Hiring Without Whiteboards • Hacker News Board

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#341

Post by collyw » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

VonGallifrey wrote: post #273

collyw wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (the whole developer community) really need to stop responding to such companies. I did one recently after the initial HR person chat. I spent a morning on it as they suggested 2 or 3 hours. But then I was rejected for the most pedantic reasons (2 white space PEP violations), not setting up mocks for testing (that would have doubled the scope of the project). Providing an HTML response rather than JSON when the sp…

I just completed this exact challenge (Yes, for Sennder) and I think their challenge is fine. It is not really difficult or takes much time at all. They didn't seem too strict in their review and I was able to discuss some of the "mistakes" and choices I made in the tech interview. Including some PEP8 violations. Despite these mistakes I passed the tech interview just fine and I just have the CTO interview left. I do…

They did say that they were planning on changing it so maybe you got a different one. I gave them HTML, and they claimed that "JSON would have been better" despite the specification asking for a "page" with "no need for styling".

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#342

Post by braythwayt » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #321

bob1029 wrote: post #292

I am starting to think the interview is a waste of time. Sure, you want to make sure the person is more-or-less who they claim to be on the surface, but you will never really understand their capability for reasoning with your problems until they are working in your process. One of my earlier jobs dealing with code involved a very brief interview (no whiteboard involved) followed by a 6 month contract offer. The deal…

> The deal was that I basically had 6 months to prove myself, and if everyone felt like it was working out (myself included) this would be bumped into full-time with benefits. In the UK, we sort of have this in the form of probation - in most permanent jobs, you don't gain full employment rights until you've done a probationary period, which is usually six months. You get full salary and benefits during that period,…

In Ontario, the letter of the law says you can be fired during probation for any or no reason (modulo human rights legislation), but in practice an employer can still be sued for wrongful dismissal if the employer terminates an employee without demonstrating cause.

It’s best to have experienced employment law advice when devising any scheme around using probation as a kind of hiring scheme, as opposed to as a last resort if things go very badly.

I will not give legal advice, but for example I would be very careful before implementing a “Survivor: Tech Island” scheme where the company hires more people than it genuinely expects to keep following their probationary period.

I have been told that if I hire someone I think is questionable with the thought that “if it doesn’t work out, we’ll just let them go during probation,” that can backfire as I make a conscious choice to hire them despite my reservations.

Again, INAL, but I would tread carefully around using probation for winnowing candidates out.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#343

Post by farcaster » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

I once applied for a company here in São Paulo where after the technical interview (no whiteboard) I talked on-site with the CTO and he passively-agressively asked a bunch of random questions and tried very hard to be a dick about it ("oh, you consider yourself a good self-learner? French? I bet you couldn't read some news in French if I opened any here right now. JUST KIDDING")

At the end of this 40 minute nightmare I had a bizarre homework to do at home that involved writing a list of uses to a paperclip.

They took a month to send me an email saying I wasn't accepted.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#344

Post by nikon » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

mountainboot wrote: post #335

I interviewed with one of the companies on that list a few years back (noredink). They gave a timed hackerrank style coding question as round one (so I guess technically not a whiteboard). I passed that, then I had an interview with an actual person. He asked me vague question, like what is architecture, I started to reply with what design tradeoffs I made on the app I was working on. He literally laughed at me, and…

I had the same experience on some vague Postgres question for a Rails job when I was junior. I asked a similar question along the lines of: how often do you use this day to day here?

Similar response.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#345

Post by seneca » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

zerr wrote: post #304

drglitch wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrangements like this are much harder in US because 1) by default there is no health insurance if you’re a contractor, and obtaining your own is incredibly expensive and 2) there are also pretty complex tax implications of being a contractor; there are many other factors as well. It also puts a candidate at a disadvantage, because looking for a job is heavily one-sided burden. On a personal level, as both (occasiona…

Well, terminating an employement is as well quite easy in US, regardless who initiates it - employer or employee.

It is easy to terminate straight white men under 40. Anyone else is extremely difficult anywhere with an HR department. Protected classes are taken very seriously.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#346

Post by unishark » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #278

unishark wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but... Now one worries, is this itself a test? Are they judging my desire to donate.

Well there has to be some benefit to passing on the money.

It's kind of like at salary negotiation. You can impress them with how you really are there for your passion not materialism. Or you can get money.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#347

Post by marcinzm » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #161

discordance wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind the idea of take home exercises as long as I have an actual chance of getting in. If i'm really serious about joining a company and the many months/years to come with them, I can probably spare a day to show it.

Agreed. It's always surprising to read people complaining about spending even 8 hours on a take-home problem in the comfort of their home, with no one looking over their shoulder, finished at their leisure. Meanwhile, anyone serious about applying to the same company wouldn't hesitate to take PTO and leave work to go on-site for a similar amount of time for an interview.

Except most companies give the take home as essentially a first line screen so the chance of passing is low (as they need to filter out 90+% of applicants with it). So instead of spending an hour per company I now need to spend 8. When you're talking to 10+ companies that adds up quickly. If you also have a family and a a day job it becomes untenable very quickly.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#348

Post by ssully » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

mountainboot wrote: post #335

I interviewed with one of the companies on that list a few years back (noredink). They gave a timed hackerrank style coding question as round one (so I guess technically not a whiteboard). I passed that, then I had an interview with an actual person. He asked me vague question, like what is architecture, I started to reply with what design tradeoffs I made on the app I was working on. He literally laughed at me, and…

Worst interview you ever had, but ending it was one of your best moves. Imagine having to work with someone like that!

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#349

Post by marcinzm » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

marta_morena_25 wrote: post #136

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…

My worst experience so far were pair-programming interviews. This requires so much training on the interviewee side of things that most companies just completely tank this one. They have some fixed expectations in their head and they have not a single clue how to objectively evaluate candidates.

Yup, leetcode at least is fairly easy to make interviewers competent enough at giving especially if you restrict the problems they can give. Although worst one me and my friends have gotten were system design. Friend got interrupted with questions every 30 seconds, told to just answer them directly and then failed for not elaborating deeply enough on things.

Re: Hiring Without Whiteboards

#350

Post by ssully » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

drglitch wrote: post #294

bob1029 wrote: post #292

I am starting to think the interview is a waste of time. Sure, you want to make sure the person is more-or-less who they claim to be on the surface, but you will never really understand their capability for reasoning with your problems until they are working in your process. One of my earlier jobs dealing with code involved a very brief interview (no whiteboard involved) followed by a 6 month contract offer. The deal…

Arrangements like this are much harder in US because 1) by default there is no health insurance if you’re a contractor, and obtaining your own is incredibly expensive and 2) there are also pretty complex tax implications of being a contractor; there are many other factors as well. It also puts a candidate at a disadvantage, because looking for a job is heavily one-sided burden. On a personal level, as both (occasiona…

I had a similar arrangement like this in the U.S. but it was for 1 year. When applying for the position it was listed as a term appointment and they were up front about the arrangement (same as OP; after a year, if everyone is happy, the term appointment becomes a FTE). The term position had all the same benefits as a FTE, it just had the time cap on it.