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

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

#371

Post by dbattaglia » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

ludamad wrote: post #282

roldie wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you’ve been looking for a while I think it’s totally normal to get some deep depression regardless of how you identify. Interviewing is stressful and draining and feels incredibly arbitrary. Also, at least in the US, your employment is absolutely tied to your quality of life; unemployment benefits are a joke and you’re on your own after they run out. I’d be depressed as well.

Not saying I disagree with you though, I think identifying heavily with your job makes it even worse.

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

#372

Post by klodolph » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #105

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…

> explaining your work was most of the job and writing code was less important. That's not what is being asked. It's explaining your thought process while actively doing the work in an "unnatural" environment. > The whiteboard environment is a bit unnatural I don't know anyone that codes on a whiteboard. > but I don’t want to hire someone who gets the right answer if they can’t explain it to me. Again, that's not wha…

> That's not what is being asked. It's explaining your thought process while actively doing the work in an "unnatural" environment.

In short, that’s a limitation of the study.

The study is comparing “explain your thought process aloud as you solve the problem” against “solve the problem by yourself and don’t explain anything”. There’s a whole range of sensible middle options, like “solve the problem by yourself and explain it afterwards” or “solve the problem with the interviewer and then explain it”.

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

#373

Post by tonyedgecombe » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #269

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…

At my company we interviewed two people. Both did fairly poorly in different ways. One we hired because he was a referral and came highly recommended despite a not great interview. He's been great. The second guy was rejected but later hired as a contractor and he's worked out well as well and now we're looking at offering him a full-time position. My conclusion is that our interview process isn't good at determining…

My preference would be to hire someone as a contractor

When I was contracting it was common to be offered a job at the end of the contract. I always turned it down because I liked being a contractor. From talking to my peers at the time this was common.

If someone didn't want to be a contractor then they wouldn't accept your offer in the first place.

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

#374

Post by marcinzm » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

TheKarateKid wrote: post #366

marcinzm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 smal…

>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.

That is literally my point. They are very much testing your ability to study for months on end. Study as in memorize. That is by design at this point and not a side-effect. If you aren't willing to show the ability to study successfully for months on end then they're not interested.

edit: Over the course of months of grinding leetcode you will see 99% of the problems they are going to ask. Then it's about memorizing the tricks and patterns.

edit2: And as I said below their recruiters are very open about what you need to do (grind leetcode) to succeed at the interview.

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

#375

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

_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?

There are a few issues with the scenario you described.

For health and safety, security and tax purposes you would likely not be able to have an extended period of more than a couple of days without some form of contract for that 'trial' period.

If you are an 'established' professional then you most likely would interview for a new job while currently employed. So even in the remote scenario that you would take a couple weeks holiday for a 'trial' you would likely violate the contract with current employer by signing a 'trial' contract.

This would only work for junior positions or for senior professionals who have taken some time away from work. But if you make this a part of your recruitment process, there is the risk that you are discriminating against 'currently employed' candidates.

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

#376

Post by thehappypm » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

I just spent a huge amount of time interviewing for a new job. They put me through an absolute ringer — something like 10 total screens and interviews, over about a month.

At the end, I started feeling a really negative association with them. I would never sleep well the night before the inevitable next interview and it just got to become a really tough thing. And most of the interviews were totally no-nonsense, no pleasantries, just tough.

I ended up getting the job but I turned it down. The interview process told me everyone I needed to know about the company culture.

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

#377

Post by lrem » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

People bomb, including good people. That is sadly part of the system.

Once I had this candidate. Damn, I know my questions are deceptively simple on purpose, but he literally couldn't do anything. Not even a trivial brute force. Not even any related simple knowledge questions. Couldn't tell an average from a median. The only good thing I could write in the feedback was "seems to know some basic syntax".

It was quite a learning moment to read that everyone else was praising how this was the most brilliant candidate they've seen in years. Well, mine was the interview just before lunch, in a schedule that was atypically later than usual. I guess starting an interview after most people start their lunch break was asking for it. He also got hired - apparently the committee agreed that "can't think when hungry" is not really that important a flaw.

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

#378

Post by bcrescimanno » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

There are literally dozens of reasons that tech interviews suck. However, they all mostly boil down to the same root cause: there's very little correlation between the content of most interviews and the jobs people will perform. Some real life situations that I've been on one side or the other of:

* Companies doing a "centralized" process that ignores the candidate. The questions are always overly generic and it really boils down to, "You need to want to work here enough to basically take any job we'll throw at you." Sorry, I don't want to work any company enough to just take any random job.

* Coders asked to complete academic problems that will NEVER come up for them in their real work.

* Coders not being allowed to leverage external resources like they will literally do EVERY DAY in their real jobs.

* Managers being asked to be coders in interviews.

* Questions that have binary "right" and "wrong" answers.

* Asking questions that have a million ways to do it and then honing in on one specific disagreement the interviewer and candidate had.

* Interviews that are more about the interviewer stroking their own ego and proving that they are smarter than the candidate.

* Completely ignoring that the absolute best indicator of future performance is past performance; not, "what quiz could this person solve in 45 minutes in an interview."

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

#379

Post by roldie » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

ludamad wrote: post #282

roldie wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's a good point. I probably put way more into my identity as a designer than I should or care to admit. Thanks, gives me something to think about and work on.

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

#380

Post by lbrito » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

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 had this one interview some time ago where instead of having the HR person talk about what the company does and prod me to see if I was curious/interested in what it is they do, the opposite was expected to happen. That obviously didn't go well.

After the usual "tell me about yourself" stuff, the HR rep asked me what I knew about the company and was noticeably disappointed when I said I had only accessed the homepage and Glassdoor reviews. She swiftly ended the call after that, leaving me with "homework" to go through (go through more of their web page/web presence, meditate about their mission) after which I would be qualified to resume the screening call.

Later I re-read their Glassdoor reviews and they had other people had had basically the same experience. Strangest interview I ever had.