with over next months. It's too easy to fake "expertise" and "culture fit" over a 2/3/4/5 round interview each lasting an hour or so. Most companies who de…

I like it except for one problem. I never leave a job unless I have a job. Seems too risky to jump ship from a good job where you're under paid to get a chance at a little more money.

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#158

Post by pdimitar » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 12:17 AM UTC

XargonEnder wrote: post #154

pdimitar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, I guess I misread indeed. And you are quite right on your last paragraph -- found it the hard way. I also agree that the interviewer shouldn't just give feedback without asking because I know many interviewees will react badly. It's just that in my case no feedback was wanted in either direction. And job-hunting is a game of numbers and evolution (okay, most of the time, definitely not always): you seek to adap…

I don't think you should give them feedback directly, instead post it to glass door where all the people who do care will look. And it helps me out :D

Sure, I'd love to help future applicants but 99% of the companies aren't even on Glassdoor. :(

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#159

Post by raghava » Sun, Jul 05, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

XargonEnder wrote: post #157

raghava wrote: post #147

IMO, if a company is very serious about hiring for the role, they must offer a 1 week trial period (PAID!). The candidates get a fair idea about the kinda muck they might be getting themselves into. The team(s) get an idea as to what kinda schmuck they get to deal with over next months. It's too easy to fake "expertise" and "culture fit" over a 2/3/4/5 round interview each lasting an hour or so. Most companies who de…

I like it except for one problem. I never leave a job unless I have a job. Seems too risky to jump ship from a good job where you're under paid to get a chance at a little more money.

> I never leave a job unless I have a job.

This is actually solved by this approach. Nobody needs to quit, a week's leave/vacation is good enough for the trial period. Or, am I missing anything?

Re: Tell candidates what to expect from your job interviews

#160

Post by kyawzazaw » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

raghava wrote: post #145

kyawzazaw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basecamp pays $1500 or so for take-home assignments. Do you offer similar compensation?

These shops mostly just want to appear hip-n-cool. They aren't really, hence, no pay. It would most probably have a twisted answer as "you can post that solution of yours in your git repo and showcase it as a part of your portfolio" Many shops out here are so adept at this stuff, it's no more funny!

I don't quite understand what you mean.