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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

#91

Post by derivagral »

kube-system wrote: post #28

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. Peop…

I've had the opposite experience. In >10 years of software, I've never written code on a whiteboard outside of an interview. Systems layout, designs, code pathing, sure; but never real, compilable code.

I agree with the last point, but I don't think either of us can tie our anecdotes to it.

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

#92

Post by romanows »

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…

The point of a whiteboard interview for me isn't about accuracy and efficiency. It's about seeing whether the person can code and can talk to me about coding.

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

#93

Post by black3r »

holidayacct wrote: post #29

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.

as an introvert i get anxiety just from talking to a person I don't know for the first time...

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

#94

Post by decafninja »

OnionBlender wrote: post #62

I went through the interview gauntlet last year. When my extended family would ask what it is like I would say: Imagine you want to hire a comedy writer for a TV show. However, you conduct your interview by having your candidate perform stand-up improv comedy like "Who's Line is it Anyway". While you want to hire someone funny, you don't need to hire a performer. In my experience, programming interviews are basically…

I agree with this. It really is putting on a show.

Ideally you get a problem that you are familiar with. Even more so if you know the exact problem and optimal solution. If not exactly, then at least similar to something you've solved before.

Then you put on a show acting as if this is the first time you're seeing the problem. With practiced confidence, you roughly outline a naive solution, then quickly and smoothly iterate your way to the ideal optimal solution. All the while explaining your "thought processes" as if you serendipitously saw the solution materialize before your eyes.

By practicing (say, grinding leetcode), you ensure that you have the confidence to smoothly put on this show, and also not waste your precious interview minutes meandering down suboptimal dead-end paths.

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

#95

Post by ipnon »

Judgmentality wrote: post #77
twicetwice wrote: post #46

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…

> 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 You're effectively advocating for more bullshit. The problem is that this works in the first place - we shouldn't be rewarding it.

We can't expect everyone utterance to be rational and logical. We're all just human at the end of the day. We should expect job candidates to try their best to get the job.

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

#96

Post by staysaasy »

Used to run interviews by putting candidates at a table with a laptop (typically their own). I'd give them a coding question and 45 minutes to solve it, and then spend 10 minutes walking through their solution together. I'd sit across the table from them and do my own work. They could stop me and ask questions all they wanted, just like we were teammates.

It worked great. It also gave me (the interviewer) some time back in the day.

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

#97

Post by jsinai »

goostavos wrote: post #74
decafninja wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm actually a little scared to leave my current FAANG gig for that exact reason tbh. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't make it back in the door without more leetcode grinding + repeated loops than I'm willing to do at this point in my career. Plus, stack on top of that, I've seen how the sausage is made. I've done 90+ interviews on the other side. At the end of the day, it comes down to how lucky you got in the loop. I'…

What is the lowers/raises approach? Google isn’t up to the job (pun was not initially intended, but here we are).

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

#98

Post by ironman1478 »

decafninja wrote: post #41
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…

I don't understand this obsession with leetcode style questions specifically. I just got a job at a FAANG on an algorithm heavy team and all they asked me was linked lists, some basic graph questions, and some basic (and I mean really basic, high school non-calc level) vector math. I think just having a rock solid understanding of the basics will help much more than trying to grind questions and memorize patterns.

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

#99

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I've written about this before.

I've become pretty much convinced that many of the leetcode tests are "young-pass filters."

I recently saw an ad for a two-month, intensive course on how to pass interview questions.

The heck with that. I want to learn relevant stuff.

If people don't want me working for them, then I'm not particularly interested in working for them. Too bad. We could have made beautiful music together. I'm no slouch.

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

#100

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

DrPhish wrote: post #39

I hire for industrial IT, and being able to handle the anxiety of a high-pressure situation with grace (e.g. mill down, losing tens of thousands of dollars a minute) is an important factor. No one expects miracles, but you need to be able to keep your cool and work the problem, not waste time fighting with your own rising anxiety. Seeing how they deal with a stressful situation is an integral part of the interview in…

Stress when interviewing is similar, but not the same as on the job stress.

One major factor, with a job: you're still getting paid. I think the economic anxiety one faces is pretty stark, if you fail a job interview you're going to be unemployed until you can pass the next one.

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