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Hiring Without Whiteboards

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Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#81

Post by bit_logic »

Another tech interview thread. For the side that supports these types of interviews, I've never gotten a good answer to a simple question: in the year 2020, why are we expecting people to write compilable code on a whiteboard? It's just stupid at this point. Even a laptop that boots into some micro linux distro and has nothing but nano open would be better. Or just a fresh install windows laptop with nothing but notepad.exe open. Or a chromebook that is open to a HTML page that has nothing but a textarea element.

I'm not including a compiler or having build tools or an IDE. Just a basic simple text editing area that allows the basic functions of typing in text and editing it.

I'm against these leetcode interviews. But if you did nothing else but change this one thing, just stop expecting people to write code on a whiteboard or paper/pencil and allow them to write code the way it's actually done (a computing device with a keyboard and text edit area), that would be such a huge improvement. Writing code on a whiteboard or paper doesn't test anything. Think about how limited it is and how different it is (for example, you can't just press an up arrow and add a newline, have to find an eraser and start over).

It's yet another useless skill to learn just for interviews (writing compilable code on a whiteboard/paper) which also encourages rote memorization (because you have to get it right on the first try since editing the text is so painful and difficult).

I hope people start pushing back on this. The reaction should be, wow you care so little about your interview process that you can't get a $200 chromebook in here?

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#82

Post by lazopm »

wendyshu wrote: post #5

No one enjoys whiteboard interviews but it's not clear that these companies have better alternatives. Many of them do take home projects which are time consuming. I'd prefer the employer look at my GitHub profile as there's plenty of code there already. Furthermore, I'm not a fan of "interviews" in general, I find that more information is transmitted by eating lunch with the team and talking like normal people.

Different things work for different people, personally white boarding is my favorite. I think the best would be to offer the candidate options. Let them come in for the culture fit portion of the interview, at the end present them a problem and let them choose if they prefer white boarding, pair programming, or take home and submit by the end of the day.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#83

Post by pandaman »

madamelic wrote: post #56
NikolaNovak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - That would neatly eliminate majority of qualified candidates :-) Very few people who are successfully employed would take a risk / have a luxury to forsake their certain employment for an extremely short term contract (with all the registration, taxation, regulation etc headache this implies!) and extremely limited chance of gainful employment. (it's perspectives like these that make me realize how much of a g…

>with all the registration, taxation, regulation etc headache this implies! It's not if you are in the US. You will get a 1099 from where you worked, you write it on your 1040 and include the 1099 with your taxes if I recall from when I was an independent contractor for a while. It takes maybe like 10 minutes extra and 1099-ing is incredibly common nowadays (unfortunately) so not a super weird case. And it's not regu…

What if you get a 1099 from another state? Multiple states? Don't you need to file taxes with those states now? (Genuinely curious, I am not a CPA so I really don't know).

What if you don't have any other 1099s (so you have to pay self-employment tax just because of that one interview, at least I had once when my moving expenses were paid with a 1099).

Not even getting into possible illegal work for the candidates on work visas.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#84

Post by donw »

0xFFC wrote: post #2

I am going to kill myself (exaggeration). I have maybe one of the best cv's (I am not saying that, it is feedback from industry) for last year student focused on low-level programming. But I cannot bypass recruiters. Why? because none of them even heard Boost.Beast or anything on my cv. Or any C++ thing I have done as project or my publication. They literally do bunch of find/search on the pdf. And because of that I…

Maybe it makes sense to pay someone (perhaps a fellow HNer[1]?) to review your resume and suggest some changes?

Japanese is my third language, so when I was shipping around my Japanese resume in Japan, I had an experienced native speaker review and revise. As a non-native speaker, there's a lot of nuance in writing that you just don't understand.

Your resume is often your first impression, so you want it to glow as much as possible. Honest, but glowingly so. :)

Might help you in terms of landing better jobs.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DoreenMichele

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#85

Post by yelloweyes »

cletus wrote: post #68

Oh God, here we go again. Coding on a whiteboard in an interview is not "broken". What is "broken" however is making the problem the candidate needs to solve "hard". I can't stress this enough: a whiteboard coding test is nothing more than a negative filter . It's to filter out people who can't turn a simple idea into code as these people exist. This is why FizzBuzz was such a simple problem. But interviewers fall in…

>which will generally require a certain level of communication skills and presentation ability, is the right place for you.

It's really not about presentation ability. It's "oh shit I have x minutes to do this and I have to get it right or I won't get the job, oh shit 5 minutes passed already and I haven't done anything" type of anxiety.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#86

Post by rainyMammoth »

The issue with LeetCode style interview is that almost EVERYONE can solve those questions after studying a couple weeks/months.

The only thing that LeetCode questions predict is if the candidate has been training for LeetCode questions.

The fact that Google, Facebook etc still use it as a gatekeeping mechanism makes me believe they want to find cogs that will specifically spend hours studying for it. Making sure that those engineers will be ready to execute their mindless coding tasks at the company.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#87

Post by qwepeyote »

0xFFC wrote: post #2

I am going to kill myself (exaggeration). I have maybe one of the best cv's (I am not saying that, it is feedback from industry) for last year student focused on low-level programming. But I cannot bypass recruiters. Why? because none of them even heard Boost.Beast or anything on my cv. Or any C++ thing I have done as project or my publication. They literally do bunch of find/search on the pdf. And because of that I…

You are discovering that most of the value in software... is not in software.

Nothing on your resume will ever cause anyone to say, “We simply have to hire this guy.” On the contrary, the slightest typo, grammatical error, or stray bit-flipping particle will mean that your resume is instantly discarded.

When they do this to your resume, they are doing this to a representation of you: they are metaphorically throwing you in the trash like worthless garbage.

Are you offended by this? You should be.

So don’t use a resume.

Figure out some other way to get on the phone with the people you need to talk to.

You are no longer a tech wiz. You are in sales now. Your job is “selling yourself”.

Congratulations.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#88

Post by logicslave »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #86

The issue with LeetCode style interview is that almost EVERYONE can solve those questions after studying a couple weeks/months. The only thing that LeetCode questions predict is if the candidate has been training for LeetCode questions. The fact that Google, Facebook etc still use it as a gatekeeping mechanism makes me believe they want to find cogs that will specifically spend hours studying for it. Making sure that…

Right but in some ways this is what they need. Someone who can stare at computer science material, that is probably boring, for long periods of time. Someone who has a good memory for details, can remember routines. Can "solve" problems that have been solved before by applying theory. Someone who is willing to follow the rules and go through the process.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#89

Post by pandaman »

kanobo wrote: post #4

If I were a large company with money I would simply ask all qualified applicants if they would be willing to work on a small part of a real project as a contractor with the possibility of getting hired. Applicants get paid for their time, productivity is achieved, jobs might be offered, everybody is happy.

This proposal comes up in every interviewing discussion on HN. Apart from the usual rebuttals (you are generally hiring only from unemployed people pool this way), here is a fresh one - this opens your company's codebase for reading and writing (even supervised but, still) to anyone. If you already open-source your code it's not a problem but otherwise you don't want random people looking into your code due to: patents, trade secrets, possible exploits to name a few reasons.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#90

Post by WesternStar »

virtuous_signal wrote: post #72
madamelic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is statistical data saying the opposite: http://chrisparnin.me/pdf/stress_FSE_20.pdf That whiteboard interviews are actually testing how you perform under stress rather than how good you are at your job. Additionally, in my opinion, it measures how good the interviewer is. If you get a bad interviewer or even just one in a bad mood, just pack your bags because you aren't getting it. Whiteboards are incredibly a…

>There is statistical data saying the opposite Interesting study and really good discussion on HN at the time, but the opposite of "[Whiteboard interviews] often give a very good and reasonable signal that often has a high corollary to work performance" would be something like "People who do well at whiteboard interviews tend to be worse performers at work." I don't think that's what the study said at all; rather tha…

Also people act as though software is a job without anxiety. There is plenty of anxiety in this job. Sometimes under pressure you really do have to perform or push back and its good to know if people can do it.
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