Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by decafninja » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

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…

I feel in the tech industry, networking and knowing people only gets you so far - typically just to the whiteboard interview. Then you have to solve the leetcode problems just like everyone else. Especially so in larger companies.

FWIW, all of my friends who somehow managed to get into FAANG or other top tech companies swear that were they to go through the interview again, odds are they would fail. This despite all of them being great engineers.

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

#42

Post by majormajor » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

I think the more accurate headline is likely to be "anxiety can negatively affect performance in interviews."

I would love to see what a control group of non-tech interviews looks like. Not sure what the equivalent "whiteboard while out of the room" is, but it's hardly just software devs who get nervous and can panic in interview situations.

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

#43

Post by maerF0x0 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

> rather than whether the candidate is competent at coding

As a really quick reaction it's worth noting that coding is probably less than 25% of my job as an engineer.

In others' experience is this also the case for you?

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

#44

Post by episteme » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

Your advice goes directly against your example and I would say that most companies interview like that. Surely the advice should be to spend time on interview prep regardless of how good you are at the job.

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

#45

Post by juped » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #5

> 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 Sure, no love for whiteboards from me. However, this does suggest an arbitrage opportunity for an employer who is willing to look differently at these candidates, and then profit handsomely, Moneyball-style. There's a bunch of…

Having capital or hiring authority doesn't correlate with willingness to try to actually hire value rather than assemble something that they think resembles a team.

What I don't get is why no one is attracted by the social brownie points they'd end up with when their moneyballed team inevitably turns out to be 70% female.

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

#46

Post by twicetwice » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

Interesting. I usually do pretty well in interviews and I've always attributed that to my four years on the debate team in high school. This tells me it might be even more true than I previously thought. Even when I'm nervous as hell, when you put me in front of a judge (interviewer), I click into "performance mode" where I project confidence even if I know what I'm saying is BS, let alone just a bit unsure. This is how you win parliamentary debates when you've had five minutes to prepare for a topic you know little to nothing about—and I guess it helps in interviews too!

That and debate gave me the ability to just start a sentence without knowing where it will end and then talk my way to a conclusion that sounds like it makes sense (useful when you have 2 minutes to prepare a 3-5 minute speech on a topic you've never seen before). So when I get up in front of a whitebard, I just start talking confidently, and even if by the end haven't solved the problem quickly or efficiently or at all, it sounds like I've been thinking sensibly about it.

My takeaway, I guess—parents, make your kids do debate!

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

#47

Post by eropple » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #34

whatever1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It does suck that it’s like this in an industry where you have a lot of non-neurotypical people though. People who are very good and capable but on the spectrum, or shy and reclusive, who really can’t do the networking and conference scene thing, etc. Wish there was a better answer than to tell them they just have to be wired differently.

There are other avenues. I've been excited to hire somebody in the past pretty much on the strength of their detailed technical blogging. Kind of a mess in the interview, but I knew they could do the job coming in. (They were great.)

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

#48

Post by x87678r » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

Interviewing is a skill. I once had a good job where I was happy and didn't move for 10 years. Big mistake - after that I bombed at interviews. After doing 10 interviews I'm now up to speed. I kinda feel like I need to do some interviews every year just to remind me how to behave and how to keep market ready.

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

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

draw_down wrote: post #5

> 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 Sure, no love for whiteboards from me. However, this does suggest an arbitrage opportunity for an employer who is willing to look differently at these candidates, and then profit handsomely, Moneyball-style. There's a bunch of…

Many smaller companies do pick up the money, which is one of the major factors allowing them to succeed in a world where the big software companies toss around ridiculous amounts of compensation. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are structurally unable to do the arbitrage because many (probably most) of their interviewers don't particularly care about interviewing.

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

#50

Post by starpilot » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #6

Huh, the only successful interviews I have are the ones where I'm burned out after a long, fruitless, frustrating job search. And so I walk in assuming the interview will be a waste of time and just not caring anymore. That's when I get an offer.

That's how non-FAANG goes. I work at an old, non-tech corp and the interview (just one) was basically a popularity contest with some light technical questions. Don't screw up and crack some jokes and you're in. Of course, that means our level of technical ability is low, and we have poor project outcomes because of it. But it's a nice place to work.