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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

#501

I'm a ex-FANG dev that started a recruiting company, so I am VERY familiar with the arbitrary tech interview process. I'm a huge proponent of contract-to-hire. Even started a company* to make it easier for companies to offer contract-to-hire. Now before you dismiss the idea because you are "too good" to do C2H hear me out. Everyone knows that actually working with someone on the job is the only way to get an accurate…

In practice, C2H is more like C2S, where the S is for street. As in where you'll be once bigcorp decides they don't want to pay you anymore.

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

#502

I've been interviewing SRE candidates for a long time. In theory, being able to make technical decisions under high pressure is integral to the job. But interview stress is very different than work stress. It doesn't seem to translate well. Some people do fine during the interview and then crack under real pressure, and some people it's the exact opposite. I've changed my interviewing to involve very little coding. I…

I've observed that candidates hamstring themselves in ways that seem to me bizarre. Indeed the interview is an unfamiliar situation, so why would you do something like use a language other than one you know well, or code in an environment you don't feel comfortable in? I have had those happen in interviews I conduct so many times! This is for the "front-door" interview, not the on site.

Somewhere around halfway through, when the candidate is floundering and failing on an objectively quite simple problem (I promise it really is that simple), they'll say something like "sorry, I would usually have no trouble doing this in Scala". At the outset I give the option to use their own setup or Coderpad, either one works; they'll choose Coderpad and then halfway through say something about wishing they had such-and-such from their preferred IDE.

I think there is some psychology at play here, where candidates think if they do it on hard mode, it's extra points or something. I really just need them to solve a simple problem so we can be sure they know how to code. The ability to code with both arms tied behind your back is not a signal we're interested in measuring.

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

#503
I think there are a lot of hidden biases in hiring that no one will overtly acknowledge e.g. personality, gender, attribute of race (yeah I know, but still there are people unaware of their racial biases), ability to take orders, if they are too good and might threaten their job or make them work harder because they will output more completed work, etc.

usually this line of thinking is summed up as the follow question: Can I see myself working with this person for 40+ hours a week?

then they bring down the axe with the following: not a good 'culture' fit and move on to the next candidate and the broken cycle continues.

This is all in addition to the broken whiteboarding challenges.

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been arrogant for years and you know what? So have I. I and many, many people in this industry have been doing this for years. What's different from you and many other people is that you admit and face your bias rather than justify it. I'm seriously curious what google interview board members have to say about this study. People like Gayle Laakmaan have been saying things to justify the whole process for years…

I've trained for interviewing twice at Google. I don't volunteer to give the interviews, though, because the interview I was trained to give, I would never pass. And sadly, this is common and recognized at Google, was mentioned in interview training, and is just said to be part of the fact that the bar gets higher, or something, mumble mumble. I find this disturbing.

Every year I've noticed the questions get harder too. A hard question in 2012 (off the top of my head, 2 pointer solution to linked list cycle detection) might be considered an easy question today.

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

#505

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.

I would wager the opposite. That many people looking for a job are open to a (paid) trial week, when the alternative is countless grueling interviews that lead nowhere.

It depends on who we're talking about, but for high quality candidates in software heavy cities, this isn't very true. They are getting tons of offers and there's no reason to accept a trial offer. Plus you can't trial until you've quit your current job so for many people the whole premise makes no sense. It's not like you will have to interview with fewer places, it's just that each interview takes a lot longer.

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

#506
I've posted this before on HN: Tech interviews are designed to find people who are happy in a role where their level of responsibility begins and ends at: "Here's your coding assignment. Go do it". The interviews are designed to eliminate people looking to get in the door, then quickly move into or up to a non-coding position.

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

#507
>. For example, in our study, all of the women who took the public interview failed, while all of the women who took the private interview passed

Talk about buying the lede. If there's any justification for abolishing this practice, that's it right there.

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

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Couldn't tell an average from a median Without meaning to attack you personally (especially in the context of the rest of your comment), a comment like this annoys me a bit. I presume by "average" you mean arithmetic mean, but the median is also an average, and depending on the context the median might be a far more useful statistic than the mean. Confusing the mean and the median is one thing, and perhaps you actu…

...I always learned in grade school math class that "average" = "mean", very specifically. I'm pretty sure there would have been test questions that required this knowledge. It's very possible my schooling was wrong, but presumably I'm not the only one.

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

#509
I do think this is true - but I also think that the ability to control anxiety (an increased tolerance for uncertainty) is a characteristic that is learned with experience and can be a marker of an experienced engineer. Someone who panics in an interview might also be inclined to panic when a manager frantically reports a bug in master, for example.

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

#510

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.

Anecdotally this has been true for me. For jobs I didn't care about for whatever reason I have a much high success rate than for jobs I really wanted.

I guess it's possible that the jobs I wanted are at more prestigious companies and therefore are more picky and the interview is just harder to pass. But I suspect it's not just that, and psychology plays a part too.

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