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

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

#281

Post by mycodebreaks »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #115

I conducted a couple hundred interviews for my first FAANG employer, and I was constantly amazed at the percentage of candidates with years of Microsoft or Facebook experience on the resumes who apparently did not know how to program. I always thought, 'huh, guess I know why they quit after 3 years, amazing that they all lasted this long." Then I interviewed for another company and utterly bombed. It became suddenly…

Additionally, companies doing common pool hiring are worsening the situation even further. One bad interview day or one failure to solve complex riddle means that you're not good for any teams within that company until cool-off time passes which is typically from 6 months to 1 year. The system of cool-off period is equally brutal.

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

#282

Post by ludamad »

roldie wrote: post #258
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #115

I conducted a couple hundred interviews for my first FAANG employer, and I was constantly amazed at the percentage of candidates with years of Microsoft or Facebook experience on the resumes who apparently did not know how to program. I always thought, 'huh, guess I know why they quit after 3 years, amazing that they all lasted this long." Then I interviewed for another company and utterly bombed. It became suddenly…

The same is true for design/ux jobs interviews. Well, at least for me. I got laid off a couple of months ago, and have been interviewing pretty steadily since then. I have yet to receive an offer. I already know where my strengths and weaknesses are. I'm fine with 1 on 1s and all that, but when it comes to the technical part of the interview process like a take-home design project or a live design challenge, I usuall…

The depression hits those hardest who put their identity into what they do. Often, I don't realize how dependent I am on positive feedback until it hits. Lately, I've tried to remember in those moments that I am a diverse person and that if I looked in the mirror and saw the worst developer ever I would be OK

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

#284

Post by edw »

apta wrote: post #275
u67583 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She will just say that the process is designed to minimize false positives and the expense of more false negatives. A bad hire is more expensive than a no hire. The problem is this isn't what gets you the smartest people on the planet. A small number might be interested in DS&A to that level, but most are not. They will learn enough to know how to google what they need and move on to what they are interested in. Smar…

> She will just say that the process is designed to minimize false positives and the expense of more false negatives. A bad hire is more expensive than a no hire. That's what they keep saying. However, it remains to be proven that regurgitating answers on a whiteboard in 45 minutes implies that the candidate is not a false negative, or even a true positive to begin with.

We don't care about reality, merely perceptions. "Well I humiliated the person for an hour in front of a whiteboard" is the new "Nobody gets fired for buying IBM."

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

#285

Post by m3kw9 »

To be fair, even these interviews are mostly garbage, they don’t have a better way to gauge you with just 2-3 meetings. Which really sucks. What they should do is to check your pass job experience, verify from the people you work with. That’s not easy.

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

#286

Post by TinkersW »

Most interviews I've done in my software career were done on more than 24 hours without sleep.

Not by choice, but because I cannot sleep the night before an interview. I have difficulty sleeping in general, and the anxiety of an interview drives it through the roof.

Whiteboarding is also terrible, pretty sure it is used intentionally to skew hiring results toward certain types.

If someone is looking over my shoulder while coding I can't think, I think best when there are no external inputs(no noise/eyes closed).

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

#287

Post by woeirua »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #184
MattGaiser wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I have read from Gayle Laakmaan, they know this throws away many good engineers, but it is acceptable to them because it doesn’t let bad ones through.

This is essentially the point of a lot of hiring and performance evaluation theory. E.g. it's acceptable (but not ideal) not to promote talented commanders. It's catastrophic to promote someone to General who isn't ready or is unsuited.

And yet, time and time again we see that Generals promoted during peace-time rarely have the skills necessary to lead men under intense combat conditions. The best generals are identified on the battlefield.

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

#288

Post by aloukissas »

This should hit home with everyone. What I would add is one thing that adds to the anxiety is whether the interviewer is looking for reasons to _reject_ a candidate (i.e. don't let the bad ones through) vs reasons to _hire_ a candidate (i.e. let them shine on aspects that are hard to communicate on a resume or when checking references.

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

#290

Post by u67583 »

apta wrote: post #275
u67583 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She will just say that the process is designed to minimize false positives and the expense of more false negatives. A bad hire is more expensive than a no hire. The problem is this isn't what gets you the smartest people on the planet. A small number might be interested in DS&A to that level, but most are not. They will learn enough to know how to google what they need and move on to what they are interested in. Smar…

> She will just say that the process is designed to minimize false positives and the expense of more false negatives. A bad hire is more expensive than a no hire. That's what they keep saying. However, it remains to be proven that regurgitating answers on a whiteboard in 45 minutes implies that the candidate is not a false negative, or even a true positive to begin with.

Someone who able to immediately understand and write out the solution to 80% of hard DS&A questions is at least able to write code. The question is if this is honestly better than generating your own FizzBuzz. I don't think so. I have heard rumors that Google has studied employee performance predictions based on interview score and found no correlation. I would bet this is an open secret and no one knows what to replace it with that isn't enormously expensive.
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