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Hiring Without Whiteboards

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Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#191

Post by mbil »

joncalhoun wrote: post #140
mbil wrote: post #45

This is a great list. Thanks for sharing it. I actually had the pleasure of interviewing at one of these companies before. They had a take-home project, which was to choose and implement and couple enhancements to a toy app. In the subsequent conversations, we discussed how I approached the problem, details of my design, technical tradeoffs, etc -- all the sorts of things you would expect a professional sw engineer t…

Was this a timed take home project or something with a flexible timeline? That is, was it "You have to respond within 3 hours of receiving this email with your solution" or something more flexible? I mostly understand why some companies do the x hours routine, and when I've done interviews this way I've historically performed well, but it just felt like it added unnecessary stress. For instance, anyone on the job doe…

In this case it was a flexible timeline. It took a few hours to properly complete, and I was given a number of days to return it.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#192

Post by unishark »

autarch wrote: post #157
nickwalton00 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had companies straight up pay me for doing a take home project as part of an interview. I think that's the ideal way as it gets rid of the potential for exploitation/excessive burden that can come from take home projects.

This can add a lot of overhead, and some candidates may have jobs that forbid them from accepting outside work. A good middle ground would be to have the company make a donation to the candidate's choice of nonprofit.

Or just offer both options. I certainly wouldn't eliminate the opportunity for unemployed people to get a little cash, just because of contract issues that gainfully employed people might have.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#193

Post by shahbaby »

When there are hundreds of applicants for 1 role of which the top 10 are all equally qualified, no interview process will seem fair.

So how do we break the tie?

Whiteboard? No whiteboard? Pair programming?

If we accept that after a certain point the process is random, why not simply break ties with first come first serve?

In the final few rounds, is a candidate who can solve the exotic DP problem just because he's seen it before really any better than the others?

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#194

Post by muratk »

mbil wrote: post #45

This is a great list. Thanks for sharing it. I actually had the pleasure of interviewing at one of these companies before. They had a take-home project, which was to choose and implement and couple enhancements to a toy app. In the subsequent conversations, we discussed how I approached the problem, details of my design, technical tradeoffs, etc -- all the sorts of things you would expect a professional sw engineer t…

> choose and implement and couple enhancements to a toy app

I think this is a key piece why this kind of project is useful, because that's exactly what they'd do when they start in their coding role: jump into an unfamiliar code base and fix a bug, implement something tiny, make things better along the way.

When hiring for a React role, I went to find an open-source React app and simply asked the candidate to mod it a bit. We then discussed the why and how, but also how they liked the app and why.

We only gave this task to the final candidates, and the ones that had React experience were done in very little time, because typing wasn't the issue here, but reading unfamiliar code and understanding the mechanics of the app.

Writing a hello world app from scratch or coding fizz buzz doesn't tell me enough.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#195

Post by choppaface »

bit_logic wrote: post #112
choppaface wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who has sadly had to make hundreds of candidates write on a whiteboard, here are problems I’ve run into getting the candidate a laptop: * IT just fails: they’re unwilling to supply it, there aren’t enough, the current laptops on hand are junk, or the default password is wrong. These all happen with HR buy-in and funding. * Recruiting just fails: they “have to move the candidate fast because of a competing…

These are not good reasons and again shows that the company really doesn't care. IT gives a bad laptop? That's fine it doesn't have to be good, it just needs a text editor open. Get a USB drive with a linux distro and boot to it and open nano. Or bring your laptop and stick the USB drive linux distro in there and let them use it. Again there is zero excuse for a company to not have a laptop ready for an onsite interv…

I totally agree: the excuses are poor and companies don’t care. There isn’t much candidates can do. Hiring managers need to fundamentally change how they approach hiring.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#196

Post by pythonbase »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #169

We use a 3 step process, sans whiteboard: 1. First interview, the candidate interviews us. What market we serve, what our development processes are, what our technology stack is. If they express interest by being prepared and asking good questions, we send them home with 2. a programming task. Choose 1 of 5 tasks. The tasks are not abstract problems or puzzles, but come out of the designs we've implemented. We ask fo…

Great approach. How do you shortlist candidates for the first step?

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#197

Post by langitbiru »

Maybe we should give options to candidates. If I were to hire software engineers, I would offer every option to them:

1. Whiteboard interview

2. Opensource contributions

3. Take-home assignment

4. Becoming contractors for a short period

5. Etc

So if they fail whiteboard interview, they can redeem themselves with their opensource contributions. If they don't have opensource contributions, then they can take home our assignments. And so on.

So it's fair (I think).

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#198

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

naavis wrote: post #183
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #169

We use a 3 step process, sans whiteboard: 1. First interview, the candidate interviews us. What market we serve, what our development processes are, what our technology stack is. If they express interest by being prepared and asking good questions, we send them home with 2. a programming task. Choose 1 of 5 tasks. The tasks are not abstract problems or puzzles, but come out of the designs we've implemented. We ask fo…

Do you have some kind of a screening process before the first interview?

Typically an introductory phone call: ‘is this the kind of job you’d be interested in.’ Maybe that’s step 0.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#199

Post by Ozzie_osman »

marcinzm wrote: post #46

The advantage of leetcode is that you study once and then it applies for every job you interview for. Like democracy it's a horrible system except for all the others. Take home project? There goes 4-12 hours per company that gives you one and sometimes more. Companies have no incentive to cut it down or not give it to even marginal candidates so you'll get a lot more of them than full in-person interviews. Pair progr…

I give people the choice of take-home, whiteboard, or code sample. Code sample can be any code they've written for a side-project or even a take-home they've done for another company. Obviously, they can't share actual code they've written for another company, but take-homes are generally fair game... And so that solves the O(N) problem for people who are applying to multiple companies.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#200

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

pythonbase wrote: post #196
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #169

We use a 3 step process, sans whiteboard: 1. First interview, the candidate interviews us. What market we serve, what our development processes are, what our technology stack is. If they express interest by being prepared and asking good questions, we send them home with 2. a programming task. Choose 1 of 5 tasks. The tasks are not abstract problems or puzzles, but come out of the designs we've implemented. We ask fo…

Great approach. How do you shortlist candidates for the first step?

Resumes & phone calls if they look interesting.
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