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The rise of never-ending job interviews

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#231

Post by paganel »

devnull3 wrote: post #141
Analemma_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is infamous for jerking people around in the interview process. I had a very similar experience, as did several people I know. They do it because they know they can get away with it, but I do wonder if they have a backup plan if the lustre of working for Google ever fades, because it's an open secret that their interview process is a fucking nightmare for no reason.

> fucking nightmare for no reason Absolutely! To add, the amount of nit-picking that happens is staggering. I was downgraded from strong-hire to lean-hire because: 1. I did not use classes in Python. That problem could easily be solved using simple functions. The feedback I got was "candidate does not know idiomatic use of modules & classes" 2. I did not use one of python's standard lib functions and instead I coded…

> The feedback I got was "candidate does not know idiomatic use of modules & classes"

Many googlers probably haven't read this blog-post from some time ago [1]: "Python Is Not Java". I mentioned that at my first interview for a Python programmer job ~15 years ago, i got hired (truth be told the interview was for a small-ish startup, not for a behemoth like Google).

[1] https://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#233

Post by bryanrasmussen »

dilyevsky wrote: post #211
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.kalibrr.com/sites/default/files/featured_images/... Every year, Google receives over one million resumes and applications. Only 4,000-6000 applicants will actually be hired — that's less than a 1% hiring rate. Given those odds it's not worth it.

These numbers are misleading af. Most of those applications are just spam, not really relevant and never get read by any human. I’ve done ~150 interviews for backend roles at google and based on my experience 4 years ago if you make it to onsite you have 5-10% of getting an offer

So the top range is 10% chance of getting an offer? And how many hours do you have to spend chasing 10%?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#234

Post by aix1 »

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

I'm curious, how long ago was this? And, if you don't mind, which job ladder were you interviewing for?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#235

Post by ladberg »

ironman1478 wrote: post #161
kamkazemoose wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that Manton the interview panel do feel like they're wasting their time. It is valuable to the company but for the engineers, they want to get back to coding or whatever else they are working on. It isn't fair to the person applying because they didn't pick the people on the panel, but if the one doing the interviewing doesn't hide their feeling it's obviously not great.

That's true. I want to say that that's Google's fault right? Because not everybody is on the team you're interviewing for (I might be wrong)? At Apple you are interviewed by the team, who presumably needs another person to assist them. Also, regardless of whether or not they want to be there, it's a bad look for the company. Somebody took a day off to talk to you, it's only fair that an interviewer reciprocates

Can confirm everything you said is true and that at Google you'll likely never see your interviewers once you start working there but at Apple you'll be working with your interviewers on a daily basis.

It has upsides and downsides, like as you said you had to go through 3 different on-sites (one for each team), but you'll get a good sense of the team before getting an offer (and they'll get a good sense of you). I like the Apple method much better but I had an unusually bad Google interview process so it's possible other people had better experiences.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#236

Post by onion2k »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #10

If your application process starts with a human being—even better a technical human being—reaching out to me, followed by 2-3 interviews, followed by an offer, I am already on your side. If your application process starts with a HackerRank, followed by 2 phone interviews followed by on-site, followed by team matching, I will not be on your side. Oh and if there's random month long gaps in between stages, I will espec…

I applied to a company recently whose first interview was a tech test. I turned them down before I even spoke to a human. I don't want to work for any company that puts so little value on people.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#237

Post by stevekemp »

ExitPlatosCave wrote: post #219
stevekemp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to hear of these experiences because my own job applications have usually taken four steps: * See the advert online, and send an email/fill out a form to apply. * Have a quick phone-chat with a HR-person, where they ask about salary, history, and try to decide if I'm a chancer, or I have some somewhat useful skills. * Have a 30-60 minute interview with some technical people, in-person. * Optionally h…

Hey Steve, Thought your comment was interesting, so went to check out your profile. That was also clean and well made, so followed through to your website. Found this: "I published a simple tool to all your repository details from Github, self-hosted Github Enterprise installations, and other compatible systems." Do you mean: ...to [pull] all your repository details Since you have such a nice profile and everything I…

A little off-topic, but appreciated regardless.

I'll fix the entry you mention - as you suspected a missing word there.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#238

Post by aix1 »

devnull3 wrote: post #141
Analemma_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is infamous for jerking people around in the interview process. I had a very similar experience, as did several people I know. They do it because they know they can get away with it, but I do wonder if they have a backup plan if the lustre of working for Google ever fades, because it's an open secret that their interview process is a fucking nightmare for no reason.

> fucking nightmare for no reason Absolutely! To add, the amount of nit-picking that happens is staggering. I was downgraded from strong-hire to lean-hire because: 1. I did not use classes in Python. That problem could easily be solved using simple functions. The feedback I got was "candidate does not know idiomatic use of modules & classes" 2. I did not use one of python's standard lib functions and instead I coded…

Did you choose Python or were you asked to use Python by the interviewer?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#239

Post by brailsafe »

virgilp wrote: post #202
hardwaregeek wrote: post #10

If your application process starts with a human being—even better a technical human being—reaching out to me, followed by 2-3 interviews, followed by an offer, I am already on your side. If your application process starts with a HackerRank, followed by 2 phone interviews followed by on-site, followed by team matching, I will not be on your side. Oh and if there's random month long gaps in between stages, I will espec…

Is HackerRank so bad? If one does "whiteboard problems", HackerRank says, "boo, whiteboard interviews, just let me code and be able to search on Google, whiteboard is unrealistic!". Now if the company starts with a HackerRank test, that's also bad? I don't get it. Look, a lot of people have good-looking CVs and can't code shit. I don't know about you but my experience was that one really can't hire based on CV alone.…

HackerRank isn't inherently bad. It's actually pretty good. It's that receiving a 1-2 hour automated algo contest to every job application is bad.

If I applied to 10 companies, and every single one of them asked me to come onsite for whiteboarding as the first step, that would also suck tremendously, but at least it would be limited in scope by the employer's time as well. As it stands, arbitrary companies can expect a large time investment without any of their staff ever having to speak to anyone.

I'll take a calculated stab at Amazon's once every 6 months I guess, because if I pass (which I haven't) I can potentially earn a hell of a lot more than any other place. I get it, whatever. If every company is doing it (they are)? I might just leave the industry if I can't find a way to be specifically good at remembering the implementation details of every data structure and algorithm. Sucks to be someone with pointless skills I guess.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#240

Post by nosianu »

snissn wrote: post #197
silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

i can't imagine a real world scenario where knowing that helps you.. especially when you.. can.. just.. google it

Maybe these firms prepare for the apocalypse when all technology fails and has to be recreated from scratch, with only a few half-burned books around. Of course, if that were true there should be some blacksmithing and basic herbology questions in the interviews.
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