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Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

news.ncsu.edu

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Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#21

Post by whatever1 »

erentz wrote: post #11

It was made the clearest to me when I interviewed a colleague who had left to another company and two years later was interviewing to return. I knew he knew everything and had the skills for the job because, well, I know him, I’d worked with him before. He’d done this very job previously. Yet he still performed terribly in the interview and (rightly or wrongly) I had to base my evaluation on my knowledge of him rathe…

Having multiple respectable people that can vouch for you is a much better performance predictor than a 1-day interview. Same reason that recommendation letters are more important than GRE tests for the ones seeking PhD studies.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#23

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

erentz wrote: post #11

It was made the clearest to me when I interviewed a colleague who had left to another company and two years later was interviewing to return. I knew he knew everything and had the skills for the job because, well, I know him, I’d worked with him before. He’d done this very job previously. Yet he still performed terribly in the interview and (rightly or wrongly) I had to base my evaluation on my knowledge of him rathe…

Good networking has always been the best way to find work. Or, come to think of it, opportunity of any kind.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#24

Post by shadykiller »

In one of my recent interviews at a mid size silicon valley company, I was given 4 hours to make a tetris like game.

One of the most enjoyable interviews ever with no whiteboard and no one around me to check on my progress. I was blank for first half an hour or so but made great progress by the end. Eventually got the offer.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#25

Post by codemonkey-zeta »

helen___keller wrote: post #9

The methodology: > For this study, researchers conducted technical interviews of 48 computer science undergraduates and graduate students. Half of the study participants were given a conventional technical interview, with an interviewer looking on. The other half of the participants were asked to solve their problem on a whiteboard in a private room. The private interviews did not require study participants to explai…

I appreciate their effort to use science to support the narrative that tech interviews suck, because I do think they suck and need to change, but isn't N=48 a little small? Also, if it was only undergraduates or graduates, who's to say their performance is indicative of the rest of the tech workforce?

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#26

Post by qntty »

agustif wrote: post #15
qntty wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an in-person interview, which didn't go as smoothly.

Did you meditate before coming into it?

Yes but my skill in meditation is no match for 4 1-hour coding interviews back to back.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#27

Post by dsr_ »

klodolph wrote: post #19

> In short, the findings suggest that companies are missing out on really good programmers because those programmers aren’t good at writing on a whiteboard and explaining their work out loud while coding. In most of my programming jobs, explaining your work was most of the job and writing code was less important. The whiteboard environment is a bit unnatural but I don’t want to hire someone who gets the right answer…

Most of the job: was that explaining while you write the code, under time pressure, or explaining your debugged code after you've tested it a bit and have confidence in it?

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#28

Post by kube-system »

I find it interesting that academia often points out that skills interviews have a soft-skills bias, but rarely do I see them consider that this may be a feature and not a bug.

> “Our study suggests that a lot of well-qualified job candidates are being eliminated because they’re not used to working on a whiteboard in front of an audience.”

This is a common daily task at any company I've ever written software at. People who can communicate their ideas effectively are better at their job.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#29

Post by holidayacct »

If you get anxiety during a job interview it is because you don't have enough experience, you have a massive ego or you were raised improperly. I've never met anyone who gets crippling anxiety from a job interview when they've done what they say they have done and they are humble enough to just admit when they don't know something.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#30

Post by ironman1478 »

Its really funny. I was interviewing at a large company recently and the way they do interviews is weird. Each team that is interested in you does their own on-site. The first one I bombed b/c I was so anxious but after I experienced it once, I aced all the other teams I interviewed with. Nerves definitely play a role, its cool to see that it is being quantified.
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