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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

#361

Post by SwiftyBug »

chpmrc wrote: post #138

It seems pretty obvious to me that this kind of interviews are simply there to assess how much you want to work for a certain company. As in: would you be willing to study for months, go through mock interviews, read books, test your skills etc. to have a shot at working for us? Even though the majority of that stuff will likely have zero impact on your day to day work? That's all there is, really. I've had no proble…

I've been told to reject a candidate because "he didn't seem that excited to work here"

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

#363

Post by greggman3 »

solidasparagus wrote: post #227
mathattack wrote: post #213

This is why internships are so important. Sometimes it’s still hard to tell after 10 weeks. It’s very naive to think we will know after a 30 minute interview.

I don't think people are naive, they just don't have a better solution. Most established professionals are not interested in a 10 week trial period after which they might be back on the job market.

I don't see how internships help. I get the point that at the end you know if they're a hire but you still had to filter who to intern in the first place so you're still back to interview people to be interns which is the same problem you had.

Also, training a new employee or intern in your systems, code, company procedures etc takes a bunch of time and investment so it's not like you can intern some higher multiple of people than you'd hire.

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

#364

Post by dmoy »

_curious_ wrote: post #302
solidasparagus wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people are naive, they just don't have a better solution. Most established professionals are not interested in a 10 week trial period after which they might be back on the job market.

"Most established professionals are not interested in a 10 week trial period after which they might be back on the job market." Why not? If the position isn't a fit for either side after X time on-the-job, that's OK right?

> Why not? If the position isn't a fit for either side after X time on-the-job, that's OK right?

In the US at least, health insurance is a big one.

How are you going to convince me to leave my current job for a 10 week trial period? That right there loses you the set of all people who are currently employed and are fine where they are right now.

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

#365

Post by u67583 »

solidasparagus wrote: post #227
mathattack wrote: post #213

This is why internships are so important. Sometimes it’s still hard to tell after 10 weeks. It’s very naive to think we will know after a 30 minute interview.

I don't think people are naive, they just don't have a better solution. Most established professionals are not interested in a 10 week trial period after which they might be back on the job market.

You say that as if your boss can't wake up one morning and fire you because they don't like the way you pour your coffee. The only thing that changes is how much paperwork they have to do to make it happen.

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

#366

Post by TheKarateKid »

marcinzm wrote: post #203
chpmrc wrote: post #138

It seems pretty obvious to me that this kind of interviews are simply there to assess how much you want to work for a certain company. As in: would you be willing to study for months, go through mock interviews, read books, test your skills etc. to have a shot at working for us? Even though the majority of that stuff will likely have zero impact on your day to day work? That's all there is, really. I've had no proble…

You're missing the quality they're actually testing for: ability to study and dedicate yourself to a task. Or in other words work ethic. The algorithms don't matter but the fact that you can spend months learning them is an important skill. Intelligence is less important for success than work ethic which is why work ethic is tested for so much. Specifically, work ethic and ability to learn in a related domain as, for…

> The algorithms don't matter but the fact that you can spend months learning them is an important skill.

And you're missing what these tests are actually doing instead: Figuring out which people have already seen the problem at hand, and probably memorized all/some of it.

The problem is that these interviewers will not pass you if you don't solve the problem almost perfectly in an amount of time that is way too small for someone who has never seen it before.

To make matters worse, many of the solutions require some trick or mathematical trivia to get right. Does that really prove you know your Algos & DS?

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

#367

Post by biql »

mywacaday wrote: post #195

It's ironic that people who want the job will be nervous and might interview poorly but people that are only interviewing for experience or just don't care will do better.

Neediness is always perceived as weakness. Same with negotiations, the less you need something, the stronger position you have, the better deal you get.

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

#368

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jefftk wrote: post #144

Here's the study: http://chrisparnin.me/pdf/stress_FSE_20.pdf They asked students to find the "Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters". For the formats: "We created two interview settings: public setting and private setting (see Figure 1). In the public setting, wearing an eye-tracker, participants solved the technical interview problem in the presence of an experimenter. The participant was instructed to tal…

> They ran a randomized controlled trial on the effect of having another person in the room, which is interesting. It does not, however, show that these interviews fail to assess software skills.

The headline of the linked article is indeed heavily editorialized. There were differences between the two groups, but the study didn't conclude that the interview was only assessing anxiety.

> This is also essentially the worst case for having another person in the room: they are completely superfluous, just watching you, not helping, not communicating, not collaborating. Not even saying things that might make you more at ease.

That stood out to me, too. In an attempt to remove the influence of the observer from the equation, they simply put a silent observer standing over the person's shoulder. In the example photo, they have an observer standing almost literally over the person's shoulder, silently, observing their every move. It's not clear if that's how the experiment was conducted or if it's just an example photo, but it's not how any real world whiteboard interviews are performed.

Even the study participants noted how strange the situation was:

"P25 felt unnerved that someone was “watching me and they are not commenting on my progress”

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

#369

Post by fragmede »

stbtrax wrote: post #323
benburleson wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is the king of assessing how much you want to work for the company. The recruiter will place a huge emphasis on nailing their Leadership Principles, and coming up with stories from your work to demonstrate you embody the Principles. They will even tell you that specific interviewers have specific LPs they will probe on, but in the actual interview they ask very veiled questions and you're supposed to know that…

is there a centralized place with information like this but for other companies as well?

Not that I'm aware of, because it's a difficult problem. First off, reports need to be anonymous to prevent employer retaliation, but if they're anonymous, then how can the information be verified? Even if it's verified, without extensive input, it's impossible to say if the details of someone's experience is the norm for the company or just about that one part of the org.

Then finally, happy people generally don't go out an write a huge essay on why things are fine. unhappy people will go on-and-on about every bad thing to anyone who listens.

Thus, we're left with disorganized reports on various sites to glean culture. Eg HN comments on the story about Amazon suing Brian Hall. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23461326

For those looking to move within the job market, it would be worth it to talk to a tech recruiter for a few hours who's job it is, is to know company cultures. (Traditionally, if you, the new employee that they managed to get into a company with a bad fit, leaves before 90-days are up, they don't get paid.)

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

#370

Post by hawk_ »

me551ah wrote: post #232
chpmrc wrote: post #138

It seems pretty obvious to me that this kind of interviews are simply there to assess how much you want to work for a certain company. As in: would you be willing to study for months, go through mock interviews, read books, test your skills etc. to have a shot at working for us? Even though the majority of that stuff will likely have zero impact on your day to day work? That's all there is, really. I've had no proble…

If not algorithms then what would you use to test a generic programmer? You would have to setup a custom panel based on each candidate. A person who has only worked for PHP would need a different panel from someone who has worked on C++ all his life. Algorithms is language and framework agnostic. It doesn't matter if you work in embedded or data science. It doesn't matter if you code in C or Python. The same question…

why does it have to happen in a high pressure situation with only 45 minutes though? there's no analog to that in professional coding.
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