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The rise of never-ending job interviews

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#421

Post by nuker »

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…

Someone, please, write a book “Interview Questions: Linux”. Just questions and answers with short explainers. I got inode question on every second interview! Make it good and expensive af.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#422

Post by purplecats »

vmception wrote: post #70
purplecats wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you expect others to have empathy for you?

I think the bigger issue here is that this process has made it too random and dilutive of the candidate pool. Many software engineers have accepted that they have to continually learn and will do so. This process though, makes it impossible to know what to learn with an impossible random and unknown credential set. It's not the same as something like elevator attendants having an obsoleted skillset. It's a combinatio…

> When instead, employers should expect a good engineer to adapt quickly and employers should also commit to training staff.

At the risk of suggesting you might be dating yourself, I think this is an outdated model. It's simply no longer realistic. I personally believe that having personal expectations of what my adversaries or those outside of my control "should" do will inevitably result in sadness on my part.

Corporations will aim to do what they must to increase profits (given, by definition). Any additional assumptions from that are liable to be faulty. Perhaps you are used to the times when they needed to train staff but that's simply a symptom of the circumstances as opposed to a duty.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#423

Post by asp_net »

dcolkitt wrote: post #115
MattGaiser wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. I am genuinely asking. Why is this objectionable? Why do people find it so horrible that their labour is a commodity? To me that just tells me I should treat my labour like a merchant treats his goods. Always be checking the market to ensure you have something worth selling and while you might sign long term deal…

Because selecting candidates based on tech stack is almost universally the sign of incompetent tech management. Anybody who understands software, knows that intelligence and master of fundamentals trumps tech stack experience without exception. Linus Torvalds would unquestionably become a better Ruby on Rails developer within four weeks than 90% of people with 10 YoE in it. Good organizations hire talented and bright…

This is so true.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#424

Post by jd115 »

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 interviewed for a software engineering position with Goldman once (in London). The process spanned several weeks of phone interviews with people in the UK and US (I lost track of the count), followed by a full day of back-to-back interviews on-site with 12 different people - some via video conference with New York. Questions were extremely diverse, both wide and deep. Early on in the process I decided to look at this like a game and try to actually have fun, which I did... I had fairly positive feedback along the way so I thought I was doing well ALL the way until the next-to-last interview with someone in NYC on video link. I was sitting there in a room, waiting for that next interview... the person on the other side was taking longer than the others to show up. About 20 - 30 minutes into my waiting, someone I had not seen before walked into the room and informed me very matter of factly that we will not be proceeding with the last interview and he will escort me on my way out of the building.

To this day I have NO idea what happened. I never heard back from them and the recruiter wasn't able to provide me with any further feedback when I asked.

I thought maybe they saw me on camera taking a photo of the Goldman-branded water bottle on the table while I was bored waiting... Or someone was digging and saw an anti-Trump tweet of mine. Or whatever.

Would have been more fun for me to turn them down after this whole madness (which I fully intended), but I didn't get that pleasure :)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#426

Post by maccard »

burntoutfire wrote: post #335
speedgoose wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That confirms that we shouldn't bother if we value our time and energy.

Many people apply to all the FANGS, since the interviewing skillset needed is similar. Moreover, you can reapply every six months. In result, this gives you perhaps 5-10 lottery tickets every year, which means it's very feasible to get in within a year or two (or three).

Going through 5 companies hoops for 2-3 years sounds like a full time job. There's no way I would have time to do that on top of work right now.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#427

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

ellenhp wrote: post #357
biztos wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it… troubling? That a technical interviewer can’t tell for herself whether your code will work. Wouldn’t you ideally want people who actually understand code to be giving the coding questions?

Are you saying that because this interviewer needs to run code to find logic errors, she's somehow not a competent engineer? Because I usually need to run code to find logic errors. Sometimes I use formal verification instead but that's pretty rare. Am I also not a competent engineer?

If you can't tell the difference between sketched-out kinda sorta pseudocode and potentially workable C++ then you're certainly not competent in C++.

And if you fail to communicate the requirement for one or the other then you're certainly not a competent interviewer.

You also have to ask what exactly is being tested here? Is it the ability to remember syntax? To remember an algorithm? To improvise an algorithm? To recognise which algorithm is needed?

What, exactly?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#428

Post by lormayna »

Before pandemic, I was contacted by a recruiter for a position in a growing security startup for a role in technical pre sales. It start with a call with the recruiter, then a call with the VP that sent me an exercise to make in a short time (4 days). I had a full time job, so I worked hard during the weekend and in the night to finish the task and I was not able to finish everything (just last step was missing). Then I presented everything to VP and he gave me more time to finish and last step and schedule another meeting to discuss everything. After this time I was contacted by recruiter, that told me that I was in the very short list of two candidates. He then arrange an interview with the VP of HR and the VP of sales. After those two interview they completely disappeared and ghosting me. I had other job opportunities, then I tried several times to ping them and they never replied back. After 5 emails without reply, I told them that I was going to accept another job offer and the recruiter replied that this was the right decision, because the company made other choices.

I lost so many hours on this interview process that I would like to send them an invoice :)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#430

Post by pjmlp »

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…

After failing two Google interviews both triggered by being reached directly by Google HR, telling me how my public information and CV was impressive and I should be really at Google, I told them to never ever contact me again.

My feedback was that, if the CV is so impressive, according to them, why do I have to endure such interview processes?

Anyway I never bought into the whole do no evil marketing, nor bothered to apply, if it wasn't for their HR reaching out to me in first place.

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